Your provider and pharmacy should give you guidance on the right insulin needle for your treatment. Intramuscular needles are longer to ensure the medication reaches the muscle. The size of the syringe depends on the amount of medication it can hold. We’ll go over the different syringe sizes, how to read the markings on the syringe, how to calculate the number of units in your dose, and more. If you’re ready to get started, our knowledgeable urologists can offer personalized recommendations for women as individuals or couples. Determining how to treat low testosterone in females requires a close partnership with an experienced physician.
This guide breaks down both injection methods—how they work, their pros and cons, and which might be right for you. Most men starting TRT assume there’s only one way to inject—but injection method significantly impacts your experience.
Subcutaneous injections deliver testosterone into the fatty tissue layer just beneath the skin, rather than into muscle. Intramuscular injections deliver testosterone cypionate directly into muscle tissue. However, subcutaneous injections have gained significant traction in recent years, offering patients a potentially more comfortable alternative with comparable results. For decades, intramuscular injections were the standard for testosterone cypionate delivery. Read these subcutaneous injection instructions to make sure you understand how to administer your medication correctly. Smaller needles lead to more painless injections, but larger gauges can be necessary for a variety of reasons.
Sarah has over 10 years of experience teaching and practicing phlebotomy and intravenous (IV) therapy using physical, psychological, and emotional support. For health-related questions or concerns, please seek guidance from a qualified healthcare provider. Content on this website is intended for educational purposes and should not replace professional medical consultation, diagnosis, or care. Payment for services does not ensure that medication will be prescribed or dispensed. NRG Clinic operates as a patient management platform, providing administrative and operational services to support the medical professionals of Energy Virtual Medical PA. Start your personalized treatment plans tailored to your unique needs and goals, all from the convenience of your own home. In some cases, IM may be the better choice for very lean patients.
Unlike in Europe, Canada, and much of the rest of the world, oral testosterone undecanoate is not available in the United States. Major brand names of testosterone and/or its esters include Andriol, Androderm, AndroGel, Axiron, Delatestryl, Depo-Testosterone, Intrinsa, Nebido, Omnadren, Primoteston, Sustanon, Testim, TestoGel, TestoPatch, Testoviron, and Tostran. There is a medical condition called late-onset hypogonadism; according to Thomas Perls and David J. Handelsman, writing in a 2015 editorial in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, it appears that this condition is overdiagnosed and overtreated.
Finally, insert the needle at a 90-degree angle and inject the testosterone. You should also wipe down the injection site using a sterile alcohol pad. To prevent an embolism, fully aspirate the syringe before you inject it, so there are no air bubbles left in the dose. When you're ready, use a sterile needle and syringe to extract the appropriate dosage, based on the concentration of the testosterone you have. Before you give someone a shot of testosterone, make sure they don't have prostate or breast cancer, since this could worsen their condition.
Many bodybuilders share this experience. Keep testosterone vials in a cool, dry place. This step keeps your dose steady and safe.
For testosterone undecanoate, limited published data suggest that slower injection (over 2-3 minutes) can be safely administered into the subcutaneous tissue of the abdomen using a 21-gauge 25-mm needle (26). Thus, drugs that are easier to administer and are relatively inexpensive result in greater compliance, particularly among patients who require lifelong therapy (54, 55), such as men with organic hypogonadism. Data suggest that, in general, medications that require long-term administration have compliance rates between 40% and 50% (54). In a similar study by the same investigators in 150 hypogonadal men, 125 participants experienced a treatment-emergent adverse event, with 30 discontinuing therapy as a result of these events (27). Although the published studies of SC testosterone administration have not observed serious local adverse reactions (23, 47), mild local reactions were common.