Thinner needles for IM shots?

[Fox_BTW808]

29g needles for IM are available from medical supply sites and work fine for the purpose - the 30g experience varying widely probably comes down to needle length and angle as much as gauge. Let us know how the 29g compares once you've tried both.

 

[Ratched_00]

29g at 1 inch is the standard sweet spot for most IM injection sites - thin enough to minimize resistance and discomfort, long enough to reliably reach muscle tissue. The 30g and 31g comparison for subQ is worth doing separately to find your preference for that use case.

 

[data-driven]

32g 4mm pen needles are designed for subcutaneous use - they're too short to reliably reach muscle tissue in most injection sites for intramuscular delivery. For actual IM injections, 25-27g at 1 inch is the minimum that consistently reaches muscle in typical sites.

 

[rebooting_later]

I use one thinner gauge needle for both drawing and injecting. Takes maybe ten extra seconds to draw up, but it's just the single needle overall.