I was chicken to try IM shots until this past year when my blood sugars were uncontrollable because of my thyroid going hyper. I started doing them, and with Apidra they were “meh.” But with Fiasp, they are amazing. It’s rare that an IM correction with Fiasp takes more than an hour to bring me into range (even when I start out really high) and the insulin seems to be gone within an hour and a half to two hours.
I also have asthma and lung scarring, so when Afrezza comes to Canada I won’t be using it all the time. But I am interested in seeing if it’s even faster than IM Fiasp. If it is, I’d like to keep some for those times I get stuck high for hours and nothing brings me down.
I use 12 mm needles and do it in my arm/shoulder most of the time. Accuracy is an issue and I do often miss. I’ve done it in my forearm with 8 mm needles, but this hurts way more and usually causes bleeding and bruising, but I’m able to hit the muscle more reliably.
This reminds me of that fellow who chewed off his own arm to get out of a rock cavern. Or that Russian doctor who removed his own burst appendix in the Arctic. Not sure I have what it takes to join your ranks.
It was one time when I shot up to HIGH on my Dexcom and sat there for hours that pushed me over the edge. After that first time, it got easier. Seeing my blood sugar drop from 15 mmol/L to 6 mmol/L in an hour is usually worth it.
I am a little bit surprised because you came from back in the day, when syringe needles were all so long, that getting IM accidentally was fairly common.
I did my first IM shot was when I was 5 years old. But it was decades later before I did it on purpose.
I fear you picture me as a child sharpening my thick steel needle on a whetstone by lantern-light while my glass syringe boils on the woodstove. No, in 1970 I used plastic disposables with needles that were, yes, thicker and longer than now, but they weren’t the stuff of Victorian horror stories.
Having to double-void every morning, and then test urine in a test tube with those Clinitest tablets, now that was Dark Ages. Man, I hated that. Tes-Tape was already on the market, but it took my parents a while to discover it.
I was diagnosed in '72, my friend! I was right with you for all that stuff. The pee test tubes, the 5 drops of urine and 10 drops of water mixed in the test tube and then the pill dropped in (with the little color chart taped up near the toilet. Orange was bad! Remember?), the test tape, the regular R insulin made from pork or beef…
I quit doing intramuscular injections* when Afrezza came along because it worked faster and was much easier and the IMs did “miss” from time to time.
*spelling it out so we get more keyword hits on Google
I mostly used my forearms (8mm needles pushed down hard worked) and calves (12.7mm needles). I first tensed my muscles to find a spot with muscle close to the skin, then found a position where my muscles were relaxed, and then used meditation-style techniques to keep the muscles relaxed during the injection. Most of the time it was near-painless.
I’m thinking of trying IMs again now to save money…
Ha, yeah…I asked my pharmacist what my Afrezza would be OOP, because I still haven’t been able to get it covered through insurance. Over $600 for one month’s supply. Ouch.
Yeah, just finished my failed “trial” of Novolin, so waiting to see if my doc can get it approved now. I’m juggling so many different things now - insurance won’t approve Afrezza, my CGM, my thyroid medication, my glucagon kit, etc, so it’s getting hard to keep track of what’s going on where with all of them.
It’s just the specifics of what they’ll cover. My doctor prescribed Synthroid (name brand), and they want me on the generic. Most generic thyroid meds have gluten, and my doc says they’re not as effective, so double nope. Same thing with glucagon - whatever she prescribed, they came back saying they’d only cover an alternative (not exactly sure what), so waiting to hear back from her if she’ll just switch the prescription to that. She’s probably really tired of hearing from me LOL
