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Are we suppose to aspirate?

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    Are we suppose to aspirate?

    Today I did my injection, and after I pulled the syringe out, a huge amount of blood shot out of my leg like a squirt gun, and projected at least a foot. I covered it and it shot out again, but stopped after that.

    I'm assuming I hit an artery. I was concerned and started reading about it. I see that a lot of people doing intramuscular injections talk about 'aspirating'. I use the pre-filled of Avonex.

    This never came up in my training. Are we suppose to do this?

    Also, if I did inject into the artery, what would the symptoms be? It hurts, but not too bad. I hope I didn't lose any of the medication.

    The bubble in the pre-filled: I inject until the injector (not sure of the name) reaches the bottom and the bubble is gone. Is that how I'm suppose to do this?

    I've been doing this for a year and haven't had any issues...

    Thanks so much!

    #2
    Ten years ago (back when the mix-it-yourself Avonex was the only form available), the injecting instructions included an aspiration step. At some point over the years that step disappeared from the instructions and from the training. So the answer appears to be no, you're not supposed to aspirate (although you can if you want to). And for folks using the new autoinjector, there's no way to aspirate the needle, anyway.

    The aspiration step probably prevented people from injecting directly into a blood vessel, but it's of no help for the vessels that get pierced on the way in. There's no way to know how close to a pierced vessel the Avonex is being injected, so sometimes it's going to find its way into an open vessel anyway. When that happens, you find out by being hit by side effects really quickly from the rapid distribution.

    Whether or not you aspirate, every now and then you're going to hit a bleeder. The first time can be a real shocker! I'm glad it didn't freak you out too much.

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      #3
      Thank you! I was actually laughing...what else can you do Reminded me of a SNL skit.

      But I must have lost some of the medicine, because I had almost no side effects.

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        #4
        Save the liver!

        Are we all really oldies? this is supposed to be a young person's disease.

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          #5
          The reason for aspirating is to make sure that the needle is in the muscle and not in fatty tissue. You don't half to aspirate, but if you do you'll know the medicine is being injected where it is going to be absorbed the best.

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