i’m harvesting a great crop of jelly beans today
it’s my birthday this week and you have to post a lot okay? :^)
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Oh, why so small? I mean, do whatever makes sense to you, but I use 20 and 18 gauge blunt fill needles at work and for drawing up my own SQ injections (then I inject with more reasonable 25 gauge). Maybe theyre just too dang big for your set up. Bigger gauge will let you draw faster and inject a little more easily, I think the standard for IM is 23 G. At least it is for me at work.
To minimize pain when injecting, and damage to the stopper. Plus I figure it’s simplest to just have one needle for the entire process.
You should really switch out needles after drawing, pushing through the stopper blunts the needle and makes injections with that same needle a lot more painful. I get using the same type of needle for both purposes for simplicity’s sake, but among my friends it’s the standard procedure to use wider gauge needles for drawing. And contamination from damaged stoppers is still something that almost never comes up between dozens of users.
I’ve heard others say that using the same needle for drawing and injecting is fine, and even somewhat common among people who take insulin shots. and tbh I felt something inserting the needle, but it wasn’t painful
Insulin is the exception to the rule here. Where you’re doing multiple SC injections per day depending on what your blood sugar looks like, it’s more hassle to use perfectly proper technique than it is to just use the same needle twice.
If you have to use the same needle to draw and inject, 23 ga is as small as you can get without drawing the oil up becoming almost impossible. Standard practice for injections of drugs in oil is to use an 18 ga draw needle and then whatever size injection needle you like. The stopper is made to withstand multiple punctures (dozens) from an 18 ga needle without any issue.
Please use a separate draw needle and injection needle! It makes the whole process easier for you and it’s safer, too.