So i've been watching some videos about some guys that say DON'T push in the needle all way in when injecting testosterone. I guess i don't understand why..My aunt (thats a nurse, and been doing this all of her life) gives me my shots. She injects the testosterone into my thigh and pushes in the needle all the way down, (9/10 times its painless) and i guess i am not seeing why its bad.
ALSO
i read that it doesn't matter if you aspirate or not. i guess this is all coming from a certain video i watched on youtube..the nurse in the video said that you don't need to aspirate, and the kid was worried that he would hit a vein and the nurse said that wouldn't be a problem.

Quote from: Damian on April 12, 2011, 02:57:44 AM
So i've been watching some videos about some guys that say DON'T push in the needle all way in when injecting testosterone. I guess i don't understand why..My aunt (thats a nurse, and been doing this all of her life) gives me my shots. She injects the testosterone into my thigh and pushes in the needle all the way down, (9/10 times its painless) and i guess i am not seeing why its bad.
ALSO
i read that it doesn't matter if you aspirate or not. i guess this is all coming from a certain video i watched on youtube..the nurse in the video said that you don't need to aspirate, and the kid was worried that he would hit a vein and the nurse said that wouldn't be a problem.

I only know what the nurse at my doctor's practice showed me, and that was to push the needle in about an inch (they're 1.5" needles), and she didn't have me aspirate either.  I had asked her about that, since I'd watched Youtube videos of guys giving themselves shots, and she seemed perplexed, and further perplexed that I was taking so long to depress the plunger and get the needle out of my leg, haha.  I'd seen it take awhile, so I did it slowly, but she seemed to be conveying to me that it should only take a couple of seconds.  Maybe that's why it hurt so bad for a few days following the injection, I need to work on my speed and technique I suppose.

short needles - my clinic gives me 2.5-3 inch long needles and they have to go in alll the way. I don't feel them or anything, it's just 1 - 2 - 3 - stab/ And then aspiration, then plunging. It still only takes a couples seconds for the whole procedure.. She says it needs to go in all the way so that by chance you do not hit any fat, you want it going well into your muscle. I'm pretty sure I have no where near even an inch of fat on my leg there.. but you never know.

She says the aspiration is important to make sure you haven't landed right in a vein. 1) because T in the blood is not where you want it, and 2) the kind of T i have tends to have air bubbles in it (it's consitency reminds me of hydraulic brake fluid (which tends to be full of tiny bubbles), and you don't want air bubbles in a vein..

Testosterone shots are almost always given by intramuscular injection which means the needle needs to go deep into the muscle. Injecting into the skin is called a subcutaneous injection and I've not heard of anyone (other than a guy on YouTube who does his own shots) doing it this way.

Injecting air bubbles into your veins isn't actually that much of a problem. The bubbles just happily make their way to your lungs and are stopped there. If you inject into an artery, you're in trouble.

All the way in. I was taught by the nurse to aspirate, getting a T shot in a vein really sucks I hear. (I give Sevan T shots whenever ze usses shots instead of gel.)

O.O
2.5-3 inch needles?! HELLS TO THA NAH!

It depends on the size of your body, what size the muscle is, and the length of your needle. I use 1.5 inch needles. I have a pretty good idea as to how far in my bone is, and where the sort of center of the muscle should be compared to bone and skin. I inject leaving a tiny bit of the needle out. Some people are slim with the same needle size and only need to go in an inch.

meh. where I am injecting I might have 1/4 inch of fat - they still say the 1.5's are much too short, and give me the long ass needles to shove in (22 guage). Honestly I don't feel  them at all anyways.. the extra length makes no difference. Goes in just as fast as a small needle, I don't feel it.. it's more about technique and relaxing the muscle then size or shape of the needle I think.

I'm just being taught to inject, and the nurse started me on 1 inch needles all the way in. We tried 23 gauge but found that 22 gauge needles hurt less, but she only had 1.5 inch 22 gauge needles, so when she used that, she didn't go all the way in. 1 inch may not be a lot, but it sure feels like it goes into the muscle.

As for aspirating, she taught me to aspirate but said that the newer nurses aren't being taught to aspirate any more since it's so rare that you ever hit a vein. She said she's never done it in 25 years. But she still aspirates just to be safe.

I got 1.5 22g needles ... one of my friends (who goes to the same clinic) was originally given the same needle size, but when he went back for his first shot (which no one told me I was supposed to wait for ... or even do) the nurse there realized that that was a really BIG needle size, and they downed him to .5 or .75 inch or something like that.

BTW ... lots of guys are doing subq these days.  I know some one who's dr has done lots of reading on the research and studies done on subq t ... and from what I've gathered from him, it's easier, and kills/blocks the estrogen levels faster, and is less painful.  I have to have a recheck with my dr in 2 weeks, and I'm going to have a conversation with her about it.

Where you'll be doing the injections on your thigh, most of the veins are so deep it's very unlikely you'd hit one. But aspirate anyway, to be safe. Doesn't even take a second to check.

I've used a 1 and 1.5 inch needle, put it all the way in as I was told. Using anything larger would scare me though... seems like it would either hit a bone or come out the other side.

Thank guys for the replies! Very helpful.