Poll of the Day > i hate giving myself injections

(+) Yeah! (+)

jesus christ its so stressful

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yay i did it. i gave myself a cute charmander bandaid. everyone give me a gold star please.

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Good job overcoming it. If it is something that youll need to do longterm, then I hope it becomes easier and easier and you find even cooler bandaids down the road.

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are you on drugs, son?
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is there some reason you can't use a different method? when i first started they gave me these little patches that you have to stick to your butt. i hated the things though because they would always peel off and get caught on my clothing and leave these weird marks on my skin. i just take pills now

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Philoktetes posted...

are you on drugs, son?

im not your son and youre not even my real mom

Mead posted...

Good job overcoming it. If it is something that youll need to do longterm, then I hope it becomes easier and easier and you find even cooler bandaids down the road.

thanks for the kind words. its a little easier every time for sure. most of the pokemon band-aids i have left are magikarps and wobbuffets so i need to find new ones lol

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Kanatteru posted...

is there some reason you can't use a different method? when i first started they gave me these little patches that you have to stick to your butt. i hated the things though because they would always peel off and get caught on my clothing and leave these weird marks on my skin. i just take pills now

i started on pills and switched to injections earlier this year. i think theyre working a lot better for me in terms of keeping my estrogen levels higher, from the bloodtests ive had so far. and i dont really like spending 5 minutes dissolving pills under my tongue everyday either lol.

i never tried/looked into patches though, i guess because nobody has really recommended them to me

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PunishedOni posted...

i dont really like spending 5 minutes dissolving pills under my tongue everyday either lol.

huh, is this a thing? i've never heard of that. my levels are fine though so whatever

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Kanatteru posted...

huh, is this a thing? i've never heard of that. my levels are fine though so whatever

oh, i think it depends on the actual pill. the ones i got were supposed to be taken sublingually. i think it just makes it moderately easier for the body to absorb. im not sure if it works differently at all in canada but i think it should be written on paperwork you get from the pharmacy. but yeah if your levels are fine then it doesnt really matter

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oh, also the only anti-androgen you can get easily in the US is spiro, which had crappy effects on my mood. with injections ive been able to stop taking spiro and still have lower T levels than i had on pills

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I can administer acupuncture to myself. I have even put acupuncture needles in my face. I'm not really sure about injections, because the needles are bigger and they require extra steps.

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fishy071 posted...

I can administer acupuncture to myself. I have even put acupuncture needles in my face. I'm not really sure about injections, because the needles are bigger and they require extra steps.

yeah im not sure what the preparation is for acupuncture, but its stressful getting everything ready for my injections and making sure im doing it all right.

what kind of areas do you put acupuncture needles in? I think i would be nervous about hitting a vein if i was doing all sorts of different spots. for my injections they're intramuscular and there's a big area on the thigh they can go in safely.

luckily I can use 22g needles (0.7mm diameter) for estradiol, since the dosage is small. which is apparently about 3x the diameter of acupuncture needles.


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PunishedOni posted...

oh, also the only anti-androgen you can get easily in the US is spiro, which had crappy effects on my mood. with injections ive been able to stop taking spiro and still have lower T levels than i had on pills

oh that's interesting, i took spiro up until surgery. i think it actually was making me a little bloated because i feel like i lost some weight really quickly while i was in the hospital. although my T levels were never really that high as it turns out

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i got over needles real quickly when i had to start injecting myself

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Which part of your body do you use for the injection site?

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i really misread that. shouldnt be too hard to figure out in what way i did lol.

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Criminalt posted...

Which part of your body do you use for the injection site?

vastus lateralis

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PunishedOni posted...

yeah im not sure what the preparation is for acupuncture, but its stressful getting everything ready for my injections and making sure im doing it all right.

what kind of areas do you put acupuncture needles in? I think i would be nervous about hitting a vein if i was doing all sorts of different spots. for my injections they're intramuscular and there's a big area on the thigh they can go in safely.

luckily I can use 22g needles (0.7mm diameter) for estradiol, since the dosage is small. which is apparently about 3x the diameter of acupuncture needles.

That is true. It is stressful inserting acupuncture needles into myself, too. There are also preparations, such as swabbing the insertion area with alcohol. Acupuncture needles can be inserted almost everywhere in the body if someone else is doing it for you. There are many points I don't do on myself, and they are mostly the ones in the back because I can't see or reach them. For my face, I stand in front of a mirror.

There are risks of hitting nerves, blood vessels, tendons, and organs. That is one reason we have to go to acupuncture school for 3-4 years and pass a board exam.

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PunishedOni posted...

vastus lateralis

i think thats a Tool album

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fishy071 posted...

That is true. It is stressful inserting acupuncture needles into myself, too. There are also preparations, such as swabbing the insertion area with alcohol. Acupuncture needles can be inserted almost everywhere in the body if someone else is doing it for you. There are many points I don't do on myself, and they are mostly the ones in the back because I can't see or reach them. For my face, I stand in front of a mirror.

There are risks of hitting nerves, blood vessels, tendons, and organs. That is one reason we have to go to acupuncture school for 3-4 years and pass a board exam.

pretty interesting. thanks for sharing :)

for me the prep is basically: swab the bottle, put on 18g needle, draw up air (so that the bottle doesn't get a vacuum in it), draw up medication from the bottle, swap 18g needle for 22g needle, find and mark injection site, swab injection site

Mead posted...

i think thats a Tool album

vastus lateralus is when you play lateralus at 0.5x speed

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I hate self-injecting so much. There was a brief time when I was able to do it for a medicine I needed, but after a month or so, I found that my general fear of needles got the better of me, and I just couldn't do it anymore. So yeah... <_<

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yeah im still not sure if ill eventually decide to just switch back to pills with a higher dose. its gotten a lot easier but its still hard for me. at first i couldntm even keep my schedule stable with it and got crazy mood swings

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PunishedOni posted...

draw up medication from the bottle, swap 18g needle

Are you drawing back before swapping, as to not lose everything still in the needle adapter?

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Clench281 posted...

Are you drawing back before swapping, as to not lose everything still in the needle adapter?

no, i never thought about that actually. i should ask my doctor about that, its not in the materials she gave me about how to do it. i just flick all the bubbles to the top and push those out of the vial but i never really thought about medication being inside the adapter

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using a wobbuffet this week

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the amount left inside the needle itself is less than 1u, it doesn't really matter

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it sucks to do sometimes, but it's worth it.

i procrastinated until bed time but i did it yay
likehelly posted...

the amount left inside the needle itself is less than 1u, it doesn't really matter

yeah thats what my doctor said basically. i did draw it back in this time though just for peace of mind lol

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I got my blood test back and my estradiol levels were obscenely high like around 1000 :(

So I skipped my shot today so I can hear back from my doctor about adjusting the dosage first. I'm feeling super panicky about it now too, which sucks because I was just getting sort of used to it

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i did my shot today. im doing 0.2 ml now. the funny thing is it was way less stressful this time even though I was so panicky aobut it on sunday. I guess because I'm not worried now that I'm somehow doing it totally wrong in a way that doesnt even work

the annoying thing is because i wasnt able to do it on the weekend now my schedule is off

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If it's a lifetime thing (cuz I don't know) then why not get a port installed? I know some diabetics that have them

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Lokarin posted...

If it's a lifetime thing (cuz I don't know) then why not get a port installed? I know some diabetics that have them

These injections are intramuscular, much deeper than subcutaneous injections that can use a port.

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yeah i dont think you can do that for these. plus that sounds even squickier to me than doing injections the normal way

i have thought about getting my next tattoo near my normal injection site, since i won't get so worried about doing it in the wrong place every time if i can just remember it in relation to the tattoo. i alternate between my legs though so i guess id want two eventually

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