Misc Promethazine 25mg/mL vial. How to IV properly?

[violetiris]

Ok-I'm a nurse. This medication is usually used for nausea but it does work well for sleep and also takes away headaches.
AND it will POTENTIATE the hell out of any opiate so please, please be careful! Do not take it with your 'normal' dose of an opiate-you may OD.

Also-if you administer it IV you MUST dilute it or you will destroy your vein. It is extremely caustic. You can dilute it in normal saline. I would, at a MINIMUM dilute it 10:1 meaning 10ML saline for every 1ML of promethazine. If you can I would dilute it even more.

I've never heard of giving it IM so you'll have to look that up but my guess would be that it's not a good idea and could cause tissue necrosis due to it being so caustic.

25Mg is a regular dose. I would not exceed 25 Mg. You did not indicate how many ML's are in the vile but you did say it was 25Mg per Ml. So you can draw up 1 Ml with 10Ml of saline---or 0.5 ml with 5ml of saline.

You should be able to buy saline at the drug store.
D5 is Dextrose (a sugar) you don't have to mix it in these, you can use normal saline and that's most likely much easier to find.

I have to say though, that in inexperienced hands, I would suggest you not do it. I don't mean to sound arrogant or anything but even nurses make mistakes with this med. I once had a nurse in the ER give it to me too quickly and not diluted enough and it burned out my whole vein-turned hard as a rock.

That's one other thing-if you do decide to take it IV then you must push it SLOW-like over a few minutes.

Hope this helps. Good luck-whatever you decide.

 

[Tiu]

Violetiris- I am also

 

[coldbleed]

nacl is table salt

 

[Cane2theLeft]

Excellent contributions from the nursing staff! Thank you for helping add some solid information to this thread.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

If you are going to IV this, I would dilute it. Not that you have to, but the rate at which you are supposed to inject this is extremely slowly.

You also want to use a rather large vein, and not small ones.

For IM use, you might want to dilute it to mediate the burning sensation. I have not tried IM or IV promethazine, but I know IV hydroxyzine does have a mild burning sensation which is dose dependent.

 

[jamesBrown]

@JamesBrown

Since it is in a vial, do you think that the risk of an abscess is far less than if it were a solution that he prepped himself?

I know that IM shots of pills or heroin have a very high risk of abscess, but I thought that vials that have not been tampered with are safer.

I don't know though.

I agree that the fact that these are vials that are more than likely very sterile, etc....means that the risk of an abscess is much less than in another given situation with less sterile equipment/drugs. I actually never said otherwise. But I do aknowledge that there IS still a risk of an abscess. It doesnt matter if the solution comes in a vial or not. There is always a risk...thats why I reccommended having a medical professional do it.

But actually....if you had read my last post.....i thought this entire concept of Injecting or IM'ing promethazine was a bad idea and there are too many better and safer options the OP could choose from in order to try to sleep. Like I said...he could even take oral promethazine. That was my main advice.....dont do it.
But I said that if he was going to do it, that he would either need to inject VERY slowly, dilute it, or be extremely careful IM'ing it(prefferably have a medical proffessional do it).
Just like the nurse said above me......

I have to say though, that in inexperienced hands, I would suggest you not do it. I don't mean to sound arrogant or anything but even nurses make mistakes with this med. I once had a nurse in the ER give it to me too quickly and not diluted enough and it burned out my whole vein-turned hard as a rock.

....just tryin to give out good harm reduction advice.

 

[Tommyboy]

^ Yea my answer was based on if the OP is dead set on injecting this, and was going to do it by either IM or IV no matter what.

I agree that the OP should not inject this drug in any way, and that oral use would be the safest ROA. But if he/she is going to ingest via injection, it would be safer to IM it it seems.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

james; the risk of an abscess with ampules would be due to injection technique. If the OP can IM properly they should have no problems.

 

[jamesBrown]

james; the risk of an abscess with ampules would be due to injection technique. If the OP can IM properly they should have no problems.

yup...and since we have no way of knowing his injection technique, i assumed the best advice was to tell him there are better options for him in order to help him get to sleep.