Hi, I am currently doing clexane injections as part of my IVF treatment. I am a needle phobic and have had terrible problems getting my head around them. However, I have found an almost pain free technique I wanted to share. The first few injections hurt that much I almost refused further treatment., so I am now over the moon I have discovered this method. Here are my top tips to reduce pain:
- Make sure you warm up the syringe to body temperature. I do this by holding it in my hand or popping it under my arm pit for ten minutes prior to injection.
- Tap your tummy to find the least sensitive part. Experience now tells me this is the fatty parts just above my hip joint.
- Use several ice cubes to freeze the area. I normally spend 5 minutes doing this. Getting it to the point where the ice almost hurts!
- Apply LOADS of deep freeze sports injury spray. (Boots own brand). This helps immeasurably, both for the injection and the stinging afterwards. This is my most important tip.
- Push the needle in at a 90 degree angle - fast. You will barely feel it going in.
- Then push the plunger super, super, super slow. Imagine the fluid is dripping out of the end. If it hurts, pause before carrying on as this reduces the pain. Although with lots of freeze spray, you should barely feel it.
- If you have any pain after pulling out the needle, freeze it with another ice cube.
- Make sure you do you injections last thing at night, so you can sleep off the dull ache it leaves. I initially tried to do it I the morning to get it out of the way, but found this very stressful and resulted in broken sleep through worry.
This combination of techniques has resulted in an almost consistent pain free injection. I hope this advice is useful to you! Good luck! Xxx