self-injection...
Back in 2003, I started self-injecting my HRT, which worked relatively well for awhile. Due to my medical history growing up I had a really really bad needle phobia for a long time, but through exposure (blood draws every few weeks for a time mostly) I was able to mostly get over it. The first few self-injections were really hard but I managed, and continued to manage for awhile. They're IM-only unfortunately (I think SQ would be a lot easier on me as autoinjectors are available, but it doesn't work like that), but I dealt with it reasonably well. Over time though, it got harder and harder each week until I wasn't reliably giving myself shots at all anymore, missing weeks as often as I was able to give them successfully. I switched to getting a nurse at the clinic I'm a patient of to do them, which worked fine (I'm 99% fine with shots if someone else is giving them to me now), but took a few hours out of each week to go there/wait for someone to be free/get my shot/go back to wherever i was in the city.
Back in September before Burning Man I decided to try switching to an oral version instead, as trying to give myself shots on the playa seemed unlikely to work. In theory the oral version should work just as well (with slightly higher stress on my liver), but through some weird biology I've been completely unresponsive to the oral version. No matter what we've tried dosing/combination wise, I've remained on the far side of even the normal male range. At this point we're running out of ideas and I'm considering switching back to injections, but I don't want to have to spend hours a week (one evening basically) getting my shots.
I'm starting to think it might be time to talk to my therp about figuring out how I can work on getting over it. At this point I can deal with blood draws without too much issue, but the thought of self-injecting really really freaks me out again, to the point where writing this post is making me somewhat nauseous. I'm not entirely convinced I'll ever really be able to self-inject easily, but it's worth a try at this point I think. The reading I've been doing tonight seems to indicate that most people are able to get over even severe self-injection phobias in time so... remaining hopeful. :)