-- measure out from the hip bone to find the proper injection site on the butt.

-- ice the butt area about two to five minutes to numb.

-- Throw the needle in like a dart fast and deep.

-- Pull back and aspirate to check for blood.

-- Wait a little bit longer, then inject slowly over three - five minutes.

-- While injecting, don't move the needle, if possible, and when done, place fingers over the site between the needle and then remove needle quickly.

- Walk around a bit to jostle the stuff into the tissue. Don't massage the way you massage sore tissues. Jostling is what you want to do, and can be done just as easily walking about.

Done this way, it was absolutely painless. I have not yet had any kind of herx. I went to dinner immediately with friends.

One annoyance: My drug store kept telling me I had everything I needed for the injection. But in fact they forgot to give me the tubex injector and any instructions. I had to call several times, before they realized their mistake. Their excuse was that the shot was usually given at the doctor's office and they had the injector. Wrong. The LLMD has no such injector, nor do any nurses with nursing services. Hospitals may have them. But the unit is very specialized. So make sure you get the complete kit.

So if anyone gets bicillin IM LA, yes, there is a pre-mixed ampule with needle. But you still need the tubex c;ear plastic housing that the ampule drops into-- one that used to be metal but may be clear plastic like mine. And it has a large plunger mechanism. Make sure they give that to you. And if you are not sure the pharmacy will give that, ask that your doctor make the prescription so that it specifies that you need the tubex injector module as well.

Also have your primary care physician with your insurance plan write a Rx for nurse instruction on giving the injection.

Cheers,

I'll be finishing my Rocephin injections which make my brain turn on like a light bulb. Without it, I'm pretty much brain dead.

I see Bicillin in my future.

Thanks a bunch.
Jan

The nurse also said to take a anti-inflammatory about an hour or so before, if possible. Advil or ibuprofen is suitable, if you tolerate them.

I really got shot up today. Earlier in the day I had a tetanus and hepatitis B vaccine in the arm. I did not feel those either.

The only difficult trick to doing the injections yourself is being able to twist your body and visualize the ampule as you aspirate. But it really wasn't that hard.

I practiced with the ampule while the needle cover was still on. And I also practiced injecting with a melon next to where my butt was, and I used a leftover needle kit from when I used to inject my cat with epogen. Flung quickly it goes in like butter, the nurse said. And that was true.

The pharmacy also told they nurse that they gave me a sharps container for disposing of old needles. They did not. I think they have more memory problems than most of the people on this board!

My nurse had an excellent suggestion for doing the shots. Get a tattoo of a bull's eye. That way the bull's eye would have some real value this time. My husband and his friends love to play darts. Maybe I will charge money to have them do the bull's eye on me.

Pooch

I'm glad your shots went well for you, I've been getting them since the end of April.

Just for a heads up, my first few shots didn't hurt at all and no injection site pain after either.

Then all of a sudden I had one that hurt so bad I let out a little scream, (made Roy jump) since then its been hit or miss as far as the pain but they are all tolerable and most I don't feel at all.

Every once in a while you run into a dull needle and it bounces off your skin instead of sliding in. Also like someone else mentioned somewhere make sure the med is at room temp.

I think we all see the same Doc, when he first suggested Bicillin I don't think he had many patients taking it, he told me it was very painful. Now it seems like he has quite a few on it.

We are pretty pleased so far, first time I have consistantly herxed on any abx. My NK cells are up to 100, they started at 50 and have done nothing but go down in the last three years, until this last report. Horray!

That just goes to show how different each pharmacy can be. Tuttles in Santa Rosa gave me my Tubex (mine is solid blue) when I picked up my Rx and He showed me and Roy how to use it. I also have a different type of injector they gave me that I use with the Dilauded carpujects.

Meghan, it would be nice to see you again, let me know when your next appointment is and if you want I can come over and we can hit the Cheesecake Factory.

Driving to his office will only take about 20 mins from Tiburon, Sometime I want to try the Blue and Gold Ferry from Angel Island and take a cable car or bus to his office.

Hey Pooch, you are welcome to come to. Maybe we can get hold of Julie also. That was so much fun when we met before!

My next appointment is on October 15 at noon but I don't mind coming over even on a day I don't have a appointment.

I hope you both do well on Bicillin.

Cindy ><>

------------------

Well, finally, yesterday I started to Herx, I upped my usual dose of two Hydrocodone to three. This morning, I couldn't even get out of bed until three of them "took affect." My worse symptoms of my herx is the joint pain in my larger joints, especially my hip joints.

Hopefully this will not last more than a day or two, for tomorrow I get another shot of Bicillin.

I can tell that I've been off all abx for the past year and that my bacteria load has definitely gotten higher. This herx started on day 5 for up until yesterday, I was feeling, well, less pain.

The plan with my LLMD is to do 6-8 shots, but, since my PCP ordered 8-10, I think that prehaps I should do 10 before going on to the next abx that he has prescribed.

he was really resistant at the time....i had only asked cause i know of a lymenet friend who goes to dr. b and was getting bicillin shots a long time ago...before it became the latest thing....that was about a year ago...I knew that they had helped her tremendously...and he would have had her on IV, although she couldn't afford it.

but our doctor is always willing to change his mind on things if he sees that enough people are having success with somethin i guess.

But am really glad to hear that everyone is doing so well on the bicillin...

and like smokey, i was the MOST affected thus far by bicillin injections (BY FAR)...i have neurological lyme...and have had a persistent eye symptom since day one...it is the ONLY abx that has affected that symptom to the point of making it much worse...very scary...but a good sign...anyways...i know that it hit smokey hard too and just wanted to make that point...
take care guys.
meghan (oski)

Thanks for letting us know all went well.

I too considered drawing a bullseye on my behind to help me.

My mind is foggy this am, but I was a little concerned when you mentioned Hep. shots.

While searching for answers of why I was sick, one doc said that he thought the Hep series I took could be part of my problems.

The school district I was working for at the time recommended the series of shots...especially if you were working with special ed. I was working in special ed at the time.

The doctor said that mercury was used with these shots at the time I took them. He also said other things about the shots that I don't recall at this time. But, the bottom line was that he did not recommend them.

I also recall running across something on the web site about people who had this series of shots and were now having problems.

I know you don't need more to deal with. Hopefully, whatever it was that was causing problems for people with the shots have been corrected.

I am trying to recall the docs name but can't right now. He is in Santa Rosa I believe. I know he was on the medical board in Alaska. If it comes to me I will let you know. He was a doctor who thought out of the box so to speak.

And i had compiled info from a number of different posts in the past....

The nurse at the Travel Clinic told me that the main drawback she was aware of with the shot for someone with immune problems --and she listed several example chronic diseases -- is that the immune system might not make enough antibodies if it is depressed.

But I weighed the pros and cons, and I decided it would be a whole lot worse if I got hep B and had to deal with that chronic illness as well. I am going on a medical mission in a poor country and will be with a doctor the natives recognize. They all coming to him for all manner of problems, from gunshot wound to broken bones. And I may be called into service. So I need to be protected against hep B.

Thus far, I feel fine. No Herx. I will see what happens over the month. But I am hoping that I have gotten the worst of the disease behind me (so to speak). My energy level has been great. Pain from neuropathy is tolerable. I still have these seizure-like episodes. And we are trying to determine whether they are just Lyme weirdness or true seizures.

I did not have a difficult time aspirating and visualizing. But I knew already from practice with the uncapped syringe that I had to hold the needle still with my left hand, while pulling up on the plunger with my right.

I recommend that you practice with the empty tubex. I practiced also with a clean syringe kit that was leftover from days when I injected my cat when she was in renal failure. You can inject a melon (your skin is softer and easier to inject than a melon, by the way). Practice holding the syringe and pulling up.

My nurse had me pull up about a half inch or more. I saw no blood, so I had the go ahead to push in. The nurse said some people have a hard time injecting themselves. It's the idea of the needle entering them. That's why I think it helps to practice the motion on a melon. Focus on the target, not the needle.

You might also do what my travel clinic nurse does...she asked me to take a breath, then puff it out. At the puff, she injects. She does that for everyone. I didn't even feel the needle go in. Then again, I have never minded needles. The worst is when an inexperienced or insensitive nurse jostles the needle when changing tubes for taking blood. We've all had that!

My instructing nurse did recommend alternating sides. He said you are causing trauma to the tissue. So it's best to alternate. Whether I can do this as a leftie is another matter! But I'm game.

(little color pun intended up there)

Had to speak up regarding the Hep B shots. And the tubex injectors-they are related to me!!!

I was working as a nurse in the mid-late 80's and being a youngun', I thought I could whip out those tubex shots no problemo. This was when tubexes were metal. Anyway, I was attemtping to recap the needle into the slender red rubber needle cap, when the needle slid through the red rubber needle cap (sheath) and punctured the side wall of the needle cap, right into my middle finger!!!
When I first read Pooch's description of injecting herself, saw "tubex" I almost flipped my lid, not knowing that tubex's were still made and used.

I was going to post to never ever ever use this type injector, but it looks like some dolt head reinvented the design, and now the modern day tubex is plastic, not metal? Maybe they redesigned the needle cap, or disposal of the needle itself, since that is where the problem lies. Not that anyone here giving themselves Bicillin injections is risking losing their life to Aids from an accidental needle stick, but if you are having another person inject the Bicillin for you, and the needle cap design of the Tubex injector is still the same (rubberized cap) beware that if you decide to recap the needle (say you don't have a sharps disposal like Poochini) you can run the risk of needle sticks.

That said, since I actually did get myself with a dirty needle in the finger thanks to the old design of the old fashioned 80's style Tubex injectors, I had to have a Hepatitis B vaccine!!! See, I can relate all these things together!!

And since I had the old style Hep B vaccinations, I have to wonder myself about those and related issues to having Lyme. See, I was a silly nurse, not only did I have one accidental dirty needle stick, but I actually had 3 of them, all in a years time. The first one, the Tubex one, was my fault entirely, but the following 2 needle sticks were another nurses fault.

So, I had 2 series of the Hep B vaccinations. One year apart. I did not have a choice in having these. It was scary times back then, and AIDs transmissions were all the talk, so I had that to worry about too.

I do have to say that I did NOT let the pediatricians give either one of my sons Hep B vaccines when it came time in their vaccinations schedules to have them. This was also a newer type thing for kids, and at the time, I knew my kids were not really going to be exposed to possibly contracting this disease (Hep B) and so I said no. Now I"m glad, because they both have Lyme, and I would always wonder if I'd let them have the Hep B vaccines, if that had in fact made them sicker.

I, too, have visions of doing this once I am well. Strange. I never considered it before lyme, but now it is one of my...goals, desires, wishes?

I'd like to go with the LLMD who is treating me. I know he takes at least a month out of each year to do this.

We complain about our health care here, but I imagine it is nothing compared to what others are dealing with in the 3rd World Countries.