Question

What are some common injection mistakes?

Answer 1

Some common injection mistakes are not cleaning the injection sites or vial ports, reusing needles, and failing to verify expiration dates of injected medication, which can increase infection risk and cause tissue trauma.

Also other common injection mistakes include using the wrong needle size, using the wrong injection angle or wrong injection site and failing to rotate sites, which can lead to lipohypertrophy.

When doing injections, you should always use sterile needles and follow the proper injection technique and clean the injection site and dispose of any used needles in an approved container.

To know if you injected correctly watch for key indicators of the injection being injected correctly, which include no severe pain, minimal to no bleeding after the injection and no immediate, severe reactions at the injection sites.

Injecting medications correctly involves ensuring that the medication being injected reaches the right tissue like fat or muscle, and you should also experience minimal and normal side effects and have no immediate complications like improper blood return or significant pain.

Subcutaneous injections or fatty tissue injections uses a method of injecting at a 45 to 90 degree angle, often into your stomach or thigh.

When you've injected the subcutaneous injection correctly, the needle should go in easily and you should feel minimal discomfort, have no significant blood appearing after removing the needle, but a tiny drop of blood is normal, and no large, painful lumps or severe burning should occur.

A small, temporary bump may appear as the liquid is absorbed.

For intramuscular injections into the muscle, the injection is done at a 90 degree angle, often into the deltoid (arm), or thigh (vastus lateralis).

The signs that the intramuscular injection was done correctly are that you reached the muscle layer, using either a 1 to 1.5 inch needle.

Pulling back on the plunger should bring back no blood or very little, but if blood fills the barrel, then you may have hit a blood vessel and the fluid should flow into the muscle with steady and moderate pressure when the intramuscular injection has been done correctly.

Signs of an incorrect injection are immediate pain, like a sharp, burning pain or feeling like an electric shock, which can indicate hitting a nerve, and medication may leak back out of the hole, which can happen if you don't keep the needle in long enough for around 5 to 10 seconds or pull it out too fast.

And the area may turn bright red, swell quickly or become very warm, which could indicate an infection or an allergic reaction and continued tingling or numbness at the site may also occur.

If you don't inject deep enough, what happens is the medication may not work as intended and complications like swelling, pain, irritation and risks of abscess or infection can occur.

If an injection like insulin for example is not injected deep enough, it may not work properly and result in an ineffective dosage of the insulin or other medications.

Injecting too shallow like into the dermis can also cause intense pain, swelling, tenderness, redness or even blisters and failing to reach the proper depth when injecting medications, increases your risk of developing painful, dangerous abscesses or localized pus accumulation or infections.

And injections that are meant for muscle that end up in the fat tissue can also cause damage and, in severe and repeated cases, tissue death can occur and superficial injections can cause irritation of the surrounding skin and tissue.

If you do experience any significant swelling, pain, heat or redness at the site of injection, you should monitor the injection site and seek any medical attention if you develop a fever or if the symptoms persist or get worse.

The depth that the needle should go when injecting will depend on the site of injection and type of injection being administered.

For intradermal skin injections, the depth of the intradermal injections are injected very shallow at a 10 to 15 degree angle.

For subcutaneous or SubQ fat injections the injections, should be given at depths of 4 mm to 6 mm, often using shorter needles at a 45 degree to 90 degree angle.

For intramuscular IM, Muscle injections, the injection should be given at depths of 1 inch to 1.5 inches for adults.

For example for intramuscular injections in the deltoid, a 0.5 inch needle is sometimes used depending on the person's body composition.

Other factors also affect the depth that the needle should go when injecting into the body which include age, site of injection and body weight.

Children and infants getting injections, require shorter needles, like 5/8 to 1 inch needles.

And injections into the deltoid or arm often require a 1 inch to 1.5 inch needle, whereas, injections into the thigh may differ based on thickness of fat.

And a 1.5 inch needle is often recommended for injections in women over 200 lbs or in men over 260 lbs.

And a 5/8-inch needle for injections may be sufficient enough in size for people who weigh less than 130 lbs.

Signs of a wrong administering  of an injection include severe, radiating pain (like electric shocks), numbness, or weakness, especially if it follows a sharp jolt during the shot, indicating nerve damage (like sciatic nerve injury).

Other signs of incorrect administration of injections or infection from injections, involve excessive redness, swelling, warmth, blistering, or worsening pain at the site, along with systemic symptoms like fever, chills, nausea, or a spreading rash, requiring immediate medical attention.