Hi, I took my first estradiol cypionate injection this Sunday after staring at the bottle for about a month and I’ve been experiencing some muscle soreness since. I just want to make sure I haven’t fucked up something beyond repair, and it would be nice to talk to some humans about this rather than just following directions off the internet. I’ll include my process at the bottom but if someone can tell me “no that happens to everyone, you’re good” it would really help me. I understand there’s a lot more that goes into DIY HRT and I’m working towards that too.
Injection process I followed for scientific rigor:
Spoiler
I followed the directions as well as I understood it: using a luer lock syringe, I drew 0.1 mL from my vial using, I think it was a 22 gauge needle, after wiping it down with an alcohol pad, then realized I wasn’t going to get that amount out of the syringe due to drawing it incorrectly or some other mishap, so I drew more of the solution, about 1.5 mL. I swapped the needle out for a 25 gauge, 1.5 inch needle which was recommended for intramuscular injections, then I stared at the needle for about ten minutes trying to keep my hands from shaking due to a currently very inconvenient phobia of them, then injected the solution into basically the meatiest part of my glute. I’m underweight, so I assume my options for injections are fairly limited. No bleeding occurred, and the injection site looks like a small red pock currently
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spoiler
muscle soreness is pretty normal with IM injections (seeing as ur injecting into well… muscle).
i recommend using a smaller needle (25g or higher) to draw as it minimizes coring risk, you could just use the needle youre using to inject to do it. swapping needles isnt really necessary, see insulin syringes (but theres also not really a reason to not do it).
it is verrrrrry recommended to inject into your thigh, injecting into your glute carries a high risk of accidentally hitting your sciatic nerve (bad time) and its also just less visibility. no being underweight doesnt mean you cant inject to your thigh.
other than that, you could always switch to subq rather than IM, as levels between the two are functionally identical on cypionate, which may help with the soreness.
Hi, here from /all. What part is DIY? Did you make your own medicine, do you not have a prescription, or is it common to need a doctor to inject you?
TLDR; obtaining and administering all necessary medications and blood tests yourself. Not everyone is willing or able to go through medical professionals for any number of reasons, mainly costs and medical gatekeeping. When done right the risks are minimal, though never nonexistent ofc.
Makes sense! If you’re aware of the risks (I have no idea what they might be) then I think it’s your business. I was imagining OP in the kitchen with a Bunsen burner and a smoking Erlenmeyer flask!
Now I’m imagining Breaking Bad but making E instead of Meth.
(I’ll start off by saying no expert here - began this year myself)
I do Subcutaneous injections and I can get a stiff sore spot - that looks red and can be felt. it goes away around after a week.
I might be misreading but how much did you inject? 1.6ml? was there any air or bubbles inside the syringe when you injected?
I used a calculator on the internet to see how much solution I would need to inject to get the desired dose and I believe it was 0.1 mL. Due to the size of my syringe, when I drew that amount the first time I wasn’t able to get any of the solution out of it, I depressed the plunger to the end just getting the air out. So I drew a bit more and some of it stayed in the syringe. I probably ended up with a little more than I had planned but not 60% more
I’ve been doing this shit for years. Here is my process
- Wash your hands thoroughly
- Clean vial and skin with iso
- Fill syringe with air (I’d say about double your dose)
- Stab into vial and inject air into vial
- Flip upside down and draw dose
- Take out, draw air into the syringe
- Swap out your needles
- Push out air until a bead forms at the tip
- Stabby stab and push
- Treat with alcohol pad and bandaid
- I know some people purposefully use an air bubble to push out the full amount but that’s riskier so I don’t recommend it
- Soreness is normal. Sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn’t.
- Don’t EVER reuse needles and dispose of them in a hard plastic container (get a sharps container if you don’t have one)
- Disclaimer: I’m not medically trained, I just work with needles a lot
