Injection guide
Where each site actually is, how to find it on your own body, what angle to go in at and how deep the needle is meant to reach. Pick a zone on the map to see it.
The dashed circle on the front view is the 5 cm exclusion around the navel. Click any zone, or tab to it and press Enter.
Abdomen
Belly, avoiding the navel
- How to find it
- The soft tissue between your lower ribs and your pubic bone. Find your navel and exclude a 5 cm (2 inch) circle around it in every direction, then stay about 5 cm inside each hip bone. What is left on either side is the usable area.
- Angle
- Straight in at 90° when you can grasp about 2.5 cm of tissue, or with any short 4–8 mm needle. Lift a fold and go in at 45° if you are lean.
- Needle
- 29–31 G, 4–12.7 mm. A standard U-100 insulin syringe with a fixed 30 G × 8 mm needle is the practical default.
- What goes wrong
- Never inject inside the 5 cm navel exclusion — that tissue is tethered, poorly vascularised and disproportionately painful. Avoid scars, stretch marks, tattoos, moles, bruises and anything that feels lumpy. This is the fastest-absorbing subcutaneous site, which matters when you are comparing it to the thigh.
What the needle is doing
Subcutaneous doses belong in the fat layer, above muscle. Pinching lifts that fat away from the muscle so a 45° entry cannot overshoot — which is exactly why lean people are told to pinch.
Doing it
The order matters more than most people think — particularly letting the alcohol dry, and holding for ten seconds before you withdraw.
- 1
Wash your hands
Soap and water, twenty seconds. This is the step people skip and it is the one that prevents abscesses.
- 2
Inspect the vial
Check the solution is clear and free of particles, and that the reconstitution date on the label is still inside its window.
- 3
Swab the stopper
Alcohol wipe on the rubber stopper, then let it air dry. Wet alcohol dragged into the vial stings and denatures peptide.
- 4
Draw your dose
Pull the plunger to your target units first, push that air into the vial, then invert and draw. Flick out any bubbles and push them back before you withdraw.
- 5
Pick a site and swab it
Rotate away from wherever you went last time. Swab, and let it dry — injecting through wet alcohol is what makes it burn.
- 6
Pinch, if you are meant to
Lift a fold of skin and fat away from the muscle for a 45° subcutaneous injection. For a 90° injection with a short needle, or any IM injection, do not pinch.
- 7
Insert in one smooth motion
Quick and committed. A slow tentative push hurts far more than a fast one.
- 8
Depress steadily, then wait
Push the plunger at an even pace, then hold for about ten seconds before withdrawing so the dose does not track back out with the needle.
- 9
Withdraw and press
Straight out at the same angle. Press with clean gauze — do not rub, which spreads the depot and bruises you.
- 10
Dispose properly and log it
Needle straight into a sharps container, never a bin. Then record the site so your rotation actually means something.