Q: I had something odd happen to me the other day when I was injecting a dose into my glute. I was using a one inch needle and I drew out some pus-like yellow fluid. It had some blood in it. I reinjected into another area and it’s never happened again. I know it wasn’t an abscess because it didn’t hurt. What could this have been?

A: Believe me, had it been an abscess, you’d have known it far before you stuck a one inch pin into it! It would have been hot and swollen and have hurt like hell. You didn’t say if you were slightly heavy, or fat right now, so I might guess that you may have hit a store of adipose tissue and drawn out some yellow fat. If you are over 200 pounds currently or you hold fatty deposits in this area or others, switch to a 1.5” needle instead. More than likely, however, you probably hit a node of some sort, such as a lymph node. The fact that it was filled with this substance, however, may indicate that your body is fighting an infection of some sort and the nodes consider frequent AS injections in that area to be foreign matter that they must shore up a defense against. I’d still go see a doctor, despite not having experienced it again. If nothing else, go to a dermatologist.