Blood in cart ?!? 🩸
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Blood does coagulate in BAC water so yes most likely it is blood. I wonder what made it backup into the cartridge? I would guess the needle nicks a tiny blood vessel or vein and there was a sudden change in pressure. Not unless cartridges now come with sea monkeys.
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There have been a few threads about this. I am assuming you are injecting cold, though that isn’t required. When you install the pen needle, sometimes if there is a pressure imbalance due to temperature differences, there could be a bit of vacuum in the cart, which is why you sometimes get air bubbles. But if you are slow to inject or hit a vessel like the poster above said, you can get some backflow. I have had this happen once myself, and it sucks throwing a cart away.
My suggestion to minimize this happening, and losing drops, is to hold the pen vertically tip up when installing the pen needle, inject quickly and smoothly, and remove the needle immediately after done. My hypothesis is that backflow happens at the beginning, not the end, of injection.
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Did you by chance loosen the cartridge before pulling the needle? I usually have drips from the needle after withdrawal, which would indicate positive pressure still in the cylinder, thus no way for blood to go back in the cartridge. Can you post a picture, or link of the pen used. I’ve heard of this before, but never experienced it.
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Curious to see what others say, never seen that before.
Where do you get your carts from?
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There have been a few threads about this. I am assuming you are injecting cold, though that isn’t required. When you install the pen needle, sometimes if there is a pressure imbalance due to temperature differences, there could be a bit of vacuum in the cart, which is why you sometimes get air bubbles. But if you are slow to inject or hit a vessel like the poster above said, you can get some backflow. I have had this happen once myself, and it sucks throwing a cart away.
My suggestion to minimize this happening, and losing drops, is to hold the pen vertically tip up when installing the pen needle, inject quickly and smoothly, and remove the needle immediately after done. My hypothesis is that backflow happens at the beginning, not the end, of injection.
@ResearchCat I think this is what happened, yeah I had to toss it. It wasn’t super cold, I had let it sit out some. I always put a fresh needle on directly before injecting and immediately remove. Hopefully was a fluke thing.
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Did you by chance loosen the cartridge before pulling the needle? I usually have drips from the needle after withdrawal, which would indicate positive pressure still in the cylinder, thus no way for blood to go back in the cartridge. Can you post a picture, or link of the pen used. I’ve heard of this before, but never experienced it.
@Snake-Pepskin same, usually there’s a drop at the end of the needle when I withdraw. It’s the V4 pen from this site. They are great! Never had a problem before. Although my Xuilin’s are buttery smooth and Convipen automatics are amazing for no-sting peps.
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UPDATE: This is now going to haunt my nightmares… I let the cartridge sit on the counter all day, and when I picked it up to discard it, IT WAS COMPLETELY CKEAR!!! I shook it up and pounded it on the table just to see if the strands/blobs would come loose from the side or top or bottom or something, but they were nowhere to be found. So if I had robotically done what I usually do and inject, remove the tip and discard, swab (I swab before and after), put the cap back on the pen and place back in the fridge without looking at it, I never would’ve seen this!!

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UPDATE: This is now going to haunt my nightmares… I let the cartridge sit on the counter all day, and when I picked it up to discard it, IT WAS COMPLETELY CKEAR!!! I shook it up and pounded it on the table just to see if the strands/blobs would come loose from the side or top or bottom or something, but they were nowhere to be found. So if I had robotically done what I usually do and inject, remove the tip and discard, swab (I swab before and after), put the cap back on the pen and place back in the fridge without looking at it, I never would’ve seen this!!

@Paradox It’s in the house… GET OUT BEFORE IT GROWS!
Seriously, that’s a bit strange. I’ve been checking my vials, since someone else posted a similar experience., but nothing so far.
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There have been a few threads about this. I am assuming you are injecting cold, though that isn’t required. When you install the pen needle, sometimes if there is a pressure imbalance due to temperature differences, there could be a bit of vacuum in the cart, which is why you sometimes get air bubbles. But if you are slow to inject or hit a vessel like the poster above said, you can get some backflow. I have had this happen once myself, and it sucks throwing a cart away.
My suggestion to minimize this happening, and losing drops, is to hold the pen vertically tip up when installing the pen needle, inject quickly and smoothly, and remove the needle immediately after done. My hypothesis is that backflow happens at the beginning, not the end, of injection.
@researchcat @paradox Good points, I have a habit of pushing 1iu before I mount the needle, which essentially primes the needle upon insertion. I mean, yes, it’s Snake Logic, but seems to work.
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I use v2s and remove the pen cap. I disinfect the skin surface and I pin probe the surface for sensory nerves endings and away from hair first. Those are the nerves that inially hurt. When you probe with the pin tip find the spot where it feels the least to nothing at all (the sweet spot). You can probe the skin without breaking skin. Rest the needle tip on the skin at an angle when probing. When you find the sweet spot pin on that spot straight down. Most of the time you will not hit anything. But I had a few between the epidermis and the dermis that I would hit a nerve or a capillary. The nerve feels like an sharp electric shock, the capillary and arteries like sharp nudge (def' bleed). I usually pull it out as soon as I start to feel them and probe again. If you dont have the patients nor the *nerve to do it. Then quickly "pinch, pin and pray".
There is a possibility you pinned the arteries in the subQ layer which have enough pressure along with your heart racing from the idea of pinning. lol

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