Mixing your vial

After reading the previous lesson, you now know how much water to add. Because peptides are fragile, rough handling can damage them before you ever inject. This lesson is about technique.

You always start clean. Wipe the rubber top of your powder vial and the rubber top of your BAC water vial with an alcohol swab. Let them dry. Get your syringe ready. Always use a fresh, sterile syringe every time you mix and never reuse a needle for a dose.

It's time to draw the water. A sealed vial will resist when you try to pull water out of it. You can fix this by adding air to your syringe first. Pull the plunger to the amount of milliliters that you are reconstituting with. For example, if you are reconstituting with 1 mL of BAC water, draw your syringe to 1 mL with air. Put the needle in the BAC water vial and push that air in. Then turn the vial upside down, keeping the needle tip in the water, and pull the plunger down to your mark.

Move to the powder vial. Push the water in slowly and aim the needle at the inside glass wall so it runs down the side instead of straight onto the powder. A hard stream can damage the peptide. Some vials keep a slight vacuum from freeze-drying and will pull the water in on their own.

By now, most of your BAC water and powder have mixed. Do not shake your vial to dissolve the remaining powder. You can either swirl it gently or roll the vial in your hands very slowly. Once it is clear, it is reconstituted and ready.