Q: I just gave myself an injection into several parts of my arm. One of those has a small bruise on it. It hurts a lot and feels sore deep into the muscle. It hurt a little extra when I was doing the injection, but I did move the needle slightly. Is it anything to worry about?
A: Chances are, it’s not something to worry about if it’s just sore and there isn’t a big pustule attached to it. I’d worry if it were blowing up, causing excessive water retention around the site, seeping pus, discoloring badly or causing horrid pain in a surrounding joint. What probably happened is you hit a vein? This is really easy to do in the limbs and one of the reasons why it’s not altogether smart to site inject on a regular basis. I’d really only inject esiclene or synthol into limbs anyhow, just because site injecting drugs hasn’t really been proven to be so much more effective that it makes the risks worthwhile. I’ve known people who have had some nasty abscesses in their limbs at the site of injections all because they hit veins, inadvertently used dirty gear, or had dirt and sweat on the surface of the skin near the injection site prior to injecting.
It’s not really a good practice to get into. You can avoid hitting veins in two ways, but neither is foolproof. One, you can have someone else inject you and look for veins on the surface of the skin in places you cannot see and try to avoid them. Or, two, you can get into the good habit of aspirating to make sure you don’t inject a vein. Aspirating is simply putting the needle in and drawing back to see if you get air/suction, or blood. If you draw blood back up into the syringe, you’ve hit a vein and should re-insert the needle and try again. Always aspirate. You can hit veins in any area of the body, though it’s less likely in the hip and areas where it’s extra fleshy. Also, you mentioned that you jostled the needle when injecting, and that can also be the cause of pain. It’s also the reason why injecting your own upper limbs isn’t a good idea.
