I just learned last night that my husband had turned the freezer control on the dorm-size fridge in the basement down to super-cold to chill a chocolate cream pie (!) about a week ago, and had just discovered all the milk, juice etc in it frozen solid. All my insulin is in that fridge!
Domestic discord aside, has anyone had experience with frozen (or nearly frozen) insulin? Three vials were frozen solid :-(. The seven others look OK, but I have no way to know if they had started to freeze, then thawed out in the several hours since he’d turned the thermostat back up. It was all in the door, farthest from the freezer compartment, which helped.
I figure I’ll test each vial I’m not sure about by taking a dose with a syringe and seeing if my BG responds normally before filling a pod from it. Is it even worth testing the frozen ones? They look OK, now that they’ve thawed out…
Anybody else been here (sob!)???
Yes, I have! YOur husband is NOT to blame, we males forget sometimes! I did about the same thing mysefl a few years ago…and being a male (refusing help from anyone) I just made my own decision to go ahead and let the insulin thaw and try it to see if it worked. I had no problems! I wasnt on the pump at that point, just MDI, but i assume now (still being a male) that it would be the same wheter or not you were pumping. If it happened to me tomorrow, I would do the same thing! Good luck, Stetson, and please dont be mad at the man!
I was on a cold weather campout once in Scouts, and I forget to bring the insulin inside the sleeping bag with me. It froze. We tried “thawing” in the steam of some water we boiled (I didn’t put it in the water, only the steam). The insulin still looked fine, but it was no longer good. My glucose just kept creeping up and up. Thankfully that occurred on the last night/morning of the trip so when I got home I was able to get some insulin that worked correctly.
I can’t remember but I think it was humalog. Could have been novalog though. It was probably 10 years ago…
Sooo, I wouldn’t use them.
No…it has not happened to me yet.
I would probably ask the Pharmacist…Then take it from there…
The materials I have read indicate that insulin, once frozen, needs to be discarded. http://forecast.diabetes.org/magazine/ask-experts/freezing-insulin-injection-changes
Toss it! Studies show insulin looses it’s efficacy when frozen even more than if it gets too hot.
I lived in an old house with poor insulation and old windows…I left my insulin on the windowsill on a (well below freezing) night. I’m a college student and attributed my high numbers to the stress of finals week…in fact, it was my WAY too cold insulin!
It took my hours of exercise to get my BG down, only to watch my BG creep up again.
I scheduled an emergency appointment with my endo, and with a correction bolus from their office, I was back down to my normal range. I would test it out, it may be fine, but you’ll be able to tell pretty quickly.
Your best bet (if insurance will cover it) is to replace the frozen insulin…
Yeah, I know all the sources say that freezing destroys insulin, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience to the contrary. Overall, your experiences are not encouraging. I’m going to test the vials that showed no sign of being frozen, and use if they demonstrate normal activity. Just won’t bother with the ones that were clearly frozen solid. As luck would have it, I just changed insurance companies, and have no insulin ‘history’ with the new company, so I should be able to get a resupply.
Thanks all,