What is Bacteriostatic Water?
In a nutshell, bacteriostatic water is a solution that’s used to dilute or dissolve medications, making them easier to inject into the body’s bloodstream, improving efficacy. Used to prevent the growth of harmful bacteria, bacteriostatic water is common place in the world of research and development within big pharma, fitness supplementation research labs, and even zoologist laboratories around the world. Famous for the utter lack of side effects apart from allergens, bacteriostatic water has become an industry standard best practice piece for intravenous, intramuscular, or subcutaneous injections. The type of medication or ingredient that is being diluted will dictate the best method of injection. Should a subject experience adverse side effects, the bacteriostatic water used almost certainly had to be somehow contaminated.
Note: Sterile water only contains an agent, benzyl alcohol, to prevent the growth of bacteria. There are no bacteria killing agents included in the solution because most would change the efficacy of what research professionals are diluting with the solution.
Why Bacteriostatic Water?
In many cases, substances that have been created for injection are inherently too potent for whatever subject is going to receive the injection. Being a nonpyrogenic preparation of water that contains a small amount of benzyl alcohol, bacteriostatic water is a ready-made mixer that physicians can use to create varying levels of dosage for their patients. The more common use case? Scientists are able to create varying levels of dosage for test subjects and laboratory experiments when researching and developing new products.
Prior to bacteriostatic water’s creation, most mixing solutions would be single-use substances, like straight up sterile water. Such is not the case with bacteriostatic water. While the shelf life of bacteriostatic water is greatly reduced after opening, it can last for a few weeks afterwards so long as sterile needles and syringes are introduced to the solution. The extended shelf life and inexpensive production makes bacteriostatic water a game changer for research labs.
Sterile Water vs. Bacteriostatic Water
Sterile water is what we’d recommend as the solution of choice for mixing medications and other substances, it’s not the only solution out there. Bacteriostatic is another option that scientists have used for decades. The significant difference is that most bacteriostatic water doesn’t contain the higher benzyl alcohol content that our sterile water has. Bacteriostaic water comes in one time use containers and should never be reused as the moment the solution is opened, it’s contaminated and bacteria is likely to start to grow. Due to the higher BA content of our sterile water, it is good for repeated research.
Where to Get Sterile Water
A number of manufacturers produce sterile water and a number of vendors sell sterile water. Sterile water comes in a variety of sizes for extremely reasonable prices. The most common size of screw top container for either of the solutions is 30ml. Do not ever try to split the solution into other containers apart from the one that you receive your sterile water in as it will only result in contamination and drastically reduced shelf life.