Do you prime your syringes?

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blueandazure

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When I say priming your syringes, I'm talking about drawing up more than your intended dose and then ejecting the extra, which means a small amount of the liquid gets wasted.
 
Nope. What's the point of doing that?

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Bigwally1 said:

I draw up the right amount, compensate for any air, then tap the syringe so the bubbles rise out.
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That’s my approach too. Leave the needle in the vial while clearing bubbles. In films, this is done for 1-dramatic effect and 2-to suggest a careless ‘scientist.’

Still, the amount lost probably isn’t large.

A very small air bubble injected IM or SQ is less of an issue than one in an IV line. I’m not a medical professional, so look into it yourself according to your own comfort with risk.
 
blueandazure said:

When I say priming your syringes, I'm talking about drawing up more than your intended dose and then ejecting the extra, which means a small amount of the liquid gets wasted.
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I do that too, but the needle stays in the vial while I'm doing it. Drawing extra and then pushing down to the dose I want is way simpler for me than trying to hit it exactly on the draw.
 
I draw slightly extra, around 1mg, flick out the bubbles, then adjust back down to the right dose.
 
Even though I still flick the syringe out of habit, these days I don't worry about a few air bubbles, since I found out that air embolisms are uncommon.
 
I figured that shooting liquid up in the air only happened in films. Back when I used pens, I would draw a bit extra, tap it, and then inject the surplus back into the vial until the dose matched exactly.
 
DunningKruger said:

Even though I still flick the syringe out of habit, these days I don't worry about a few air bubbles, since I found out that air embolisms are uncommon.
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Is an embolism even possible when you inject subcutaneously?
 
With my medical training, removing air before an injection was something I never skipped. Eventually, though, I came to see that with a s/c shot it makes no real difference. Accidentally hitting a vein tucked inside subcutaneous tissue is theoretically possible, sure, but the air volumes involved in small insulin syringes—0.01-0.02ml—are nowhere near enough to kill you via an air embolism reaching the heart.
 
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