I hope it's not this hard every week.. Every time I try my heart starts racing and my hands start shaking.

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AHHHH!!! I did it and I thought it was fine. I must not have pulled the plunger back enough before going in, though. Because when I pulled the needle out blood was pouring out of my leg!!! Did I just lose my whole shot?!?!?! I'm freaking out so much right now!!!!!

Just think about what they are doing for you and trust me, they are working well!!  Sigh! 

It gets easier. It used to take me up to two hours of whining and hand wringing on a bad day. It takes about five minutes now. I'm actually dreading the fact that I might start having to get a nurse to do it. Who woulda thunk it? ;p

sometimes they bleed. sometimes a little. sometimes a lot, sometimes not at all. even if you pulled the plunger up, it can still bleed. it really does get easier.

You're fine, most likely. I've had blood in my needles after shots before. You may have nicked a small vein on the way in.

Its normal, just add pressure...Unless its spraying like the animes. Then get a doctor.
It could be that. I doubt your body is rejecting it since you had a shot previous to this,no?

how long is your needle?

i got some pretty long needles and i've never bled giving myself a shot in the leg since i think the needle goes in so far. it feels wierd going in that far and hurts like  amother if i accidentally move cuz im sure it's deep in some muscle but yeah i never lose T with them.

I have inch and a half needles. The one time I accidentally used a shorter needle, I lost quite a bit of T so never did that again. Also important is the thickness of the needle. The doctor kind of looked at me strange for preferring super thin needles to the freaking huge needles that come with the syringe, because apparently thin makes it hard to push the T out...never been a problem for me though, and it hurts 20x less and barely bleeds.

The first time I did mine, under a nurse's eye, I had a geyser. She just moaned that "of course I don't have gloves on. You were giving it to yourself, so I thought why would I need gloves? Typical."
She just had me put pressure and a bandaid on it and I was good as new. I wouldn't worry lol.

Were you taught to "z track"? If you use one hand to pull your skin back and inject into taut skin, then release the skin after the needle is out, it interrupts the "path" between the injected medication (and blood) and the skin. You won't bleed as much if you do it that way.

I was taught to pinch the muscle. There's some bruising and I definitely think I nicked something but I've calmed down about it. I think I've been injecting too low. I have an extremely long thigh so I think I'm just reading the muscle wrong for one. And I need to relax cause that certainly didn't help. My thigh was sore before I even did my shot, I kept clenching with nerves.

Quote from: KamTheMan on August 20, 2014, 09:57:50 PM
I was taught to pinch the muscle. There's some bruising and I definitely think I nicked something but I've calmed down about it. I think I've been injecting too low. I have an extremely long thigh so I think I'm just reading the muscle wrong for one. And I need to relax cause that certainly didn't help. My thigh was sore before I even did my shot, I kept clenching with nerves.

Don't pinch the muscle, it hurts more and the medicine won't get deep enough into your muscle.

Ouch. I don't pinch, I just grab a section of my thigh to hold it still, but I let it go when I push the needle in.

I pinch the skin around the needle (two fingers on opposite side of it and pushing in) when I'm done injecting and pulling the needle out. This helps keep the T and any blood inside, because the muscle sometimes will push it out from being tensed. I have also found that longer needle/smaller gauge causes less bleeding and T loss.