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Injecting through clothing???

Last week in an airport terminal I was trying to be discrete and wasn't looking closely. Shirt 1 needle bent 90° and insulin all over my shirt. Alas it had nicked the skin, so I didn't know how much I had and how much my shirt had.
Shirt and I survived to attack another day. It hasn't damaged my clothing. I only found out about a few years ago on this forum. I sae a Diabetic Educator our to pump selection training etc and she told me to go down from an 8mm needle to 4mm, great for no shirt and very thin shirts. When I saw her next and she asked about the 4mm I said they are great depending on the shirt thickness, the look I got was priceless, she then mumbled something that inferred it was very common practice that she would love to stamp out and the reuse and reuse of pen caps on Novo Rapid and I assume equivalent brands
 
I did/do it through tights with a syringe and vial. (Have a pump so not so much anymore)
 
How many people who inject insulin through clothing does it take to make a halfwit? Seriously, other than inadvertently bending the needle the only bad thing I could see happening is you could carry a small amount of fabric with the needle into the subQ space where it could get infected and form a small abscess. Not likely but possible.
 
therower said:
Inject through t-shirts definitely. Just beware that injecting through a light coloured t-shirt will inevitably result in a slight bleed after injecting. It's just Sod's law.
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I did it for years and you're so right, always bleeds when you don't expect it to.
 
Quite hard to inject in the middle of a meeting in girl clothes - so through tights it is. Don't think the needles would make it through anything thicker.
 
You know what's really depressing.

Total injections age 0-24... umm I don't know 20 or so?

Total injections since September 2017? Somewhere over 500. That is not very nice to think about.

PS that's just injections not sticks... as we say on the internet FML
 
I think i did a rough calculations on the total of number of times I've injected as my son asked, and it went something like this:-

Ages 3-10 1 a day = 7x365 = 2555
Ages 10-42 2 a day = 12x365x2 = 23360

So about 25,915 in total not including days where you take additional shots or blood tests etc so I'd say in total I'm on a 3k shots since diagnosis in 1978.
 
I've been injecting through jeans, jumpers and jock straps for 27 years. Call it four injections a day (beep, boop, boop, beep) and that's 49,275 (give or take a few leap years) and I've not once had a problem with it. No infections, no missed doses, no bent needles and no more noticeable pain.

All the advice says not to do it so make your own choice.

J
 
I learnt about injecting through clothing on this site and it has been a real bonus, either skip the bolus or through the shirt. Unfortunately it's now a habit and I frequently inject through clothing at home, without thinking about it. As for bulletin, I tend to bleed more from Lantus and I don't inject that through clothing.
 
Never done it and never would.

On a related note, has anyone actually ever got infected from their insulin injection? I sometimes worry given that I never wipe / disinfect my skin before injecting.
 
Circuspony said:
Quite hard to inject in the middle of a meeting in girl clothes - so through tights it is. Don't think the needles would make it through anything thicker.
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Well it's not like we can just drop our trousers down...

On a serious point however, the advice that used to be offered 30 years ago is very different to the advice offered now. I remember when starting out that a needle should be used 4-5 times before it is disposed of. And in fact the only reason why I injected through clothes for so many years was because that is what I was advised by my nurse!

Times have changed and with it, so has the advice.
 

Same here. I often take my long acting through my jeans/work trousers and when in public I don't always lift my top to inject in my stomach. Been diabetic 15 years and never had any issues with it. By the time I found out I wasn't supposed to I'd been doing it so long without issues I didn't see the point starting now.
 
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Meh, I do it through my suit trousers at work. It's fine, don't worry about it.

I wouldn't do it through things like jeans tho.
 
pinewood said:
Never done it and never would.

On a related note, has anyone actually ever got infected from their insulin injection? I sometimes worry given that I never wipe / disinfect my skin before injecting.
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I've got infected fingertips from the blood glucose stabbing a couple of times, but never the insulin injection site.
 
God I remember being told to do it on a diabetes holiday when I must've been about 10 using vial and syringe, never done it since then though. It's rare I can't access some sort of injection site even if it's not one of the normally recommended areas.
 
I’ve done it for years but if I’m dressed to go out just do it in skin in case of blood stain !
 
I've injected through clothing on several occasions jeans included and never had a problem, a spot of blood maybe but no extra pain. I think we all have to accept that there are some fantastic people out there who have developed some great equipment to make our lives that much easier , if you have been injecting for 40 years or more you will know what I mean, it's not easy but far better than it was!
 
I was told 20 years ago that it was perfectly fine to inject through clothes by my diabetic nurse. Obviously we know differently now. But old habits die hard. So yes I do inject through clothes. I find it more convenient when out and about no body even notices.
 
How on earth would you inject through a pair of selvage jeans with something like a 0.5mm superfine needle. F**k i'm gonna give it ago.
 
O_DP_T1 said:
How on earth would you inject through a pair of selvage jeans with something like a 0.5mm superfine needle. F**k i'm gonna give it ago.
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Did it work? Or are you still trying to get the needle through? You might have to use a hammer, but if you do, remember to dial up your insulin dose only after getting the needle in your leg. Otherwise the hammer will push the plunger too early.
 
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