Bicillin Injection challenges - very frustrated! Need help/suggestions!

Hi folks,
I've been having a heck of a time injecting Bicillin into DD. I have read dozens of instruction documents, watched dozens of YouTube videos, had a very experienced RN friend try to help me out... and non of it is working consistently.

We got the Bicillin from Mexico, and it comes in powered form, that I reconstitute with saline (which is in a pre-measured vial included in the box). I've figured that part out just fine. Her dose is 2.4 mil (10cc of medicine) every 2 weeks. I original split the dose into two 5cc syringes, but I read that that's a lot of medicine to push into the muscle, so today I split it into 3 separate syringes (3 cc's of medicine in each 5 cc syringe). I started out with 23 gauge needles, but today tried it with 21 gauge, because my RN friend thought maybe the medication was getting clogged in the small gauge needle. She tried injecting DD herself, and was unable to do it (with the 23 gauge) and said in all of her 30+ years of nursing, she's never had this problem.

The crazy thing is that a few times it has gone in perfectly fine, while most of the time, I literally cannot get the syringe to budge, once it's in DD. I try pulling back (aspirating) just a tiny bit, but the syringe seems to gets pressurized and the plunger just WILL.NOT.PLUNGE. When it doesn't dispense, and I remove the needle, it usually won't dispense even when out of her. Then if I push and pull, and push and pull, and remove the airlock or the small blockage of medicine (or whatever is happening) the med squirts out with force.

I've tried everything I can think of and have read. I make sure that the medicine is at room temp, and that it is thoroughly mixed. Today we tried injecting into the hip area, instead of the buttock area, and that went a little better, but I still had to attempt about 5 times for each success (and I never got the 3rd syringe fully injected). I've tried ensuring that there is no air bubble at all, and then I've tried leaving a tiny bit of air, as some online documents have suggested. I've tried moving the needle around a little bit, to try to create a slight "tunnel" for the medicine to go into, as another nurse friend suggested. If I can't inject the medicine, I pull out the needle, change it, and try a new needle to ensure no blockage.

When it works, I cannot figure out what I did correctly to make it work, and it seems more random than anything.

Today was quite an ordeal. The only good thing is that I've learned to do the "poke" itself extremely well! Poor DD's hip/butt looks like a freaking pin cushion. My husband keeps telling me that I should be asking a doctor, but honestly nurses know this stuff much better, and my RN friend has given thousands of injections of the years, and is completely baffled.

The only thing that I can think of is to try injecting her while she's standing up or perhaps bent over? Maybe gravity is pushing the medicine too quickly into the needle where it's clogging? I'm clearly grasping at straws here...

Anyone out there have any other suggestions?? Anyone inject or have received reconstituted Bicillin with any success? If it matters, DD is fairly thin, but not without a very "average" amount of padding around the hip/butt area.

~Frustrated Mom

Post Edited (UCSDMom) : 6/18/2017 1:33:25 PM (GMT-6)

From the articles I read they state that the powdered form tends to clog the needles. Hopefully, someone with experience using the powdered form will be stopping by.

Patty

UCSD,

I use to have similar issues when doing intramuscular rocephine. Still haven't figured out why sometimes were easier than others because I felt like I did everything the same.

What I did notice was that the times it was harder was usually because the needle was not in far enough. I always would inject in the buttock area as well. Another problem that made it more difficult is if I hit a blood vessel. I was told to always check for that by pulling up on the plunger to make sure no blood was coming into the syringe (if I remember that correctly). I honestly never did this because its hard enough to inject yourself when you have to turn that far around. As a result I would sometimes hit a blood vessel and it would be incredibly difficult to inject, would cause a lot of pain and resulted in hard bumps in my skin that have never fully gone away. For the most part the injections went smoothly though and I was using a 25g needle. Not sure what the viscosity differences are between rochephin and bicillin but it's a hard to believe you would have to use something bigger.

Sorry your having such a rough time with this. Hope some of the info shared helps.