Ask the Vet: Giving Intramuscular Injections
Question: I recently gave my mare an intramuscular injection of pneumobort. I inserted the needle, checked for blood, found none, injected her, withdrew the needle and there was blood on her neck. The following day her neck was sore at the site. My vet said not to be concerned, but I wonder what would happen if vaccines got into the bloodstream. What about Banamine? Or oxytocin? There are so many drugs that are meant to go into the muscle, and what if they inadvertently got into a vein? How serious could it be?
Answer: Giving intramuscular injections is something every horse owner should know how to do, and it sounds like you followed all the procedures accurately. It is important to give it into the correct place, a place where there is plenty of muscle and no bone. An easy way to get the right place is to place your hand, fingers pointing toward the horse's ears, on the soft "hollow" just in front of the shoulder. You should feel the shoulder rising under the heel of your hand, the firm cord of the nuchal ligament just above your little finger and the dense ridge of the spine just below your thumb. Your target region is the soft area underneath your palm and middle fingers.
The whole horse has blood vessels carrying blood all over the body. The skin particularly has a good blood supply. If you have been exercising the horse, or the weather is very hot, the blood vessels will be more full of blood than on a cold day standing in the stall. If you stick a needle through a blood vessel on your way to the deep muscle, you will see blood coming out after you remove the needle. This is not a problem. You have not injected anything into the blood stream, you just cut through a little blood vessel and it will heal fine.
article continues below|
|
The one exception to this rule is procaine penicillin, which currently is used much less commonly. In my opinion, we have much safer antibiotics than this, and it is not usually worth the risk of a reaction to use penicillin though many people still do use it. The problem is not actually the drug, but the procaine carrier. If it gets into the blood stream, it can make a horse go crazy or can kill it. If the horse has a reaction, sometimes the person gets hurt just because the horse's reaction is so violent. Procaine penicillin also makes a horse very sore just from the shots.
When giving procaine penicillin, it is critical to pull back on the syringe once you have the needle in all the way. If you see blood, withdraw your needle and start over. With most other drugs, it is a nice habit to check for blood but not all that important. Many drugs, such as Banamine and oxytocin will be given in the vein by your vet, but in the muscle by the owner since that is much easier. The drugs work equally as well both ways. If you get some in the vein, it is perfectly fine. Phenylbutazone (bute) on the other hand must be given in the vein and will cause a bad reaction if given in the muscle.
The soreness after the vaccine is more likely to be a reaction to the vaccination itself. Many horses have reactions to vaccines; some vaccines are harder on the horses than others. And some horses react to vaccines, while others do not. The Pneumobort vaccine can be quite reactive in many horses. For a discussion about the risks and benefits of vaccines and their reactions, please see my website www.harmanyequine.com/vaccines.stm.
Dr. Joyce Harman is a veterinarian and respected saddle-fitting expert certified in veterinary acupuncture and veterinary chiropractic; she is also trained in homeopathy and herbal medicine. Her Harmany Equine Clinic is in northern Virginia.
EQUUS magazine contributed to this answer. For step-by-step instructions on how to give an intramuscular injection, see the May 1997 issue of EQUUS.
Have you had a similar experience? Talk about it in the EquiSearch.com Forum.
Do you have a veterinary question for Dr. Harman? Send it to asktheexperts@equinetwork.com. Check back for her answers on EquiSearch.com.
