I took some pictures of the Solu-Medrol IV stuff since I found it pretty interesting.  This is what Paragon (the pharmacy) provides to the Presby Home Health Care for my IV.  The IV bag is 100ml and auto-infuses over the course of an hour.  The needle that Bob (the nurse I get) always uses is the "butterfly" needle - I asked the size and it is a 23 guage needle (updated 5/26/2004 because I asked the size and it wasn't 27 ;-) bigger than the Rebif needle which is a 27 guage.  Most of the time I don't even feel it go in.

My apologies to those of you that have a browser that cannot handle PNG images because all of the images on this page (and on this site) are in that format.  I decided to go with PNG because of the current patent dispute with the JPEG format.  GIF was ruled out because of the poor quality with limiting the number of colors.  My recommendation (as always) is to get a real browser like Mozilla which is standards compliant, secure, and can handle these images.  All images on this page were edited with the GIMP.

I have higher resolution pictures but decided that was overkill and just went with the smaller version.  If for some reason you want high resolution versions drop me a note.

Most likely you came here from my Blog but if not you will probably find it very interesting.

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Here is a picture of the IV bag (full) with the Solu-Medrol.  It has been filled with the medication at Paragon before delivering to the house.  It is pressure fed (not gravity) so I either hold it or lay it in my lap.  It is about the size of my palm.


Here is a picture of the bag after it has been emptied.  You can see how the darker part has shrunken to the middle.


Here is a picture of the needle that Bob used with the IV.


Here is a picture of the needle inserted in my arm just below my left elbow.  Today (day 2 of treatment) I could feel the needle go in but it certainly didn't hurt.



© Erik Smith 2004