Everybody knows I am a big wimp when it comes to pain. Everybody also knows that I am a bigger wimp when it comes to needles! So getting those hormonal jabs each cycle are always painful and dreadful to me. When my doctor changed my medicine for this treatment cycle to Gonal-F I thought nothing of it and presumed that the procedure of self-injection would be the same.
Gonal-F is actually a synthetic hormonal injection whereas the ones I was prescribed before this (Menonys and Menopur) were natural based hormonal injections. Upon receiving the boxes of Gonal-F, I was already psyching myself up to endure another round of painful jabs on the tummy. When the nurse showed me a sample of an opened box I saw that the big box contained a pen much alike those injection pens diabetic patients uses for their insulin injections. Then she showed me the sample of the smaller box which contained a syringe, a bottle of powdered medicine and two needles (one is VERY big and the other one small). She then showed me how to administer the injection, and I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear. The needles were very fine and short! Hurrah!! In my head I was already jumping up and down brimming with happinnes and high hopes that the short and fine needle would not hurt as much as the old conventional syringes I've encountered.
Using the pen is so simple. Since the pen is already preloaded with the medicine, all I had to do was attach the needle, twist the dosage indicator to the right amount of dosage needed, pull the end tab of the pen until there's a click sound and then I'm good to go. Here's how the box of Gonal-F injection pen looks like and how I prepared the set for my injecton:
My set of injectables - the preloaded pen and needle sets.
The pen uncapped.
Screwing on the needle set. Need two hands for this actually.
Twisting the twister mechanism at the back of the pen to the exact amount of dosage I need.
Pulling the tab to lock the dosage chosen. A click sound is heard indicating that the pen is locked and loaded.
Pulling off the needle set cap.
Pulling off the needle cap.
The preloaded pen with very fine needle ready to be injected into my tummy.
Seeing that the needle was quite short and fine, I mustered up the courage to do the injection myself! All my injections were administered by my dear hubby before this. The Gonal-F pen surprisingly didn't hurt as much as the conventional syringes that I have encountered before. I was quite worried about the pain at first but just winged it and was pleasantly surprised that it didn't burn as much. The first time I used the pen, I fumbled a bit and was worried that I didn't push the end tab of the pen to the right amount. My worries were relieved when I did my second injection and found that the end of the pen stops at the same place when I first did the injection.
The dosage I needed was 150IU for each injection and the pen was preloaded with 375IU. So, for the third day, I had to do two injections - first with the pen with the remaining 75IU and the second injection with another set of Gonal-F with 75IU. The second set from the smaller box needed to be mixed first because this set was not a preloaded type of injection.
My set of extra 75IU Gonal F injection.
The syringe was already preloaded with solution. The nurse advised me to just use half of the solution because too much will probably make the injection a bit painful. The security cap had to be broken off so that the needle can be attached.
Preloaded solution inside the syringe.
The cap of the syringe broken off and ready for the needle to be attached.
The first needle needed was the long and thick needle. Thankfully this BIG needle is not for injection purposes! When the nurse showed me that needle I was already sweating buckets! Hehe.. The needle has to be inserted into the powdered medicine vial. After about half of the solution is injected into the vial, the rest of the solution on the syringe needs to be disposed and the empty syringe put aside capped, and the mixed medicine needs to be gently rolled in between my palm to mix them properly. The vial cannot be roughly handled because we do not want bubbles forming in the solution. The mixed medicine is now ready to be sucked back into the empty syringe gently (also to avoid bubbles).
Big needle. Yikes!
Breaking off the safety cap of the first needle.
Attaching the needle to the syringe.
Inserting the needle into the medicine vial.
Gently rolling the mixture.
Re-sucking the medicine into the syringe.
Attaching the injecting needle.
The needle uncapped.
The loaded syringe ready to be used.
Close up on the fine needle.
( ^_^ )
