Diabetes Talking

Question:

I am going to start giving my own testosterone shots for a couple weeks and was wondering if anyone could me some tips for this.  I know that it is given in the hip, but if anyone could give me any advice and other tips on how to give the shot, I would appreciate it. Thank You. Joey Before you buy.

Response:

I am going to start giving my own testosterone shots for a couple weeks and was wondering if anyone could me some tips for this.  I know that it is given in the hip, but if anyone could give me any advice and other tips on how to give the shot, I would appreciate it. Thank You. Joey

I did it in the thigh for months without a problem. Get some 23-gauge 1 inch needles with 3 cc syringes and also an equal amount of 18-gauge needles. You’ll probably find the 23-gauge attached to the syringe. Also get some alcohol wipes. Every drugstore sells them for diabetics to use. Wipe the top of the bottle, particularly the rubber stopper, with an alcohol wipe. Attach the 18-gauge needle to the syringe, unscrewing the 23-gauge first if necessary. Holding the syringe in the air, pull back on the plunger for the amount that you need to get out of the bottle. Plunge the needle into the bottle and injec6t the air. Pull back on the plunger, making sure that the needle is under the liquid. Extract a tiny amount more than you  need and pause for a momentto let any air bubbles move to the needle and then push that back into the bottle. Unscrew the 18-gauge needle and screw on the 23-gauge. If you forget the first time, you won’t ever again. Push the plunger slightly to assure that you have no air introduced during the needle swap. Wipe the target area of your hip or thigh, then jab yourself with the needle, until it’s all the way in. Pull back on the plunger. If any blood appears, discard the entire syringe and get another one – you hit a vein or arrtery. Injecting the heavy oil into your bloodstream is dangerous! If you haven’t hit a vein or artery press VERY hard on the plunger and inject all of it. Pull the needle straight back in one smooth motion. Sometimes you’ll punture a vein or artery and you’ll see a small spurt of blood. clean it off and put a bandaid on the spot. If there’s no blood, then you may not want a bandaid. If you’ve reached here, then congratulations. Expect some results in 24 hours and, if you’re dosed right, you should reach max in 36-48 hours. That’s it!!

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Alec’s advice was all good. That’s an accurate depiction on how to safely self inject. You’ll find over repeated uses that you’ll find good places and bad places on the thigh to inject. For example, some areas are more likely to have a nerve. If you can tolerate it, the very top of your ass and angled down is a good spot, but it can be a bit of a headache to do without help. You sort of have to twist all the way around to do that one, and have to be a bit of a contortionist. Also: Hey, don’t be afraid to go to a doctor if you believe you have a legitimate need, OKAY? C//

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Alec’s detailed descript is exactly like the RN does me. The top of the butt is also where they’ve always stuck me so that the needle is almost vertical but angled in a little. They also alternate butt cheeks each time. A nurse at the nursing home where my wife works added the technique of having me put all my weight on the side she wasn’t shooting and turn my toe inward slightly. She said that makes it impossible to tense up the muscle where the injection is going and that’s a big part of the key to it not hurting. A good stick is like a mosquito bite or less going in. Sometimes the site is a little sore the next day but nothing major. Let me know how your self injections go, I’m about to break loose and start doing mine.What I’m using is a brand of testosterone enanthate called delatestryl, if that makes any difference. mike71646/featherh

Response:

I am going to start giving my own testosterone shots for a couple weeks and was wondering if anyone could me some tips for this.  I know that it is given in the hip, but if anyone could give me any advice and other tips on how to give the shot, I would appreciate it.

I’m surprised your doc didn’t have his nurse instruct you. I use 21 gauge needles. (The bigger the number the thinner the needle.) When I started a couple years ago my doc started me out with a handful of syringes from his supply. He used 23 gauge, but I found them too hard to get the thick fluid into. Others here like to use the syringes with interchangeable needles and use a large one to draw up the fluid and change to a smaller one for the injection. I find that is too much hassle for me. My 21 gauge is a good compromise. You can buy syringes over the counter in almost all jurisdictions in the U.S. Can’t speak for other countries. Your pharmacy will probably have to special order the ones you want. A box of 100 costs only about $25 or so — at least something in medicine is cheap. Since I inject 100 mg, a 3cc syring is appropriate. I can’t find any with a smaller barrel unless I get a smaller gauge needle, and those are too thin to draw up the fluid easily. I use a 25mm length needle (about one inch — there are 2.54cm to the inch). If you have exceptionally fat thighs you might need a longer needle. You need to get it into the muscle. You’d have to be really, really fat to need anything longer, though. The procedure is to fill the syringe with air equal to a bit more than the amount of medication you are going to draw up. Stick the needle into the vial and inject this air into the vial first. This creates a little pressure inside which makes it easier to draw up the medication. Then pull back on the plunger to fill the syringe with the amount you are going to inject. I inject the testosterone into the thigh. My doc said I could use the thigh or the top of the butt cheek, but I found the butt impossible to do by self injecting. The thigh is a snap, however. You want to do it at about the 1:00 position for the right leg, or the 11:00 position on the left leg. I use the chicken method to inject. I just kind of rest the needle on the skin and press a little bit. If it hurts, I move it over a tiny distance. I have found that most of the nerves are on the surface of the skin. Once I have a spot where I miss the surface nerves I plunge it in slowly. The syringe is super sharp and silicone coated, so it just slides in painlessly once it breaks the surface. Other guys just plunge it straight in. I think that is probably better, but I’ve never been able to do so. And I’ve been diabetic since age nine and stabbing myself all these years — but I still use the chicken method. When I go swimming I always wade in slowly at the shallow end too. I let others just dive straight in. It’s not for me. Doctors and nurses use an alcohol wipe, but I never do. Haven’t used one in 45 years of stabbing myself and I have never ever had an infection. Not even a little local redness. When my doc started me out on testosterone he handed me some alcohol wipes along with the syringes from his office supply. I handed them back and told him to keep them as I never used them. He knew I was diabetic and he just laughed. Doctors know that alcohol is a lousy disinfectant and pretty much useless. You have to soak something in alcohol for 20 minutes to kill anything, and even then it kills only about 80% of the bugs. And it dries out the skin and leads to surface cracking, which some feel is even worse than not using it at all. My doc told me the only reason they still bother is because patients expect it. It’s easier just to use the wipe than to argue with the patient about it.  But the alcohol wipes are cheap, so if you want to use them, go ahead. I feel like my doc — arguing about it isn’t worth the time. There is also a raging argument about disposal of syringes. Doctors offices and hospitals have a different problem than you or I do at home. They have no idea what kind of dread diseases their patients may have, so proper disposal is important for them. In my house I am the only one using needles, and I know I am free of anything that can be transmitted by blood. Thus, if anyone else in the house accidentally got stuck (or if a garbage hauler got stuck), it would cause no harm to them. Furthermore, the only blood-borne disease that can survive worth a damn is tetanus, which is pretty unusual these days due to the fact that practically everyone has been vaccinated against it for decades. AIDS and other blood-carried diseases must remain above 70 degrees F (21 C) or they die. And they die if not kept moist, too. Note that the doctor’s office or a hospital could transmit disease to someone because the syringe might contain viable disease bugs for an hour or more before the bugs croak. But the public doesn’t understand this, nor do lawmakers. So most jurisdictions have rules for "proper disposal" that require you to get a sharps disposal container and go through a bunch of baloney. Personally, I just stick the cap back on the syringe and toss it in the trash. So far the garbage haulers haven’t caught me, and I doubt they ever will. It’s not like they have time to paw through my garbage to inspect it while making their morning pickups. And I know I am not endangering anyone, so I’m not worried about it. Of course, if you DO have something that could be transmitted to others in the household, then take measures to protect them. I have a diabetic friend with AIDS who tosses his syringes in a coffee can, clearly marked so others in the house steer clear of it. Before tossing it in the garbage he bakes it in the oven till it gets up to 300F. Nothing is going to survive that, so it becomes completely safe. You could also clean them by rinsing with household bleach (more effective than alcohol). Just use common sense and you will be fine. NOTICE: The e-mail address is deliberately incorrect. Delete "xnospam" from the username.

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2.5% T cream and 5% T gel only brought my T level up to ~350–so i’m back on 200 mg T injection weekly for couple more weeks.  Compounding pharmacy already has my doc’s script for 10% T gel–so i’ll try that. According to Unimed’s brochure on AndroGel–about 10% of men in their initial study did not raise their T levels using T gel. Doesn’t make much difference to me now as long as I can get T in some form. Although applying T gel to marbles bag I am  less concerned about aromatization. OR eon^^^

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There is no HCG-gel. I don’t know if that’s possible at all btw. (probably not)

The thread started on injecting testosterone cypionate. Guess I missed the change over to HCG.

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Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Self-Injection of Testosterone Cypionate: The doctors did him a kindness a couple of months later and removed his = testicles. He was horny all the time and couldn’t do anything about

it..= Okay. So when I go to the endoc. soon (trying to get an appointment now) why the hell would I want to inject when I can go to a compounding pharmacy and get some good gel? I’m serious. While realizing that your worst case scenario is not likely to happen with a reasonably cautious adult, I don’t see any reason to inject when good get is available. But lots of guys do inject. Why not gel?

Injections can get a major dose into your body and you might have problems getting enough via gel. Everybody is different.

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Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Self-Injection of Testosterone Cypionate: OUCH!!! Getting the cypionate into a vein is NOT GOOD! It’s definitely awkward to check for a vein, but I’ve hit a vein twice, so I know that it can happen! So what will happen then, what are the results? Ambulance to hospital or what??

Nothing – if you checked – other than the loss of a dose. On the other hand – imagine a blob of heavy oil moving towards your heart. Imagine it breaking some placque loose or just glumping thru your heart. It’ll HURT!! Think embolism. Now – maybe it doesn’t damage youre heart. It isn’t soluble, so it breaks up into smaller blobs and plugs some very small arteries. Suddenly, you start having visual problems. Or mental problems. Or it plugs the arteries to your penis, so it gets no blood… There was a case of a man getting priapism from fooling with coaine into his dick. After a couple of days the priapism released a blob of fatty tissue and that fat manage to deposit itself in the worst places possible. He got gangrene and lost all of his fingers and toes, the tip of his nose – and his dick. THIS IS NOT AN URBAN LEGEND!! The doctors did him a kindness a couple of months later and removed his testicles. He was horny all the time and couldn’t do anything about it… Those are the scary things after all, what CAN go wrong…

Not TOO much!

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The doctors did him a kindness a couple of months later and removed his = testicles. He was horny all the time and couldn’t do anything about it..=

Okay. So when I go to the endoc. soon (trying to get an appointment now) why the hell would I want to inject when I can go to a compounding pharmacy and get some good gel? I’m serious. While realizing that your worst case scenario is not likely to happen with a reasonably cautious adult, I don’t see any reason to inject when good get is available. But lots of guys do inject. Why not gel?

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Hmmmmm!!! Thanks Alec for statement on your experience–i’ll reconsider. OR eon^^^

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I have a band aid ready incase there is exit site bleeding which is rare.

I use the thigh. Once I was sitting at the computer when I did it. After the injection I continued to work away, engrossed in what I was doing. I didn’t pull my pants up right away; I just sat there with them half down. After a few minutes I thought I felt a bug crawling up my thigh, so I looked down expecting to see an ant or something. Instead I saw a trickle of testosterone running down the leg and a puddle on the chair. It looked as though almost all of it oozed back out. No way to tell how much, though. I was really pissed. Ever since I hold my finger over the hole for a moment and rub it vigorously, checking to make sure it’s all staying where I put it. And I get a tiny drop of blood nine times out of ten. Usually it is really small and holding the finger over it is enough to stop it. But I don’t want blood spots in my pants, so that is another reason to check it carefully after injecting. NOTICE: The e-mail address is deliberately incorrect. Delete "xnospam" from the username.

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I agree w everything said up to this point; I see a bit of variation in the size of needles. I use a 22 gauge 1.5 inch needle as per the PDR-I’m not fat, but my thighs are large. I inject into my thighs also at the 1 oclock (right) 11 oclock (left), and when I run out of real estate, the 2 and 10 oclock positions. I sit on the edge of the tub and put my foot on the crapper lid, relax my thigh as much as possible, then using a ~4inch grip, I grab a bunch of thigh with one hand, sterilize the site using a swab in the other hand, then maintaining my grip, I put the swab down pick up the syringe which I’ve already filled, hold my breath, poke the tip of the needle into the skin (chicken method) about 1/8 of an inch or so just to see if it’s an ok spot (some spots are R E A L L Y  painful), then firmly and smoothly slide it all the way in (still maintaining my grip), inject, pull the needle out, set the syringe down, and press the swab, which I’ve left lying nearby on my thigh, on the site just in case it starts to bleed a lot and needs pressure. I was warned very sternly by my urologist to NEVER stray towards the inner thigh where lots and lots of very important nerves and arteries reside. I use the upper outboard quadrant of each buttock when I’ve exhausted the real estate on my thighs.  Why do I run out of space? Because I try to give myself daily injections, or bi-daily at least, in an effort to avoid the ‘feast and famine’ effect of weekly injections. To do this I purchase the 1-cc barrels that go with 27 gauge, .5 inch needles which I replace with the 1.5 inch 22 gauge needle. The rest of my procedure exactly follows what’s been posted so far. I dose myself at about the 15-20 mg/day rate, and this translates into .075 to .10 cc’s of depotestosterone per day (.15 to .20 bi-daily). These volumes are so small that the 3cc or 5 cc barrels that usually come attached to the 21- 23 guage needles can’t accurately measure them.  For me this keeps my T level (measured immediately before an injection) at around 700-800 (whatever the units are, I forget, ng/dL??, whatever).  I have to argue with my GP to go higher, where I feel great, as opposed to goint lower as he wants where I feel blahhhhhh and disinterested. Anyway, this works for me; what others have suggested perfectly excellent and in fact is what I started with about 2 years ago and which I have slowly modified to my current technique. Happy poking. ߪ Before you buy.

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’ve been self injecting  for 18 mos now–for last month have been injecting weekly. Originally the nurse showed me the site to inject in hip/gluteus maximus She also did the change needle routine that Alec described; after a few injections I simplified–but i’m injecting Depo Testosterone (cypionate) which does not appear to be too viscous. I use a 3 ml syringe with 21 G 11/2" needle for withdrawing and injecting. I do all the alcohol swabbing–place a  4 ft mirror against my desk–sit in a chair parellel to mirror–good view of hip/glutes.  Lately i’ve taken to marking a spot with a black marker–then inject to either side/up/down from that spot.  I know that good practice is to pull syringe plunger up after you have gone in–to make certain you are not in a blood vessel.  I tried that a couple of times–but for me it’s awkward—so I just slowly depress the plunger.

OUCH!!! Getting the cypionate into a vein is NOT GOOD! It’s definitely awkward to check for a vein, but I’ve hit a vein twice, so I know that it can happen!

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I’ve been self injecting  for 18 mos now–for last month have been injecting weekly. Originally the nurse showed me the site to inject in hip/gluteus maximus She also did the change needle routine that Alec described; after a few injections I simplified–but i’m injecting Depo Testosterone (cypionate) which does not appear to be too viscous. I use a 3 ml syringe with 21 G 11/2" needle for withdrawing and injecting. I do all the alcohol swabbing–place a  4 ft mirror against my desk–sit in a chair parellel to mirror–good view of hip/glutes.  Lately i’ve taken to marking a spot with a black marker–then inject to either side/up/down from that spot.  I know that good practice is to pull syringe plunger up after you have gone in–to make certain you are not in a blood vessel.  I tried that a couple of times–but for me it’s awkward—so I just slowly depress the plunger. A sometimes a good guide for me has been  elastic waist band impression from jockey briefs–depending on how high you might wear them I have a band aid ready incase there is exit site bleeding which is rare. There may be slight soreness  next day or so but it has completely  gone by time for next injection. I think about the thigh injection  hmmmm and maybe I will get nurse to instruct me on next visit–but for now this works great. You’ll get it down in no time–and you’ll really enjoy the results;-) !! OR eon^^^

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