Question for you other nurses

[CathyA]

I figured this was the place to get the most answers. I think several of you are nurses. When I was practicing, I gave a ton of shots. Well in the past couple of years, when I got a shot at the doc's office, they never aspirated the injection before proceeding. (For others, that means pushing the needle on the syringe into the muscle (or wherever), but pulling back on the plunger first, to be sure you're not in a vessel, then injecting the substance.

Today I got my pneumococcal injection, and she didn't aspirate it first. I asked her why they don't do that anymore and she didn't know what I was talking about. I tried to explain to her that it was pulling back with the plunger while in the muscle, to be sure you're not in a vessel. She didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I said "Maybe getting blood back happens so infrequently, they don't teach that anymore." Then I told her that it happened to me a couple times.....where I got blood back, and needed to reposition the needle. She said "Well I HOPE I wouldn't get any blood, since it's in a muscle!!" Oh dear. Here's hoping what she gave me at least was the right stuff......... :0!

So....did/do you always aspirate when giving an injection?

[Gardnr]

ALWAYS! i didn't watch my flu vac last weekend. Have no idea if that young this aspirated or not!

[Tammy]

Always

[Tammy]

But then I found this

https://www.amsn.org/practice-resources/care-term-reference/medications/question-what-current-practice-for-giving-im

[CathyA]

Hmmm....that's interesting Tammy. I hadn't thought about the pre-filled vaccines not even having the capability of aspirating.

Of course muscles have vessels going through them, but maybe the ones in the upper arm, etc., don't have big enough ones to inject all of a medication to make it potentially dangerous with a certain med.
I know I got blood back once in a deltoid injection. I know I've read that if it's a very potent med, that could cause problems if it suddenly went systemic, but I don't know if anyone thinks about that.
Interesting. Thanks for that article.

[Tammy]

I’m a psych nurse, and yes we give injections frequently. But I’ve been a supervisor and manager since 2015 so I decided to google to see if anything changed, and I was surprised to see that it had.