It was discussed recently about colour of needle and pain free injections.
I took note today . A different one was used to draw b12 from ampule (green) The one used to Inject was blue. Today's wasnt painful. Done by a nurse at Gp surgery. I enquired about getting a prescription and doing subcutaneous injections..The nurse said noone se knew of had ever had this !
Will ask Gp next week. Add it to the list!!
The colour of the needle tells you its gauge (width). The higher the number the thinner the needle. So the green needle (21G) is thicker than the blue injecting needle (23G). I use a purple (24G) needle for injecting. Most people who do subcutaneous use an orange (25G) needle. The higher the gauge the less painful the injection, but the longer it will take to inject.
The different colours also come in different lengths. Medisave do blue needles in 5/8", 1", 1.25", 25 mm and 30 mm.
Just a tip that I learned - make sure the rubbing alcohol has evaporated completely before the injection and then you don't get that sting feeling when the needle goes in.
I find it’s not the needle the hurts but pushing the solution in. It takes me about 5 minutes to slowly push the plunger down as it hurts going in
The nurse used to slowly put it in
She now the last few times put it in deeper and a bit more quickly then slowly remove needle. That has helped me
I guess this depends on the area injected and technique nurse has learned.
During past year I have seen maybe 12 nurses and every nurse does it differently.
Mine, 3 ml is injected to butt. It usually takes about 30 seconds and if nurse is experienced it does not hurt. But some who have less experience, oh my, it hurts.
Some old old old nurses do it slowly while I lay on my side, first they rub the area injected and then let the needle stay in quite long after injection.
Some wipe the area clean, tell me it's gonna sting and before I feel a thing they put plaster on it.
Some want to inject while I stand leaning towards table , leaning on side not injected , that can sting and couple of times have felt like passing out.
Some want me to lay on my stomach, rubbing lower back to relax the area and carefully inject while worrying does it hurt 😄
All nurses ask doesn't it hurt as it's 3ml.
Sometimes it does but I guess as it's butt it's large enough muscle not to be seriously painful .
Oh at my surgery they use the same needle and only in the upper arm!
In the district they only use the thigh in my area.
The only time slightly different was when the doctor did it. She squeezed the arm flesh together
What you describe is unknown to me I less a policy is not being followed.
I wish they did vary it a bit.
New smaller needle issue
What a waste of NHS Hydroxcobalamin ampoules
Wrong size needle
Well that was a result!!
Bit of a success with frequency of B12 injections 
