pain at injection site

MountainMuscle · Mar 20, 2009

Hey guys,

Yesterday I did my first IM of testosterone-cyp (my first ever IM not done by a professional). I had a hard time trying to pin my glute by myself, so I used my side delt instead. I am now experiencing rather strong injection pain at that site (I noticed the pain about 6 hours after the injection, and now at about 24 hours it has really worsened).

I know that I didn't inject into a vein, and I also "massaged" the oil into the muscle as per the instructions. No bolus formed and I also do not have a bruise, or at least not one that is visible through the skin. When I compare my left and right delts, there is no difference in appearance, so there's also no indication of a hematoma.

Is it possible that this pain could be from the way I performed the injection? Here is how I did it:

I followed all of the instructions on howtodoinjections.
1. When I determined that I wasn't inside a vein, I began to inject.

2. I met a rather large resistance to the injection and it was rather difficult to inject the liquid -- is this normal, or should the liquid have injected easily? I used a needle of the size as suggested by that site, but could the problem be that it was still too small?

3. As I injected, the needle moved around a lot as I lost grip of the syringe -- yes, there really was that much resistance to the liquid being injected, which I am hoping is normal. Could this have "cut up" some muscle tissue, which I am now feeling the pain from? If so, would that be similar to a bruise, or the tearing of muscle fibers from working out causing next day soreness?

Next week I am going to be much more careful when that needle is inside me and I hope to be able to use my glute instead of my delt.

Can anyone please help out and answer the above questions?

Also, if anyone has experienced this type of pain before, please post and let me know how long it took for the pain to go away. It is preventing me from doing my workouts, which of course is no good!

Thanks!

Deus ex machina · Mar 20, 2009

MountainMuscle said:
Hey guys,

Yesterday I did my first IM of testosterone-cyp (my first ever IM not done by a professional). I had a hard time trying to pin my glute by myself, so I used my side delt instead. I am now experiencing rather strong injection pain at that site (I noticed the pain about 6 hours after the injection, and now at about 24 hours it has really worsened).

I know that I didn't inject into a vein, and I also "massaged" the oil into the muscle as per the instructions. No bolus formed and I also do not have a bruise, or at least not one that is visible through the skin. When I compare my left and right delts, there is no difference in appearance, so there's also no indication of a hematoma.

Is it possible that this pain could be from the way I performed the injection? Here is how I did it:

I followed all of the instructions on howtodoinjections.
1. When I determined that I wasn't inside a vein, I began to inject.

2. I met a rather large resistance to the injection and it was rather difficult to inject the liquid -- is this normal, or should the liquid have injected easily? I used a needle of the size as suggested by that site, but could the problem be that it was still too small?

3. As I injected, the needle moved around a lot as I lost grip of the syringe -- yes, there really was that much resistance to the liquid being injected, which I am hoping is normal. Could this have "cut up" some muscle tissue, which I am now feeling the pain from? If so, would that be similar to a bruise, or the tearing of muscle fibers from working out causing next day soreness?

Next week I am going to be much more careful when that needle is inside me and I hope to be able to use my glute instead of my delt.

Can anyone please help out and answer the above questions?

Also, if anyone has experienced this type of pain before, please post and let me know how long it took for the pain to go away. It is preventing me from doing my workouts, which of course is no good!

Thanks!

This is probably it.
No never had that pain before.
I also don't massage anything after inj.

Trenman · Mar 20, 2009

What brand of gear used?

faceman35 · Mar 20, 2009

did you make sure you were in the muscle and not just below the skin in the fat area?

MountainMuscle · Mar 20, 2009

re: brand used, injection pain

Umm, well it is from a board sponsor with good reputation. The product itself is domestic test-cyp and I am certain my supplies (BD) are sterile.

I'm afraid that if I list the source of the AAS here this thread will get deleted...

MountainMuscle · Mar 20, 2009

faceman35 said:
did you make sure you were in the muscle and not just below the skin in the fat area?

Well, I am fairly certain. I am relatively lean and do not have a lot of fat on my side delts. I used a 25gauge .5" needle, which is what's recommended for that site.

I am not freaky huge, .5" probably goes .3" into muscle tissue

Oh, by the way guys, I cannot feel any hematoma or other abnormality inside the muscle or around that area. Also no indications of any kind of infection

Gizmo · Mar 20, 2009

Could be virgin muscle, and maybe high BA content in the gear. I have had some insane reactions to UG gear. Like my leg swelling up all the way below my knee from a quad shot, very painful but it would subside in about 4-5 days.

SanMan01 · Mar 20, 2009

U got to use at least a .5 to 1" pin for the delts and 1-1/4 to 1 -1/2" pin for the glutes!

Anywhere from 21-22 for glutes up and 25 for delts in gauge thickness.

Always aspirate first to check for blood if none, then inject calmly & slowly so oil can be given a chance to dissipate into the muscle.

jpsstar · Mar 20, 2009

Hey brother i think you will be ok, my first couple of times i hurt like that back in the day. I like to put a heating pad on it, it seems to help with the pain. Hang in there bro.

Trenman · Mar 20, 2009

That reminds me of my first injection back in 94' with Testoprim-D from Mexico. Very good product but even deep in the muscle injections were painful and I ended up in the fat. So you can imagine...

Trenman · Mar 20, 2009

Depending on the carrier oil used, you will probably need something bigger than 25 gage. If it's in Ethyl Oleate, a 25 gage should be good though. That stuff is so thin.

MountainMuscle · Mar 20, 2009

about the gear, mistake in other post

4-5 days isn't too bad, that's good to know. Much more than that would be bad though. I sure hope this doesn't happen every time!

By the way, I made a mistake in my other post. The needle I used was actually a 1", 25 gauge needle (orange BD box, international version).

So given that info, it would certainly have been deep in the delt muscle tissue, right? Much further than that I could run into the top of the bicep or edge of the pec

The gear is a 10ml vial of test cyp with 2% benzyl alcohol and 20% benzyl benzoate. The liquid looks closer to water than oil, in other words it doesn't appear to be a very thick oil that would need a larger gauge needle.

Does that help with diagnosing my problem? I.e., is that a high BA content that could cause this?
Could it be a combination of the BA and/or the fact that I didn't keep the needle position constant and it moved around while inside the muscle (yes, I did aspirate before injecting and no blood entered, so I'm sure I was away from veins)?

Also, is the problem of high resistance to the injection normal, or should the injection be as easy as if you were shooting into a vein or empty space?

Thanks!

SanMan01 · Mar 20, 2009

When injecting in the muscle, U will always get some type of resistance sometimes light or sometimes hard!

Also it depends on the amount ur injecting too! the more u do, the slower U should inject it!
But in ur case, what happening with u is normal until U start learning how not to tense up the muscle and relax it during the injection after a few times then u will see how easy it becomes to inject!

hope that helps....

MountainMuscle · Mar 20, 2009

it's ethyl oleate oil

Hey guys, this may help too. The vial says it's ethyl oleate oil-based.

Trenman · Mar 21, 2009

That's a low Benzyl Alcohol level. You're probably feeling mostly the Benzyl Benzoate from that shot, and maybe even some of the Cypionate itself. I have exactly the same product, and happen to be using it now. A bit of soreness with it, but a good product overall. You will get used to it at the injection site, and soon will feel no soreness at all.

By far the worst thing I have ever used was T-400 from Mexico back in 2001. I think they must have been using no Benzyl Benzoate and just Benzyl Alcohol to keep it at that concentration. See, the Benzyl Alcohol washes away in the blood stream, leaving the high concentration oil behind where it soon crystallizes inside the muscle tissue, as it can no longer hold 400mg/ml with only oil.

If it were me, I still might go up to a 23g needle. Buy syringes that have an 18 or 20 gage needle already attached to them, (20 is better, as it doesn't tear up the rubber stopper like an 18 does) then draw your shot up, then unscrew the 20g needle and put on a new 23g, then do the shot. That might help somewhat too. Also, I noticed Terumo needles seem sharper and also seem to have a bigger inside diameter, allowing you to use a smaller gage but oil passes through it as if it were a size larger.

MountainMuscle · Mar 21, 2009

good tips from all, one last question

Thanks for all the help and tips!

I'm glad to learn that some resistance is normal when injecting into muscle. I was worried that I may have been doing something wrong.

This is an odd question, but how are you guys pinning your glutes? I mean, the position is awkward to reach, and you need to have a good grip of the syringe to keep it in place while slowly injecting, which itself can take some good hand strength.

Did you eventually just get to the point where you could do it, or do you require help from a second person?

My plan is to switch to alternating each side of my glutes from week to week as I don't care so much about scar tissue forming there, and also muscle soreness from injecting into the glutes won't prohibit me from working out for several days (my delt really is that sore, I cannot do anything requiring shoulder rotation

).

Trenman · Mar 21, 2009

I never have gotten to where glute shots are easy. It seems to depend mostly on how lean I am. If I'm lean, they're easier. If I'm fat and can't see over my durn love handles, they're very difficult.

MountainMuscle · Mar 24, 2009

update: minimal injection pain!

Hey fellas,

Just thought I would let everyone know how things are going. The pain in my delt went away on Saturday. I did my second injection yesterday. I wanted to do my glutes, but again I had a hard time accessing them... mostly leverage problems.

So, I used a 25gauge 1" needle and injected into my left upper calf muscle. There was a slight bit of pain when inserting the needle, which I did not experience when injecting into the delt, but I suspect this was due to the fact that the delt was tense much of the time (making the skin much firmer). Anyway, the needle sliding in was fine, just felt like a little pinch.

Sitting down I was able to comfortably and slowly inject the liquid with no problems. For about an hour after the injection, I felt some tenderness in the calf, as well as about 12 hours later. But today I feel absolutely no pain at all at the injection site! Now I'm not saying that this is the best site for everyone to use, I'm just pointing out that I finally understand how to properly and safely inject now :

.

So my conclusion from everyone's tips and my experiences are below:
0. Make sure you understand all instructions on http://www.howtodoinjections.com and also here on the board
1. Find a few good body sites that you can easily reach and pin, and rotate them each time so as to avoid or minimize scar tissue
2. Do NOT use a site for which the position you are in is uncomfortable as this will result in unsteady hands, leading into #3 and #4
3. Once the needle is inside the muscle and ready to go, inject slowly over 2-3 minutes or so, keeping the needle steady
4. The entire time the needle is in, minimize the amount of movement of the needle. This is what got me the first time and I poked my delt muscle in all kinds of places!
5. Follow the rest of the instructions on aforementioned site

I hope these posts help someone searching for similar help in the future!

j8282 · Mar 24, 2009

Delts always hurt me so I stay away from them. I love to shoot quads, its pretty much painless and you can use both hands to do it. The bigger I got the harder it was for me to shoot the glutes. Howtodoinjections.com is good but also spotinjections.com ( has real pics). Larger muscles are just less pain than smaller ones to me.

cjjrwe · Mar 24, 2009

I do my glutes one handed, I look and see where I want to hit, then pin one handed, aspirate, inject, with the usual sterile protocol, etc. Gets easier with time.