There's no need to stab yourself Californeeya, you can simply slowly push it in breaking the skin rarely hurts with new syringes it the contact with the muscle is where the little sting happens but you must have this sting to indicate you've reached the muscle, other than that I thing you have it down, once you do it once you will feel a lot more comfortable doing it. No reason to swab the needle it's sterilized already. i'm sure everything will be fine, the yes time I did an IM iwas a bit worried but it took about 20 minutes later before I was ready to do it again and again and again and never looked back. nomad bloodbath Always use liquid ketamine and never try shooting pills or opiates via IM, that is asking for trouble. Just hold the skin down tight and release it once you have it to the muscle and before you start the injection as you start you will fill a pressure in your muscle and you should be able to do a 1 ml syringe in a 20 seconds if it goes in faster than that you are not really in a muscle and wasting the injection.