Steroid Injection Techniques

Let's assume you have your bottles or sachets of injectable steroid and your needles ready. Now you're ready to give yourself that first shot. The best guideline is probably to do glute shots "high and to the side". However there are certain things you should be aware of.

How to find the right spot

Take a look at a picture of someone naked, facing away from you and standing up straight and draw a line down of their ass cheeks, vertically, right down the middle. That's your sciatic nerve; stay away from it! Now draw a line across the middle, this time horizontally, right through the middle of the cheek. See the upper/outer most past of those 4 parts you just separated the ass cheek into? That's where you are aiming when you do an injection in your glute.

If you are nervous, you can practice holding the needle like a dart, and pushing it into an orange. Apparently the surface tension of the orange makes it very similar to human skin, so nursing students often use oranges to practice.

Glute shot procedure

Sterilize the area you are going to inject. You can use an alcohol pad. Usually a shower with anti-bacterial soap and shoot when getting out is enough. Remember, your skin also softens up a bit in the shower, and this makes for an easier shot.

If you are using a multi-use vial, clean the top off with an alcohol swab. If you are using an amp or sachet, crack it open.

Take the needle out of the package. If you are using oil based steroids, then you need a 22 or 23 gauge needle. Water based steroids will usually go through a 25ga. and higher needle depending on the compound. If you are doing deltoids, triceps, biceps, etc. injections (i.e. small muscles) then you can use anywhere from a 25ga.x5/8" needle to a 23ga.xl" needle. Glute and quad shots usually require a 1.5" needle, of the same gauges discussed earlier. As long as the needle is open enough to let the liquid get through, and long enough to get past your fat and skin into the muscle, then you're fine.

Pull air into the needle and inject it into the vial. This creates pressure in the vial, making it easier to draw the steroid out with.

Now draw the solution into the syringe by pulling on the stopper while the needle is facing up.

Pull the needle out of the vial when you have the desired amount of steroid in the syringe.

Hold the needle upright and tap the sides until the air bubbles are at the top, and then push them out by tapping the plunger a bit.

Now you can either change the needle, or use the same one to inject yourself. If you are drawing from 2-3 vials, then you might want to replace it at the end before you inject yourself.

Stretch the skin on the area of your glute you are going to inject: [with your thumb and forefinger,]

Holding the needle like a dart, push it (in one motion) all the way into your muscle.

Draw back slightly on the plunger, and make sure it doesn't fill with blood. If it does, you are in the wrong spot, and you need to start over in another muscle.

Push the plunger in until the syringe is empty.

Pull the needle out and put on a Band-Aid. You can massage the area a little if you want, as this can decrease soreness the next day.

If you are shooting elsewhere than the glute, pretty much aim for center mass and avoid visible veins but follow the same basic procedure that I just shared with you. It is not recommend shooting more than 3mIs of anything into a given injection at any given time.

If you are using a particularly thick steroid (and by that I mean the oil is viscous) then you may want to hold the syringe part horizontal under hot tap water for a minute. This will heat the oil slightly and let it flow more smoothly. Just remember to keep the cap on the needle while you run it under water.

Information provided in this section are focused on glute shots because it's the easiest to explain and because when you shoot "X"mgs of a given steroid into a large muscle, you will get a higher blood plasma level than shooting in smaller muscles, even when the amount and concentration of the steroid is the same (1). The lesson here is that for maximum results, you will always shoot in the largest muscle possible. But you still can't shoot in the same spot more than once per week because you will develop too much scar tissue. Remember to rotate injection sites if you are doing shots every day or every other day.

Infections

The first sign of possible infection is when you feel a kind of soreness that's different from a typical injection. It's going to be more of a sharp pain, as opposed to a dull pain. The next thing is that it's going to be discolored around the injection area and, will have a clearly defined border. It is not a little red area here, but more like a very large blister at first with some kind of fluid inside it. Gross, but wait, it gets better. During the final stage there is a very viscous fluid inside the border, and a very dark discoloration. By this time, it will be a very large protruding bulge that possibly needs to be drained. This final discoloration will be very dark and you'll definitely, at this point, know that something has gone terribly wrong.

Reference

1 . Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Nandrolone Esters in Oil Vehicle: Effects of Ester, Injection Site and Injection Volume Charles F. Mints, Christopher Howe, Susan Wishart, Ann J. Conway and David J. Handelsman