Came across this on another site...any thoughts?
"Massaging the area of a shot immediately afterwards WILL drive the depot out of the area into places you don't want it, increasing the chance that you will develop pain or an abscess.
What you can do is use pressure if you need to stop bleeding, but never rub it. The z track method will usually make it so you don't need compression to stem the blood flow.
The only time you should be applying heat is if the depot has crashed and you're sure of that. If it's an abscess using heat will only make it worse, use ice and get it drained ASAP, also take a broad spectrum antibiotic. Sepsis is not a laughing matter.
Massaging the area where you just injected requires pushing on the muscle that is full of w/e you just injected, keep in mind that there is a hole in the muscle and the oil is some-what compressed in there, so pushing on it will just send the oil back up the pin hole and spread it through the dermis and subcutaneous layers of the skin where you don’t want it. Even though you aspirated and everything is fine to inject in the muscle, you may have gone through a vein or blood vessel on the way to the muscle, so when the oil comes back up, into the blood stream it goes...
Picture the oil still being in the syringe, it stays in there freely on its own, but if you push the plunger it comes out because you are creating pressure, even is you don’t touch the plunger, but just push on the sides of the syringe, (as if you were massaging the muscle) it would still come out of the needle.
In my nursing book it is stated just like this," For injecting substances that may be irritating or cause discoloration of the subcutaneous tissues, the Z-tract IM method is used. Tissue is displaced by holding it to the side of the injection site. Following injection of the medication, the tissue is moved back over the site blocking any residual substance. Using this technique prevents the irritating medication from following the path of the needle and leaking out into the tissues. After Z-tract IM administration, the injection site should NOT be massaged for this action would encourage the irritating substance to circulate into the subcutaneous tissues."
