Whilst the fertility drug companies provide injection guides, personal support from the clinic and/or partner will make the process a less nerve-wrecking.
Key steps on how to inject fertility medications:
- Watch the injection videos on our patient portal to familiarise, or remind yourself of the process.
- Prepare everything in advance: the time and place, someone to be with you, or do the injections for you and the medication itself.
- The majority of the drugs just need mixing up once, then take a small amount out each day. Some are prefilled, so no mixing is needed, but there are a couple of drugs that you have to mix up each day.
- Relax – thoughts about injections are far worse than the injections themselves.
- We tell our patients to do their injections around about an inch away from the belly button. You can go lower and to the side of the belly button, but don’t go above the belly button.
- Top Tip: a lot of patients use a bit of ice to numb the area where they’re about to do the injection. Also, pinching the skin where you’re about to do the injection helps.
- Make sure you insert the whole of the needle because they are quite small. You want to be doing it at 45 to 90 degree angle and going in and go in with a smooth fluid process.
- You don’t have to jab really hard, but go straight in quickly and then draw the needle out slowly, this will help reduce bruising.
- Bruising is quite normal, and use a different area then next day if the area becomes inflamed.
- Treat yourself! Once you’ve done your injection, treat yourself, give yourself a bit of chocolate or something nice and then you give you something to look forward to it.
The video below was recorded as part of the Fertility Experts Live series, hosted by Eloise Edington of the Fertility Help Hub. Watch the full video for more tips on how to inject fertility medications.
