
Originally Posted by
BBJT200
It sounds to me like you are contaminating something with your technique, causing the abcesses.
How do you figure?
Btw, are they abcesses or infections? There is a difference- an abcess is caused by a foreign particle (aka dirty gear), whereas an infection is caused by bacteria.
A sterile abscess can be caused by rejected foreign matter without any bacteria present. A septic abscess is one caused by a pathogen (with or without rejected foreign matter). The latter would involve an infection.
And an abscess is just a pocket of inflamed tissue.
Draw the oil out of the vials, filter through a sterile .2um pvdf syringe filter into a new sterile vial, autoclave with a pressure cooker and you are good to go. If you continue to get abcesses after that, you are contaminating something with your injection protocol.
Dont run water over your syringe. Ever.
If you MUST heat your oil up prior to injecting, set it on your coffee pot warmer plate for a couple mins, don't use hot water in the sink.... You are just asking to get bacteria into the syringe doing that (tap water is not sterile, as should be obvious)
If you keep the cap on the syringe and keep the water on the barrel of the syringe, there is no issue.
Hell, if you are swabbing the top of the vial and leaving any fibers from the swab on the top of the vial, that could potentially give you an abcess as well. Just because your technique has worked for so long does not mean it is proper or acceptable.