Is it okay to give an IM through clothing?

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In the past I've had diabetic patients who injected themselves through their clothing. Is this ok with IM injections as well? In psych we have so many traumatized patients who are resistive to injection it seems more traumatic to expose a site than just go through the cloth. Doing it with alcohol wipes and saying "there will be a little prick" etc. is fine with cooperative people in a calm setting, but what is acceptable in crises?

If you think that what I said was "antagonizing" and "unnecessary rudeness", you have a hard life ahead of you.

I suppose I should add an appallingly patronizing attitude to that list. A "hard life ahead of me" for expecting civil discourse? Really? For what it's worth, I've had alot of years past your level of aged wisdom, so I really don't think it's a matter of my maturing to your anointed level. You don't think you were rude and antagonizing? Fine, I just call 'em like I see 'em.

Think what you want, save the eye rolling for someone else. I'm done with the nonsense.

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In the past I've had diabetic patients who injected themselves through their clothing. Is this ok with IM injections as well? In psych we have so many traumatized patients who are resistive to injection it seems more traumatic to expose a site than just go through the cloth. Doing it with alcohol wipes and saying "there will be a little prick" etc. is fine with cooperative people in a calm setting, but what is acceptable in crises?

To me, a crisis is a life-threatening situation and I would really, really hope that out of convenience that someone at your facility isn't going this on a regular basis.

If someone is going to die and seconds are counting, then by all means, give it through the clothing....whatever it takes to get the IM in.

However, I sure hope someone isn't under the illusion that wiping clothes off with alcohol is going to kill the germs on the skin underneath, not to mention the fact that small, minute amounts of clothing fibers can be pulled into the injection site and can set up a horrible infection.

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Specializes in Emergency, Case Management, Informatics.
I've had alot of years past your level of aged wisdom, so I really don't think it's a matter of my maturing to your anointed level.

Some people have twenty years of experience. Others have one year of experience twenty times.

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No, it is not okay to give injections through clothing. Clothing has germs all over it, its like injecting the germs into the body.

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Some people have twenty years of experience. Others have one year of experience twenty times.

What a nice guy you are Donald! I would love to work with you.:crying2:

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Specializes in SICU, NICU, Telephone Triage, Management.

Not to mention introducing textile fragments into the tissues.

Never heard of such a thing. Except on TV shows.

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Specializes in Med surg, Critical Care, LTC.

I agree with most everyone else. Poor practice and unsafe. Need to be able to clean the site before injection to reduce chance of infection. And assess site after injection.

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Specializes in Post Anesthesia.

Only if you are stationed aboard the Starship Enterprise. In the real world you have to see where you are injecting and clean it properly. Oh, by the way, how would you think you would avoid contaminating the needle as it passed through the cloth?

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Specializes in neonatal intensive care unit.

Hello To All,

I once had a friend who was a long term diabetic, and I was shocked when he told me that he often gave himself insulin injections through his shirt! When I asked this friend why he did this, he explained that "the restrictions of being a diabetic had become so depressing that he just did things in haphazzard ways"--yes, maybe the reason diabetic patients do less than safe things such as apply injections through clothing and eat high sugar content foods may be because the lack of ability to do "normal stuff" makes them feel depressed?

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Specializes in pure and simple psych.

NO, it is never OK to give an injection through clothing. No matter how agitated, or psychotic a person is, you must be sure where you are injecting, and you must insure that you are not injecting through an old abcess or infection caused by the pt. giving themselves bad injections. Don't bother to tell me that I just don't understand the pressure on the front lines, or get "real" psych situations. I have worked the front lines for 44.5 years, all in psych. State hospitals, county hospitals, VA, private and non-profit, including a stint in the only all Psych Emergency Unit on the West Coast, serving 800 to 1000 intakes/ month. I don't need anyone to tell me that if I had someone about to bean me or a fellow worker with a fire extinguisher, that I would change my mind. I would need to get the fire extinguisher out of the way to give the shot anyway, so I would wait until that little matter was taken care of first. I've never seen an injection given through clothing except morphine through uniforms in movies about WWII. I have personally participated in hundreds (maybe thousands, by this time) of injections, and have given each and every one of them through bare skin. Even to the tweakers who are so loaded that they have to be held down by all the available help possible. I'm not moving into a dangerous situation without enough help. Doing so is foolhardy and puts myself and my co-workers in greater danger than waiting for back up. If I'm in too much danger to wait, I'm in too much danger to give an injuction. Marlon Perkins (in the old days there was a TV program where M.P. shot tranquilizing darts into the butt of a galloping zebras from a helicopter) might do it. I won't. I'm an old school, battle-wagon, war-horse psych nurse. :nurse: No situation will make me be a bad nurse. If a person is tramatized by exposing a glute, mabe we should put off the injection. If they are wild and demonically bent on being a savage, they need meds and 8 people to help me give the IM properly. No, ativan or haldol are not life or death drugs. Narcan is.

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NO, it is never OK to give an injection through clothing. No matter how agitated, or psychotic a person is, you must be sure where you are injecting, and you must insure that you are not injecting through an old abcess or infection caused by the pt. giving themselves bad injections. Don't bother to tell me that I just don't understand the pressure on the front lines, or get "real" psych situations. I have worked the front lines for 44.5 years, all in psych. State hospitals, county hospitals, VA, private and non-profit, including a stint in the only all Psych Emergency Unit on the West Coast, serving 800 to 1000 intakes/ month. I don't need anyone to tell me that if I had someone about to bean me or a fellow worker with a fire extinguisher, that I would change my mind. I would need to get the fire extinguisher out of the way to give the shot anyway, so I would wait until that little matter was taken care of first. I've never seen an injection given through clothing except morphine through uniforms in movies about WWII. I have personally participated in hundreds (maybe thousands, by this time) of injections, and have given each and every one of them through bare skin. Even to the tweakers who are so loaded that they have to be held down by all the available help possible. I'm not moving into a dangerous situation without enough help. Doing so is foolhardy and puts myself and my co-workers in greater danger than waiting for back up. If I'm in too much danger to wait, I'm in too much danger to give an injuction. Marlon Perkins (in the old days there was a TV program where M.P. shot tranquilizing darts into the butt of a galloping zebras from a helicopter) might do it. I won't. I'm an old school, battle-wagon, war-horse psych nurse. :nurse: No situation will make me be a bad nurse. If a person is tramatized by exposing a glute, mabe we should put off the injection. If they are wild and demonically bent on being a savage, they need meds and 8 people to help me give the IM properly. No, ativan or haldol are not life or death drugs. Narcan is.

What, only 44.5 years in Psych, emergency psych? You'd secure the setting so you don't get beaned with large moveable objects? You'd make sure you could safely give injection before throwing that dart blindly through jeans? You don't consider Haldol and Ativan life-or-death drugs? You must not know "real" psych situations; maybe you only have that little ol' Alzheimer's patient threatening to smack you, you newbie you. Would that mean you only have one year of experience, forty times....? ;)

Sanctuary, my hero.

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Specializes in Emergency, Case Management, Informatics.
NO, it is never OK to give an injection through clothing... No, ativan or haldol are not life or death drugs. Narcan is.

While your claimed level of experience is admirable, your argument is purely inconsistent silliness. "No, it's never okay to give an injection through clothing". "Oh, wait, Narcan is a life or death drug, so it's okay". "If I didn't have enough help, I'd just sit back and twiddle my thumbs while this psych pt is destroying everything in the unit as well as endangering the lives of other patients".

This thread is so daft that I may end up checking myself into a psych facility if I keep up with it. Peace out.

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