Advice on how to give an intramuscular shot.

Don't you just jab them in your arse or any other fleshy spot?

Right into the meaty part of the thigh. Don't tense up.

It's been years but I recall the needle being about an inch.

No patch ordering from the overseas pharmacies?

We here in the US are getting ripped off to an unimaginable degree.

I just ordered NexGuard for the dogs from Indonesia. What was $240 from the local vet was about $90 shipped in from overseas.

Back when I was doing steroids I gave myself a lot of injections that were IM.

One thing you haven't mentioned is doing a pull back. Once the needle is inserted, you should pull back on the plunger slightly, and check and see if a lot of blood enters the tube part of the injector - this will mean you're inside of a vein with the tip of the needle, which = bad as it'll waste your shot most likely if it goes directly into a vein.

So, insert in a good location, perform pull back, no or only a miniscule amount of blood showing (pull back is only about 1/4 of an inch or so in the size of injector I was using), and if none is seen, let go of the plunger, it'll return to flush on its own, then press the medication in. Depending which muscle, you can also pinch it from as low as possible when inserting the needle.

Once you figure out good spots that you aren't hitting blood vessels/veins at all with, you can dispense with the pull backs IMO, I never had an issue with 100s or not 1000s of injections over the years back when I was young and foolish (more foolish anyway).

Bummer.

gman has good advice. I would add look on amazon for needles. I ended up buying a couple years worth for less than half what the pharmacy was charging. They label them as animal use only but they are the same ones. Come in big box individually wrapped and sterilized. Look for the label sterilized with ethylene oxide. Try to inject with the short side of the needle up towards you. Penetrates better especially when you are new to injections its easy to go straight in. Dont pinch the muscles together. Spread them with your fingers. It loosens the muscle fiber and makes the needle go in with less discomfort. Try to find a comfortable postion that will let the muscle not be tense. 18 is not huge to inject with but if you can get a 22 or so it will be nicer for a beginner. Use 2 different needles, 1 to draw up and 1 to inject. Its amazing how much that rubber plug can dull a needle and make it more unpleasant. As with anything after you get some exp it really is easy. I use this method at work as well and alway get asked how i did it without it hurting because most medical professionals are terrible at injections.

It also depends how thick the stuff is. If it's too thick it will never flow through a smaller needle.

Quote from Gina

I'm ordering 25 gauge 1-in from Amazon

i just looked at mine are 23 gauge by 1 inch and work great. I ordered a box of 16 gauge just needles to draw up the meds from amazon as well. Been using them almost a year. I would grab something like that as well. Very tough to draw anything up in a 25 gauge and they will dull going through the topper

THAT'S what Barb told me the first time!