If you prick me, do I not bleed?

I had a choice. Get intravenous injections or learn to give myself shots. I was in the doctor’s office and he had walked me through why I needed intramuscular injections of magnesium. All I think I really heard was the sooner you start doing this the more quickly you’ll begin to feel better.

I have a tendency to lock on to the statements that matter most to me. “You’ll begin to feel better”, he said. Yes, oh yes, I want that! Moments later I found myself stating there would be no problem, that I would give myself injections.

As I waited for the nurse to come teach me how to do just that, I thought, am I crazy, what am I thinking? My brain was whirling a thousand thoughts a minute…finally I told myself don’t think about it, just do it. Really I was so worried I thought I might even break down and cry.

The nurse came in and I put on my cheerful happy face. She gave her demonstration and I was a studious observer. Now it was my turn as I filled up the syringe and tapped the air bubbles out. First the magnesium then just a tiny bit of lidocaine to help dull the pain.

I was told straight out, this will hurt. I’m glad that the nurse told me exactly what to expect. No surprises here. I was well informed and well prepared. “Now that the syringe is filled you need to inject yourself”, she said. Oh God, my head screamed, “Don’t think, don’t think, just do it”! But I had to think now didn’t I? First off I had to concentrate on remembering what to do after I STABBED myself with this huge needle.

Oh yeah, I’m looking at this needle and it was so long I thought I might hit bone with that thing. It was a 2” needle. I look at it now and it doesn’t seem big at all. I’ve seen larger animal needles when vaccinating sheep. But that first time, that first time was frightening.

The nurse had shown me, you smooth out some of your thigh area off to the side and the needle goes all the way in perpendicular, straight down into the muscle. Okay, this looked plausible when she showed me the area to inject on her leg but looking down at my own really skinny leg, where was all that room? My own thigh was so little and as I tried to smooth out an area it seemed ludicrous that this was going to work out. So I looked up at the nurse and said, “Um, my thigh is pretty small, don’t you think?” “ I’ll hit bone” We both inspected my leg. She considered my observation valid and suggested I grab some of the muscle and slide it over to the side, holding it over in place.

Now I was ready. My hand holding the syringe posed just above my skin. The nurse had told me, “It’s like darts.” “Have you ever played darts?” Yes I had once. This was not like playing darts. This was not like practicing on an orange as I’d seen on TV shows. This was real life and I couldn’t will my hand to move. The seconds dragged on.

Move hand, move! Still we both sat there in silence, the nurse and I. She urged me on, “Just look away and do it”. I did and plunged it in. Wow, I did it! Cool! I was so pleased I let go of the syringe and exclaimed to the nurse, “I did it”. The needle was just sticking out of my leg all by itself. Guess she was in shock when she saw this and said, “don’t let go!” “quick pull back on the plunger, check for blood, then push it in as fast as you can and pull the needle out”.

Ow, OW! I forced the 2mls into my leg. That hurt! It hurt so bad I got an adrenaline rush. I was going to have a crash and burn and soon. That adrenaline surge was gonna cost me. Damn, I was going to bottom out. I shook like a leaf and my ears were ringing. My thigh was screaming at me. The nurse was ushering me out of the room. Giving me the last bit of information. “You must walk around on it to work out the muscle, and the pain will leave more quickly,” the nurse left me in reception. Mission accomplished.

I was in a daze.

But I’d did it.

I drove home in a fog but so proud of my accomplishment. I was going to tell everyone I knew about the incredible thing I’d just done. Then it hit me. I had to do this again in three more days. Oh, no. Now I really felt like crying. Do this again! And not just one more time -- for 3 months, every three days. I was going to be a pincushion by the time this was all said and done!

The first thing I did when I got home was start researching the most pain-free method to give a shot. I chided myself. What a baby I was, children have to have insulin shots every day and I’m wigged about having to do this twice a week.

Later I discovered insulin needles are much smaller then intramuscular needles and that insulin is put into the fat layer under the skin (subcutaneous injection), not deep into a muscle. Okay, so there was a bit of a difference.

Bigger needles, deeper down, more pain. I felt more vindicated just knowing that. My mission was now apparent I had to talk to others with experience giving or getting shots.

My friend Marie has administered plenty of shots as an assistant in a doctor’s office. Her advice was slowly push the plunger in as I was giving the injection. Then apply heat and massage the area. I did this. Mostly it did help lessen the pain I was feeling. When that much fluid is being forced into a dense area like muscle there is no room for it. In using the lidocaine, if I paused and let that take affect then proceeded to slowly push the rest in it was much better.

I was still from time to time getting muscle spasms during or after injecting in an area. Oddly enough the massaging made it worse not better. My leg would just knot up. I don’t know why. Soon I learned to sit and relax after the injection for 10 to 20 minutes and not do any massage. It seems my body was too over whelmed and the applied pressure of massaging my leg just put me over the edge.

Since my body suffers from adrenaline exhaustion, causing myself this pain from injection, was producing an adrenaline rush and a crash right after. As my body became stronger from the magnesium, the shots became easier to handle and I didn’t go into adrenal exhaustion, bottoming out.

Some things were figured out as I went along. Like if you half-heartedly stab yourself, you can’t just push the needle deeper down into the muscle. It won’t go, plus it hurts like hell. Or if you don’t have enough momentum to drive the needle all the way in, and plunge the fluid anyway, it will sting like crazy because it’s going into the fatty layer not the muscle. Magnesium stings under the skin.

Also if you gently prick your skin in spots you can find where you are less sensitive or have no nerve feeling and that is the best spot to inject. Sometimes I would get lucky and not feel anything and not be sore afterwards.

Once I was having a very weak day and I didn’t get but half the needle in so I pulled it out and tried again but my hand was shaking and one quarter of the needle went in that time. Man was that pathetic! So with all my resolve I tried a third time, driving the needle home, the whole time vowing never to go through that again. Three jabs -- your out! I never couldn’t drive a needle home after that, let me tell ya.

Then there’s the “never let go of the thigh muscle your holding over to the side when the syringe is in your leg” rule. That should have been a “no brainer” but I did that once too.

It also took me a while to realize that it might be a good thing to pull the needle out more slowly. Lidocaine should never be able to hit the blood stream but somehow I believed I might have nicked a blood vessel as the needle was going into my thigh and because I drew the needle out so quickly I’m thinking a minuscule bit of fluid hit my blood stream. That was freaky weird. I was a gusher there for a minute, that in itself was unusual for me. I knew something wasn’t quite right when I became immediately woozy almost passing out. I could barely keep my eyes open and crawled on the floor to my roommate’s room so she could make sure I didn’t fall asleep or get the shakes. Another 10 minutes passed and I began to feel better and came awake again.

I'm proud of myself that I have learned sucessfully to give myself shots. I have a positive attitude about it now with all I've learned so far.

For great information on giving shots go to http://www.bddiabetes.com/us/demos/injecting.asp.