My insulin delivery arrived at my office and sat there for 10 days. I just found it and put it in the fridge, but the cooling gel packs had clearly lost their cool.
Is this insulin still good to use?
Just to be clear, it has not been opened. It just came from delivery, 3 months supply of lantus solostar and humalog, both pens. I have type 1 & LADA.
Was it sitting inside an air conditioned office? If so, then itâs probably fine. Not ideal storage for insulin, but itâs probably OK. The key question IMO is not whether it was unrefrigerated, but how âextremeâ were the conditions the insulin was exposed to?
Huh, we did have a discussion recently which went on and on at length about what are the manufacturerâs claims for insulin viability. However, I think it got eaten by the migration.
I always had insulin in my drawer in bedroom, room temp, never to hot or cold and it was fine (did this for about 25 years). Once I moved to upstairs bedroom with much hotter temp, that did not work so well and realized pretty quickly the the insulin was no longer working and went to fridge storage. So give it a go and if your BG starts going up for no reason youâll know why.
Agree. Insulin is more stable than some people seem to think. I have always kept my bottle in use at room temp for however long it takes. Before the last few years when I saw all the comments on here about how you should refrigerate unopened bottles, I kept my spares at room temp for years. I have never had one go bad. But then my house is always between 60 and 75.
I think it should be fine. You can test it and see. If youâre like me and often have unexplained numbers donât throw it out due to random highs, Iâve definitely thrown out some insulin that was fine Iâm sure in the past. I would keep the extra in the fridge from now on.
Overseas mail order pharmacies ship insulin to the United States with it taking 18-21 days to clear customs and be delivered from time of shipment. I questioned them on this practice and they say as long as it doesnât exceed room temperature it can spend 30 days unrefrigerated without effecting its 28 day shelf life at room temperature once itâs opened. I donât know if thatâs actually true or not, but itâs what s Canadian pharmacy told me.
Humalog is rated by the mfgr to be kept at room temperature for x daysâŚand that room temp max is considered to be 86 degrees. we all know how conservative mfgr storage requirements are for medicinesâŚ
The only time i worry about temps is when I am sunning myself on a hot dayâI try to keep the pump in the shade by turning it around on my waistband so that the clip is exposed instead of the pump. A pump sitting in the sun can get exceedingly hot in a short time.
Thankyou all for the replies. I will go ahead and use the insulin and keep an eye for abnormalities. Sounds like it will be fine.
I initially joined this forum naming myself âoverthinkerâ as a 33 yr old who had just been diagnosed with Type 1. But I am starting to feel that âoverthinkingâ is just part of the territory for newly diagnosed people. The first year or so was full of big twists and turns, but Iâm starting to get the hang of it.
So great to have this community help me as I adjust. Hopefully the admins can fix the website issues - thanks again!
Hah! And oh what a long while it often is. Nice thing is they seem to have settled on one universal format for these thingsâat least, Iâve had lots of different testers but they all seem to accept the lancets from the box I bought about ten years ago. And itâs still pretty full.
I could open a lancet store, I have so many. The only type I have ever bought is a package of cartridges for the accucheck FastClix. It takes many months to go thru the 6 lancets in a cartridge. They are quite handy and the button action to pierce the skin is coolâjust one depression of the button.