#intramuscular

If any of you are scared of injecting your own testosterone or estrogren, or want to read about how another trans person does it at home in addition to reading about best practice from medical professionals, this is for you. It's easy, fast, relatively painless, and I do it every week.

- put on your favourite band/album, just listen to it for a bit

- watch videos of other people doing injections, it helps to see someone else normalize it

- draw with a different needle, the sharper your injection needle the quicker (and painlessly) it will enter your epidermal layer. its mostly your epidermal layer thats tough to break on a duller needle.

- poke the drawing needle slightly onto your skin a few times to get a handle for it, you may bleed in little pinpricks from breaking the super superficial veins but its sort of like getting yourself warmed up to the idea

- dont look at the needle while youre injecting it into the skin, that immediately makes you feel nervous and figity

- get in a position that’s comfortable. maybe you’ll shake if your leg is up on the chair as opposed to sitting down, but if youre the most comfortable its better.

- theres no need to rush. set a time where you can take a few minutes to a few hours to prepare yourself. if that means you need to do it at 3am the next day, do it at 3am the next day.

- focus on the methodical patterns of sanitizing and drawing the injection fluid. human brains love routine, set a standard routine for yourself

- get someone who knows youre on T to chill w you if possible for the first few rounds.

- be somewhere comfy. injecting in ur moms friends bathroom is a lot harder than ur bedroom.

- think about the benefits of the injection (ex. growing a moustache)

- once its in go slow. theres no rush, and IM injections are usually viscose and need time to expand the muscle (to stop the bruised feeling)

- the less you shake the less likely you are to cause tissue damage in the muscle (which makes the bruised feeling as well) so maybe dont do it mid panic attack

- if you cant self inject, go over it with a family member or friend who isnt afraid of needles. needles arent actually very hard to navigate after a few minutes of research.

This turns out to be controversial—the most recent research I’m aware of showed no statistical difference in actual blood levels, but those don’t necessarily correspond to changes that you see. Subcutaneously-delivered T is absorbed slower than intramuscularly-delivered T (there are a lot of blood vessels in your muscle) which translates to less extreme peaks/valleys and a more stable internal hormone profile. Think about it like a gas pedal: If you keep tapping it, you’ll keep jumping forwards and then slowing down, versus if you press down smoothly and accelerate forwards. So, for some people, this can translate to a lower effective dose. It is genuinely a great method, and those are benefits for a lot of people! I think it’s just less commonly used than IM injections because it’s a little more fiddly and can be more anxiety-provoking for people with certain kinds of needle issues (hello).