Humira

So I have a couple of questions regarding Humira. I started on Tuesday and because my doctors office did not allocate for a nurse to come out I did the injections myself with no help except a nurse who was on the phone with me from Abbvie. I did the first shot great and then the other 3 after I pulled the needle out after 10 seconds it looked like most of the medicine ran down my leg. I did not want to tell the nurse on the phone because I obviously didn't do something right. Any ideas so that in two weeks I don't do it again. This is my first time on Humira and would like it to work. Any advice would be appreciated!!

I'm using the pre-filled pens

Did you feel the needle go into your skin? Any pain when you did the shot like stinging? You need to tell them if you suspect that all or any of might not have gone in to your system.

Where exactly did you inject and how? Did you pinch the skin and hold it the whole time you injected?

I use it weekly myself.

Did that happen with all 3 pens? Did you let go of it and then click it down again? You're suppose to hold it down the whole 10 seconds (until the yellow marker in the window reaches the bottom of the window and stops moving) and hold your pinched skin the whole time as well...you didn't say where or how you did your injections.

Your training pen was suppose to come in your Humira kit, before you even got your RX.


Some liquid will come out of the pen (drips) but that's normal and they allow for that to happen and it doesn't affect the amount of med that's suppose to be injected into you.

So before the yellow marker appeared in the window you let the top purple part go then pushed it down again? Am I understanding that correctly? And did you pinch the area you were injecting and held the pinch until you were done injecting?

I didn't even really use the training pen, I just checked it out to see what it was all about and practiced once with it, the card and other literature made it clear how to do the injection.

Did you hold the pen at a 90 degree angel as you administered it?

That's what you did wrong, you're not suppose to let go until after 10 seconds when the yellow marker in the window is completely showing. Hold firm for the full amount of time, I don't know if the needle would have gone back in after you pushed it the second time or not, the practice pen doesn't have a needle in it so I have no clue if it would have gone back in and continued injecting the rest of your meds but since you said there was a lot of liquid on your skin chances are it didn't go all into your system, make sure you let your doc know, he may want you to redo some of them again, like 3 next time or something, rather than just 2? Best to discuss with your doc or call Humira about it.

No problem!! It happens, heck I had a GP at a walk in clinic do my first 4 shots for me as a precaution due to having bad reactions to meds in the past, and even he screwed up my first pen, he treated it like it was a needle like he'd never seen an injection pen before and he was holding it up in the air looking through the little window of the pen and then pushes it like he's trying to get air out of it (like a regular needle) the liquid shot out and emptied completely out of the pen, he yells crap lol and then realized what it was all about lol....good thing I had all 6 of my pens with me, I had just picked them all up from the pharmacy so they had to send me out an extra pen for the one the doctor screwed up so don't feel bad, if a doctor of all people can get confused then anyone can.