Put it somewhere dry and hairless
Feb. 25th, 2008 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radfrac_archive_fullSo I got my doctor to switch my prescription over from intramuscular injection to topical gel.
I've been doing my own injections since a few months after the ex-co-con absconded with his affections. I've never liked it, but I was proud to be able to do it. And it was better than having Weird Walk-in Doc perform the ritual.
I have these sort of rotating phobias, though, especially under stress. Over the last eight months or so it's been the Inflation Phobia -- this terror that injecting was going to somehow cause me to swell up with edema. Probably it was some kind of underlying awareness that the angioedema was going to flare up. I have, as I have mentioned, rather inflammatory responses to stress.
I did the shots anyway, because I knew the phobia was illogical, but it was a less than fun couple of hours afterwards. Since the angioedema started I have to forbid myself from looking in the mirror for long, or I start to imagine my face is swelling up.
Also, I use up about thirty alcohol wipes making sure the injection site is really, really, really sterilized.
Even in low phobia mode, I have trouble injecting on the left. You're supposed to alternate sides so that you don't build up scar tissue, but it's a victory to get the thing done at all and I let myself cheat as often as not. Which means, of course, that I have built up scar tissue. Which is fine for spanking purposes, but not so much for injecting.
That phobia's eased back a little of late, but the stress of being in school means that all anxieties, across the sound board if you like, have the volume turned up a couple of notches. So finally, at my hard-won appointment on Thursday*, I asked my doctor about a different delivery system.
He said there was nothing wrong with that. Ho! Used to be that injection was the only Reasonable Choice. Everything else was destined to make your liver explode. Better living through modern chemistry!
He said something about a patch, but what it turns out to be is little silver foil packs of gel, about the size of the narrow lube packs you get in safer sex kits. You open it up and you smear that sucker on.
It's an alcohol gel, so it dries fairly quickly, but it leaves this powdery residue on your skin. Like Man Pollen.
The doctor phoned the order in to the drug store, and I went in to pick it up. I sat down across from the pharmacy assistant, who went over the Rules somewhat haphazardly with me.
"Does it matter where you put it?" I asked.
He struggled quietly for a moment. "Put it somewhere... dry and hairless."
"I understand." I said.
{rf}
*That is several other stories.
I've been doing my own injections since a few months after the ex-co-con absconded with his affections. I've never liked it, but I was proud to be able to do it. And it was better than having Weird Walk-in Doc perform the ritual.
I have these sort of rotating phobias, though, especially under stress. Over the last eight months or so it's been the Inflation Phobia -- this terror that injecting was going to somehow cause me to swell up with edema. Probably it was some kind of underlying awareness that the angioedema was going to flare up. I have, as I have mentioned, rather inflammatory responses to stress.
I did the shots anyway, because I knew the phobia was illogical, but it was a less than fun couple of hours afterwards. Since the angioedema started I have to forbid myself from looking in the mirror for long, or I start to imagine my face is swelling up.
Also, I use up about thirty alcohol wipes making sure the injection site is really, really, really sterilized.
Even in low phobia mode, I have trouble injecting on the left. You're supposed to alternate sides so that you don't build up scar tissue, but it's a victory to get the thing done at all and I let myself cheat as often as not. Which means, of course, that I have built up scar tissue. Which is fine for spanking purposes, but not so much for injecting.
That phobia's eased back a little of late, but the stress of being in school means that all anxieties, across the sound board if you like, have the volume turned up a couple of notches. So finally, at my hard-won appointment on Thursday*, I asked my doctor about a different delivery system.
He said there was nothing wrong with that. Ho! Used to be that injection was the only Reasonable Choice. Everything else was destined to make your liver explode. Better living through modern chemistry!
He said something about a patch, but what it turns out to be is little silver foil packs of gel, about the size of the narrow lube packs you get in safer sex kits. You open it up and you smear that sucker on.
It's an alcohol gel, so it dries fairly quickly, but it leaves this powdery residue on your skin. Like Man Pollen.
The doctor phoned the order in to the drug store, and I went in to pick it up. I sat down across from the pharmacy assistant, who went over the Rules somewhat haphazardly with me.
"Does it matter where you put it?" I asked.
He struggled quietly for a moment. "Put it somewhere... dry and hairless."
"I understand." I said.
{rf}
*That is several other stories.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
man pollen
Date: 2008-02-25 04:34 pm (UTC)I love the image of man pollen, that's delightful.
I know what you mean about school and stress though my love. I used to just be constipated a lot. I now have irritable bowel syndrome (yuck) (which my little sister, the medic, helpfully pointed out just means they don't know what's wrong). I know what's wrong: it's stress. It partly went away over the winter break, when there was no school and very little work stress to boot.
Re: man pollen
Date: 2008-02-26 04:51 am (UTC)Ouf. Must get away from computer. Back. Pain.
This you know well.
{rf}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 04:53 am (UTC)I like that he was not quite able to say any variant of "Do not apply it to Those Parts."
{rf}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 06:43 pm (UTC)Modern technology, it's crazy. I should be able to get the Pill in gel form, then, non? I want some gel for my hairless, dry parts!