Heparin - syringe to use?

[pistolchick]

Drug book says 25 gauge and 3/8" syringe for heparin, no rationale. Anyone wanna fill me in? At a previous job, insulin syringes were routinely used (still 1 ml)...

[RNBSNxo]

syringes are not measured in gauges or '', wish I could see the book. For PIV we have to draw up the heparin ourselves and it is a 1mL syringe, for CVC they are prefilled 3mL.

[pistolchick]

I'm talking about the needle size when I'm referring to gauge/", should've been more specific....

[Ellekat]

We use TB syringes (still 1ml). Our insulin syringes don't allow the needle to be changed; we have 25ga needlles and use the 5/8" length. We don't need longer to go into the SQ tissue. I'm assuming you are giving prophylactic heparin?

[grandmawrinkle]

Your drug book says 25g needle (thin) and 3/8 inch (short) because it is referring to the type of NEEDLE that is recommended when giving a SQ heparin injection. That is a typical SQ needle size.

Typically heparin SQ comes in a 1cc vial, so you could use whatever size syringe you wanted to draw up the 1cc of heparin in (most people I have seen use a 1cc, but you could use a 3cc).

You should NOT be using insulin syringes for anything other than insulin. If your facility doesn't stock SQ needles so you can use a regular syringe, they need to get them.