Procrit.....SubQ?

[ChargeNurseAmy74]

Hi everyone I need some advice or instruction! I am a nursing student 6 months into the program. Well while passing meds Friday I came across a resident who needed a Procrit injection. Well as my instructor was watching me, I drew the med and asked her "SubQ right"? she said yes. Well when I went into the room to give the resident the injection in her upper R arm, she said it hurt Soooooooo bad. As I comforted her and went back to my med cart my instructor THEN PROCEEDED to tell me that, Oh this should of been a "deep SubQ" like an IM at 90 degree angle instead of 45? I'm really confused because in skills lab I only learned about SubQ (45), IM(90)..what did I miss? Has anyone gave Procrit with the same reaction before? thanks for any help.

Amy:redbeathe

[SaraO'Hara]

Injection angle depends on the length of needle, weight of patient, etc. The one time I've given a Procrit-like drug, it was in a one-time-use autoinjector. This was to be held at a 90-degree angle to the skin, but I don't see why that would be necessary with a regular syringe. If you injected straight in on a thin patient, you might end up giving the Procrit IM.

Some patients are just hurt much more than others by injections.

[Virgo_RN, BSN, RN]

Procrit hurts. Or so, my ESRD patients have told me. Doesn't sound like you did anything wrong.

[treezuh_lvn]

As was mentioned before... when you give injections you need to pay attention to the body frame of the patient and the particular needle you are using.

[diveRN]

Procrit is usually refrigerated. I've found that pts don't complain AS much about the ouch factor if you let it warm up to room temp before administration. I usually take out the procrit about 30 minutes before I give it.

There are only a few drugs off the top of my head I can think of where this helps... EPO and Octreotide.