Gulteal shots

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Specializes in ED.

In school they told us we shouldn't really give IM injections in the dorsal gluteal muscle anymore. Where I work everyone gives the IM in the DG and they have been telling me to use that site because it's not as painful. Is using the DG really that bad? How people actually have complications from it?

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The recommended site for IM injections is the ventrogluteal muscle.

I don't know any of the numbers, but according to every place I've read, all other sites have injuries associated with them including nerve damage, necrosis, gangrene, and pain.

So I'll go with the research and do the ventrogluteal muscle. Just because I haven't seen adverse affects from other sites doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

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Specializes in tele, stepdown/PCU, med/surg.

The ventrogluteal muscle is safer; you generally don't have to worry about accidentally hitting the sciatic nerve. Plus, it actually let's patients have slightly more modesty while getting the injection.

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

Once I educated our GYN patients about the reason for using this site about 98 out of 100 said it was less painful than DG, and it is certainly much safer. It is very hard to change ingrained habits of people though.

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