IM injection question

[Foreigner]

Injection question...

I inject myself IM with 4mL of mag sulfate every night to up my magnesium levels. So far, after 6 weeks, the results have been awesome. I ordered a bunch of syringe/needle combos from a company and they sent me the wrong size -- 3mL.

I have a 50mL bottle of pharmaceutical grade, bacteriostatic mag sulfate. Assuming my skin and the outer bottle of the solution are sterilized with alcohol, what are the risks of re-inserting the needle into the bottle to extract that extra 1mL? Should I use a new syringe instead? It's just such a waste....

Yes, I know the needle can get dull from multiple insertions, but I don't care about that. I'm more concerned about bacteria or the solution going off somehow.

 

[Jekyl Anhydride]

Can you just fill and cap several new syringes with the MgSO4? If not that still leaves other options; either keeping a dedicated clean, unused needle for filling the syringe only and then swapping out with the used needle if it's a luer-lok. Or wiping down the used needle with an alcohol prep pad before "double dipping" back into the vile. The important part being not to touch the plunger and only the barrel of the syringe when inserting so nothing gets expelled into the vial.

Even a clean 10ml+/- receptacle that you could place 4ml of MgSO4 into with a clean syringe/needle, then fill a 2nd with 3ml, IM it, then go back to the receptacle for the last ml with the freshly used syringe/needle. Some combo of the above should hold you over without contaminating anything.

 

[CFC]

Personally (as someone who's done similar countless hundreds of times without issue) I wouldn't worry, but those are some good ideas from JA. You could also store it in the fridge, to inhibit any potential (albeit unlikely) fungal or bacterial growth.

 

[Tuturucy]

Try hitting up a local apothecary, the syringes cost ?0.05 over here, most have a 5mL syringe.
Considering that you're doing IM, double injecting is never a nice thing to have to do. Especially not if you're pulling back the syringe to see if you hit a blood vessel (Which you btw do not have to do), due to contamination risk in general, you would need to use 2 syringes and needles per injection day. Which is, eh.
Oh and never insert a used needle into a medicine jar. The medicine jars are sterile for a reason. Keep it that way.

Placing alcohol on your injection site is btw a placebo effect. Modern day medicine practitioners don't pull back the syringe on IM anymore, nor do they alcohol swab.

 

[fairnymph]

Drs here do swab before IM.

 

[OpiateKiller]

When I ran steroids I use the same
Needle to draw from the vial to inject. Never got an infection or anything, probably did this around 500 times. I wouldn?t recommend using a needle after it?s been in your skin if that?s what you?re asking though

 

[testerpester]

Is there any real benefit to IM injecting the MgSO4, rather than just taking it orally as a supplement? It seems like so much risk for very little gain.

 

[Foreigner]

Is there any real benefit to IM injecting the MgSO4, rather than just taking it orally as a supplement? It seems like so much risk for very little gain.

I have bowel damage and don't absorb it orally. It just gives me diarrhea.

What's the risk??

 

[Foreigner]

Yeah, I'm basically asking if double dipping with a used syringe is bad for the solution. It's bacteriostatic (has benzyl alcohol in it) so it shouldn't be that high risk, right?

Can you just fill and cap several new syringes with the MgSO4? If not that still leaves other options; either keeping a dedicated clean, unused needle for filling the syringe only and then swapping out with the used needle if it's a luer-lok. Or wiping down the used needle with an alcohol prep pad before "double dipping" back into the vile. The important part being not to touch the plunger and only the barrel of the syringe when inserting so nothing gets expelled into the vial.

Even a clean 10ml+/- receptacle that you could place 4ml of MgSO4 into with a clean syringe/needle, then fill a 2nd with 3ml, IM it, then go back to the receptacle for the last ml with the freshly used syringe/needle. Some combo of the above should hold you over without contaminating anything.

Switching out the needle tips is still a waste... but your idea of putting 4mL into another receptacle could work. I don't have anything sterile that could serve as a receptacle though.

 

[Jekyl Anhydride]

After CFC's post 'Double Dipping' doesn't seem so bad, I mean if you can at least run an alcohol prep pad/swab down the needle from base to tip while rotating it a bit. I would use 2 syringes, each at 2ml, and clean the needles real well when you finish if you can't afford to waste a couple dozen.

Nipro 5ml-27g are 31 cents each here when I'd get them by the hundred, just the needle is 10 cents, which is why I lean towards the 'burn through an extra one each night' approach. But refrigeration and a thorough cleaning of the needle while using caution to not expel anything into the vial does seem plausible. A nyquil dosing cup washed diligently and rinsed with alcohol might suffice for a transfer container, but you risk blunting the needle tip.

 

[Nicholai]

You can get sterile, stoppered vials, they don't cost much. Then you could transfer the product out of the big container all at once, using one tip, then just draw your daily doses out of those with small disposable syringes. That way you'd only be drawing from the smaller containers a few times each. I think that might be your best bet for keeping things clean, without wasting a lot of money.

Btw, you can't sterilize skin. It's too porous. But you can try your best to disinfect it, and you should.