How to self administer intravenously
I've never tried any ROAs involving a needle (besides in hospital before an operation), and want to give the intravenous route a try at some point. Its not something I'll be able to do multiple times since needles are prescription only in my country, so I'd need to get it right first time. I found this thread:
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/75897-Intravenous-and-Intramuscular-Injection
which is very informative, but there are a few things not covered in the thread which I am wondering about.
1.) Whats the exact purpose of the saline solution? Is it for sterilizing the inside of the syringe, is for killing any bacteria that may be present in the drug material itself, or both?
2.) If you forgot to clean and sterilise something like the spoon, meaning theres a higher risk of a pathogenic bacteria (or fungi or whatever) entering the drug solution, how would you go about sterilising it? Usually you need to boil water to sterilize it properly, and temperatures like that could destroy the drug. UV light kills bacteria, but not everyone the equipment for irradiating with UV. I suppose this kind of answers question 1, if one were to add pure NaCl to the solution, that would kill off any bacteria. Ideally though, you'd want to use a mixture of NaCl and KCl because sodium and potassium needs to be balanced in the body. If I'm not mistaken, NaCl kills bacteria via osmosis, so maybe KCl works equally well, if so I'd use pure KCl since we ingest too much sodium and not enough potassium.
EDIT: I was doing a bit of revision there (to find out of K+ kills bacteria) and found a very interesting article:
http://chemo.net/newpage22.htm
You can order neodymium magnets online, they're not too expensive. They're so strong you have to be careful handling them cuz having two of them snap together would break your finger if it got caught in between.
3.) I looked around for some cotton (for filtering the drug solution through when filling the syringe, in order to prevent any solid material getting into the syringe) in my bathroom and found cotton pads, but on the package it says "with microfiber". I read somewhere that if cotton fibers get into the syringe, they can cause problems when they reach the heart. Should cotton pads (the ones women use during period) with microfibers be avoided? What if one were to run hot water (boiled then cooled down to ensure its sterile) through them first, that should remove any lose microfibers shouldn't it?
4.) Is the guage of the needle that important? In that thread, the OP recommends 29 guage needles for IV, and 25-27G for intramuscular. Whats the difference? If one were to use a 19 guage needle, what difference would it make? The unit "gauge" is used in different areas, I'm familiar with wire guage, which is a measure of the diameter of the wire, the lower the guage, the larger the diameter. Does the same go for needles? Does a lower guage, mean a larger diameter needle?
5.) Is it necessary to locate valves (the valves which stop blood flowing in the wrong direction in the vein) beforehand? I read that its very important that one doesn't inject directly into a valve because it could damage the valve, so ideally one would locate the valve, then inject a few centimeters or so past the valve. What are the odds of actually hitting one of these valves? And if anyone here has experience with this, how do you locate the valves, I read that you apply pressure to the vein, and move along the vein applying pressure until you find a point where applying pressure doesn't restrict blood flow. Or something like that, I can't remember the specifics. Can someone knowledgeable explain the valves (i.e. how many of them are present in the average vein, how to locate them, and what are the consequences of inserting a needle into a valve)?
