How I do Drugs

I do drugs, particularly estrogen. I am the kind of person who likes a set of structured steps to do important things like this. A-level biology practicals truly terrorised me. So I figured I'd write a bunch of steps which I can follow for my injections. If anyone wants to contribute or add their own tips, that would be cool ^^

Hardware Required

1. Estradiol vial
2. Syringe (1mL)
3. 2 syringe needles (recommended)
   • One 25G for drawing estrogen (not obligatory)
   • One 26-29G for injections
4. Alcohol wipes (2x)
   • Not baby wipes, they do not have alcohol
   • You also soak cotton pads with isopropyl or ethyl alcohol
5. Bandage

Steps

Read the additional context below before following these steps.

1. Use alcohol wipe to clean the membrane of the vial
2. Unwrap your syringe
3. Aspire as much air into the syringe as estrogen to draw
4. Place vial on hard surface
5. Insert syringe
6. Turn vial upside down
7. Push air out of syringe
8. Draw up your volume of estradiol
• Do it slowly as with narrow needles, the low pressure in the syringe can cause the estrogen to boil
• If you have air stuck, push out all estrogen from the syringe and draw again. For sub-q injections, air is not the end of the world
9. If you have a second (smaller) needle, swap to it
10. Pinch the skin up where you want to inject
11. Clean injection site with second alcohol wipe
12. Stab yourself with syringe, at a 90' angle
13. Draw up (optional i guess, i don't do it)
    • If you see blood, you have pierced a vein. Remove the needle and apply cotton ball, disinfect, and bandage
14. Push estrogen in, be patient
15. After all estrogen has been injected, keep syringe inserted for an extra 30s
16. Remove syringe
17. Apply bandage

Additional Information

You can inject yourself in different areas. As I am more comfortable with sub-cutaneous injections, this reference is more for sub-q and not for intramuscular.

You can also inject yourself in different places. There are diagrams out there which show lumps of tissue you can inject into. For sub-q, a couple of the main places are the upper thigh and around the bellybutton. I find injecting into my stomach scary, so I guess I'm going with my leg instead.

For injection volumes, the source of my vial recommends "7 mg every 10 days" though you can also do "5mg every 7 days" so you have a fixed injection day. You should get blood tests to make sure testosterone is being properly suppressed. Emphasis on should - my brain can't seem to understand that this is important. Also, important note. Some syringes have a swappable needle. So you use the larger one to draw up, and the smaller one to inject. Not all syringes have this feature, and my insulin syringes do not. It's not the end of the world, but it's a nice-to-have.