Owwwwwwwwwww!! stupid dull needles!
 

I've tried TWICE tonight to give myself a shot.

First one, in my thigh, felt like I was trying to stab myself with a rusty, dull ice pick.

I decided to try again with a new needle.

and, guess what? Another dull one.

I give up. I dont have it in me to push another blunt needle into myself tonight.

You on Copaxone? Seems like The Bird was having the same trouble.

I quit C a couple of months ago, but remember dull needles. Ugh! Good luck!

Yep...

C = Dull needles + 2(painful attempts to inject)

Above is my poor math challenged attempt at using algebra in a real life situation. I wonder if I got it right. (flunked algebra 5 times in high school...I wonder if that was cog fog??)

Erin
I'm sorry for you pain and distress. You had been on a roll injecting yourself. I hope the needles are sharp for you soon.

:hug:

Too bad they cant give us a sharpener to go with our needles.

I'm about to do my shot early tonight because I gave up on it last night.

I'm hoping that the C doesnt interact with any of the possible mercury that could have gotten into my system during some dental work today (removed 3 amalgams because they were cracking my teeth. Yay! 3 down, NINE MORE to go)

I'm sorry I can't help with this subject as I was dxed too late for this drug and have not researched it. However, I have too dumb and I do mean ignorant statements that may help or not. Is it possible to get this with a self injector that u just push. If not, u know the size of needle u need so why not buy them sep. and make them them replace the bad ones. It does not help with the pain but maybe the money. I'm in a an arean I know nothing about so if wrong pls ignore and know that I am so sorry for your problems and am mad that the stupit companies make equip. needles... that give us moe pain. We hurt enough w/o this mess. Take Care Sheena :hug::hug:

Erin PLEASE call SS and complain about those needles!!! and they will send replacement ones!

They are NO fun!

Good for you Erin!

I got prices to change my amalgams over and it's between $150-$170 per tooth depending on the number of surfaces. And since, as a child we didn't go to the dentist but once that I remember, I had many cavities filled when I turned 18.

Hope yours are more affordable.

:hug:

I'm calling Shared Solutions (the place that sends me forests worth of information about Copaxone every single freaking month) and report the dull "darts" and tell them that I'd like replacements for the rest of the box. (only have 7 left)

Hopefully my fresh box will be nice and sharp.

It was $595 for three teeth today.

She was only going to do two of them, but then she realized that the third one was in a really inconvienient place (last back tooth in the upper right side) so she went ahead and took care of that one, so she wouldnt have to come back later and do it. She said it was the most difficult tooth and had a HUGE high mercury amalgam in it. She said it was in there pretty deep. She was surprised at that.

I wasnt too surprised, I'm realizing the difference between good dentists (the nice one who worked on me today) and bad dentists...the putz I went to for over 20yrs until a couple of years ago when he had a hissy fit and tossed dental tools across the room, cussed me out and stomped off.

My old dentist used to put numbing gel on my gum, and then immediately stab me with the novocaine needle. He'd wait a minute or two and then try to start drilling.

My new dentist put a q-tip of numbing gel on my gum, let it sit there for 2 or 3 minutes, and then she injected me with the anesthetic (not novocaine) and then she had me sit there for 15 minutes to wait for my mouth to numb up, and then came in and started working.

She also had "tv glasses". (little tv monitors on the front of the glasses with headphones built in) I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix while she worked on my teeth.

I had a bit of claustrophobia when she started. I had the tv glasses on, dentist on one side, tech on the other, and a big drill in my mouth. I had a sudden flashback to being in the MRI machine and started to panic. Her tech put her hand on my arm, and I tried to concentrate on Harry and the panic passed. My old dentist wouldnt have even had a tech, and he sure as heck would not have done anything to keep me from freaking. (and he wouldnt have cool stuff like tv glasses and Harry Potter dvd's. I think he's stuck in the 1960s)

What freaks me out is whenever she mentioned my amalgam fillings, she keeps calling them "high mercury content amalgams". Here I am, with an MS diagnosis, and she's telling me that my fillings are teeming with mercury.

I'm so glad I got at least 1/4th of the amalgams out. Now I really want the others out, but I'm doing it slowly so I dont get overwhelmed with mercury if any leaks out into me. I do feel a little weird tonight. I'm constantly mistyping or misspelling words, and I keep going over stuff to make sure that my spelling is ok. I've been misspelling words a lot in the past year, but I usually catch them, I swear tho, my typing skills tonight suck. So, I wouldnt be surprised if I got a little bit of the mercury dumped into my system.

Oh, I should also mention, when I was 3 or 4, my parents took me and my sister to a quack dentist (didnt know he was a thief and a seriously horrible dentist) He's responsible for some of my high mercury content fillings. He was putting fillings in my teeth when I was 3yrs old. We went to him till I was about 7yrs old. He's the jerk who's responsible for my complete terror of dentists. He TIED ME DOWN into the chair whenever he'd put a filling in my mouth. (my parents went in with me, they never knew)

At least my next dentist was just an arrogant jerk, not a quack arrogant jerk.

I love my new dentist, she's a heck of a lot more gentle than my two childhood dentists.

ARGH!!!

Tonight's needle was another "dud".

Why are they producing such craptastic needles lately???

I'm waiting a bit, and then trying again, but it's been like 5 or 6 dull ones in a row.

I'm going to kvetch to SS in the morning!

Erin
You sure have had some doozy dentists. I'm glad you've found such a terrific one. :)

I hope you've already talked to shared solutions today. So, what did they say?

:hug:

I called SS today, and they're sending me out 5 new needles (that's what I had left of that box) and they reported the dull ones to their quality control or whatever they call it. The company that sends out the replacement needles (different than the one I normally get them from) will be calling me to set up the shipment and to make sure they've got all the right address info.

The nurse I talked to told me about these little syringe "clips" that you can put on the syringes if you do manual shots, that makes them easier to shoot up with. Wider space to hold onto when you're pushing on the plunger, so I'm getting a few of those shipped to me too.

The nurse seemed impressed that I was doing manual shots. I told her that I think the reason why the autoject shots were so painful lately is because the needles in my most recent box were dull. Which is why I switched over to manual.

She also told me that if I'm doing a shot in my thigh and they're painful, that I can hold the needle at a 45 degree angle to do those shots so that I dont hit a muscle. I might try that tonight, since most of my itchy painful sites feel like they're healing on the thighs now.

I also kvetched about the drippy needles. I dont like the medicine dripping out of the needle before I can shoot up with it.

At least SS will listen and will send you out new shots and fun little accessories for the needles. I cant wait to see how the little syringe clips work.

I had read on another board that a lady always had some new insulin syringes on hand because she was getting dull needles all the time. You can easily pick them up at most pharmacies or online (amazon has them around $13-18.00 for 100, depending on the size needed) and there cheap.

I think the lady said with the cap still on the needle pull the plunger out and squirt the med into the new syringe, replace the plunger, turn the needle pointing up, take off the cap and push out the air until the med is at the needle.

I am so glad you called SS!

And I haven't even thought to complain about the drips, even though almost every needle does!!! LOL

I have that gripper thing and I like it much better than the needle's grip...it's way too small!

I'm glad you have a sweatheart of a dentist now....you have had some doozies!

I get the feeling that I'll be using the handy-dandy grippers when they get here. I didnt even know they had anything like that. But, I have wondered how some MS-ers with hand "issues" were able to do manual injections.

I think something happened when I had my teeth worked on yesterday...when she was done drilling and got to the icky nasty part where there was a little bit of infection going on, I have to wonder if some of the infection from inside the tooth getting exposed into my mouth a little bit (upper teeth, I think some...eww...dripped...ewww!) and today I've got a seriously numb right foot, and a not as seriously numb left foot. It's really really really annoying.

I'm just not sure if it works that way. Altho, I did have infection inside the teeth, and my teeth are inside of my mouth, maybe that's what's been triggering a lot weirdness and it's just a coincidence that my feet went numb yesterday afternoon.

I hope I can get the rest of mouth fixed up soon. Because if any of my other cracked teeth have infection in them, maybe that's why I keep having weird bizzaro carp happening to me every couple of weeks. (never get amalgam fillings, they crack your teeth something fierce)


I really hope it's infection in my teeth triggering my problems, otherwise I'd have to wonder if I'm progressing. (live in fear of that) Be easier to deal with infected teeth.

i'm having exactly the same problem w/ my copax shots too & am soooo happy to see this idea pop up!! it was only my last four shots so i did the grin and bear it kind of thing or should i say "cringe & swear at it" kind of thing. :D i ordered some more & told 'em and tomorrow i'm heading for the pharmacy just in case the next batch is heck on wheels too.

I'd still be careful about transferring the C from it's original syringe to a new one. You should just keep track of the bad syringes and tell SS about it when you call to complain, and just try again from your original stash of needles till you get one that's not dull.

I had 5 needles from the mostly bad batch left last night. The one I injected with (finally!!) last night was perfectly fine, I didnt even get a bee sting from it (it's more like a mosquito bite)

I'm just waiting for tonight's injection to warm up a bit (almost forgot to get new ones out)