Y’know, when I signed up for this back in June I had grand plans for some grand writeup on the domestically produced unmagnified gunsights of Cuba. I had collected images and info and sources but I lost sight of it as life stuff happened and my time for the trans mega snuck up on me.

Que sera sera.

Anyways, today felt like the first whisper (you have no idea how hard I just thought about the ideal word for this metaphor) of autumn and that put me in the mood for one of my favorite autumnal albums. More Constant Than the Gods by SubRosa is a really lovely doom? sludge? metal album. I like how big it sounds. The lead vocalist is a really talented lady, and its got violins, also the lyrics talk about dying and stuff and I’m into that. Its very fall-y to me, as is Standard Time Volume 1 by Wynton Marsalis, but for extremely different reasons.

The funny thing is that, like the poster of the previous mega it is also my 5th transiversary, I started HRT half a decade ago today (ok technically it was the 17th but I’m gonna count it since thats when I started writing this). Now, I don’t think that taking HRT was what made me “officially trans”, rather it was the degree of self acceptance required to get to that point. It’s a long story, and one I prefer to share privately, but it took a very, very long time before my fear and desperation gave me the strength to allow myself to have this. I think it all turned out pretty well, I experience existence in much higher fidelity, I’m this whole person, along with everything that entails.

I feel very blessed to be transgender.

I hope you all stay safe and have a good, or atleast tolerable week.

Join our public Matrix server!

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As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.

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A picture of the Hexbear posting interface with the spoiler button highlighted with an arrow

  • crosswind [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    9·
    4 months ago

    I’m trying out 29g fixed needles for castor oil and I knew drawing would be slow, but it took probably five minutes. Should I be doing something differently, or is that actually how long it takes?

    Also, while I was drawing, there was some void space in the syringe from the low pressure. Is that okay, or should I try to minimize that?

    • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      I use 23g needles and they draw much faster without causing coring. You could probably use 25g needles to boost your drawing times.

      Using the table provided on wikipedia, a 23G needle has an inner diameter of 0.337 mm, a 25G needle has an inner diameter of 0.260 mm, while a 29G needle has a diameter of 0.184 mm.

      Assuming that you keep a constant draw pressure, have laminar flow and have the same viscosity, the flow rate through the needle is proportional to the square of the inner diameter of the needle. This means that a 25G needle will have approx 1.997 times the drawing speed of a 29G needle, and a 23G needle will have 3.354 times the drawing rate.

      Even still, it doesn’t take me anything longer than about 20 seconds (worst case) to draw my shot. The reason likely has to do with pressure differences (and maybe my MCT oil is less viscous*), which you mention. You shouldn’t have a void space in the plunger left. Not only does it reduce your draw rate, but it also will cause air bubbles to enter your bloodstream. While I’m not a nurse or doctor, having outside air enter your bloodstream at minimum leaves a risk of outside bacteria and contaminants entering your blood which you don’t want.

      The trick to getting rid of that void space is to draw from an upside down vial. Basically, you draw some oil into an upside down needle from an upside down vial, then you push out the air bubble back into the vial. Because the vial is upside down, it’s easier to separate the liquid and the gas. Then once you’ve removed the air, draw slowly enough that you don’t reintroduce any air.

      *I just checked and yeah, it seems that MCT oil has a way lower viscosity than castor oil.

        • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          3·
          4 months ago

          it’s just that in trying to keep a large pressure difference along the needle, the air from the syringe dead space will expand 10x or more.

          The air bubble I’m referring to is precisely that. Get rid of it and your draw time will speed up. The draw time is also inversely proportional to the pressure difference between the vial liquid and that air.

          That air isn’t as low pressure as you might think, and so it does significantly slow down your draw. Atmospheric pressure is intense, it can crumple steel.

          You would have no draw time issues if the dead space in your syringe was expanding by 10 times (1 atmosphere in your vial vs 0.1 in your syringe. That’s 0.9 atmospheres of difference. ).

          Most likely when you draw, air from the outside leaks into your syringe. If you want to check, an easy way is to hold the plunger in place while the vial and syringe are the right side up. If the liquid is defying gravity, then you have a good seal. If the liquid is not defying gravity you need a better seal.

    • WoodScientist [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      You could 3D print one of these things, custom designed by trans folks for just this purpose. I could post the STL files if someone knows a good place to easily upload and share 2 MB or so of files. This contraption won’t make the draw go any faster, but it will make it so you can set it up, walk away, and go do something else while the syringe is filling.