There has been a lot of talk lately about where to inject. I think the first step is to become familiar with the nervous system of the body. That is the number one and most important thing one should educate themselves on in my opinion before undertaking any self injections.

Not only is hitting a nerve probably going to be one of the most painful and worst experiences you have ever encountered, there is a real possibility that you will do permanent damage to your body.

Here is a link to an interactive website that shows you where the major nerves run throughout the body. You can view both the male and female nervous systems as well as front and back views. You can also zoom in to specific areas like the upper torso. It's pretty neat and easy to understand and navigate for the layman.

http://www.innerbody.com/anatomy/nervous-male

Become familiar with the diagrams in this website. You will quickly figure out that certain areas are better than others, and that some seemingly Intimidating areas like Traps are really not as bad as they seem and more appealing areas such as Biceps and Triceps (due to the ease of access) are really more problematic and dicey.

Another great website is “spotinjections.com”. It has a visual representation of the different sites that are available for self injection. Try to match the suggested sites to what you have learned about the nervous system from the website above. This will give you the best chances at avoiding some serious problems when it comes to hitting nerves.

http://www.spotinjections.com/index3.htm

If you lack experience stick with the tried-and-true (glutes, delts, and outer thigh), and keep your total volume under 2cc.

For the inexperienced (or as a reminder for the experienced ) here are a few tips, in no particular order.

1. Make sure never to inject the same area twice and to have at least a 14 day break before you go back to the same area, the longer the break the better.

2. Do not forget to aspirate.

3. Do not forget to work with a sterile environment, which includes wiping the injection site with alcohol for 30 seconds as well as the top of the vile for 30 seconds.

4. Wash your hands before self injecting. I personally use a little bit of rubbing alcohol as soap.

5. Always use a new sterile syringe.

6. Use larger gauge needles to draw the compound then switch to a smaller gauge needle (this way there is no dulling of the needle as well as less trauma to the injection site) for the actual injection.

7. Make sure it takes you at least 30 seconds to complete the injection, in other words go slow and do not rush it.

8. Do not use the syringe as a dart and jam it into your site injection. Push in slowly. I know this may seem counterintuitive but it is the right way to do it and causes less trauma. Practice on an orange. The orange peel is a great simulation to the real thing and is often used in med schools for practice purposes.

9. At the end of your injection wait 30 seconds before you pull out the syringe.

10. Make sure you dispose of your syringe properly (a lot of people skip on this, which in my opinion is morally wrong).

11. Whatever compound you are injecting into your body should be warmed up to body temperature, especially if it is oil-based.

12. After you are done with the injection, wipe the site with alcohol again and put a clean fresh Band-Aid.

13. For intramuscular injections make sure you use a long enough syringe. 1 inch would be considered minimum (for areas with no fat) and 1.5 inches for areas with considerable adipose tissue. The best that I've seen in my personal experience are the 1.25 inch 27gauge syringes.

14. Before you actually start the injection, during the aspiration process, let one small drop run down the whole length of the needle. This in my opinion helps with a smoother injection.

I hope the community finds this information helpful.

If you have a story where you hit a nerve please share with the community that experience below.