Injection sites

[Emmal31]

Hi,

I posted a thread about unexplained high's a week or so ago. I have found out finally why they were happening through trial and error. I discovered it was my injections in my tummy which weren't working, I have since stopped injecting in my tummy for the last week. How long should I be avoiding doing my injections in my tummy for? I have my yearly hopsital appointment coming up in 2 weeks and I will be asking if they can take a look at my injecion sites as I am worried about others going the same way. Thank you.

 

[redrevis]

I would say it depends on the amount of build up of extra fat under the skin and how long it takes to get rid of this. There may be some scar tissue there as well. From what I've read, it can take months or even years to get rid of Lipohypertrophy. Best wait and see what the experts say when you see them in a few weeks.

 

[Northerner]

Hi,

I posted a thread about unexplained high's a week or so ago. I have found out finally why they were happening through trial and error. I discovered it was my injections in my tummy which weren't working, I have since stopped injecting in my tummy for the last week. How long should I be avoiding doing my injections in my tummy for? I have my yearly hopsital appointment coming up in 2 weeks and I will be asking if they can take a look at my injecion sites as I am worried about others going the same way. Thank you.

Hi Emma, about a year ago I was told by my consultant to stop injecting in my tummy for a while. It looked fine to me, but I followed his advice and he was right! He also said I would most likely need less insulin when I started with a fresh site, and he was right about that too. I would say that I had probably been using mostly my tummy for about 18 months- 2 years at that time. I now very occasionally use it if I am out and about and it seems to be OK, otherwise I use my bum and my hips. Your DSN or consultant will be best placed to say how long you should avoid the sites for after they have examined them, but as far as I'm aware unless things have got really bad then they should recover in two or three months. There might be other areas you can use around your tummy e.g. my consultant suggested injecting above my belly button, which I hadn't used before - I had always used the sides of my BB. I found it a bit painful there though, so went for the derri?re! 🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Took me about 2 years to be able to trust abdomen again (now using it for the pump so can clearly see it's working OK).

In the meantime I mostly used thigh for rapid and bum for basal.

 

[Northerner]

Just to add that I would imagine that the size of the doses you normally inject most likely play a part in how much local damage is done to a site and therefore how long it takes to recover. Some of my doses are so tiny nowadays that they probably recover very quickly 🙂

 

[Emmal31]

That is the problem that I have as I've always rotated well with my injcetions at the very start I was scared to inject in my arms but once I had tried it, it was fine. The only place I don't really like to inject is my thighs as they always bleed and I get a small lump under the skin for a couple of minutes. I still do injections in my thighs but not as often as the other sites.

I could go back to using my hips again as I haven't used them since I was pregnant.

Thank you for all the advice.

 

[imtrying]

Hi Emma,

I'm probably a more extreme case, but I spent about 5 years doing pretty much all my injections in my stomach. In the end I asked my diabetes team and they took 1 look at my stomach and banned me from using that area. I was banned for a year. They also estimated probably about 30% of what I was injecting there wasn't getting through.

Hope yours sort themselves out quickly.