Cooked Insulin

The patient information sheet which comes with my daughter's Novalog reads, "keep in the refrigerator or at room temperature below 86 F for up to 28 days."

We do just that with vials of insulin at home.  They are in the fridge (butter compartment, of course) until they're needed.  Then they're in a finished room in our basement which is 'site change central' in addition to being part library, part office, part media-room and occasional guest room.  Because it's downstairs, the temperature is pleasant on even the hottest days.

Once the insulin is in the pump, though, it's a whole different story.  Any outdoor time in recent memory has been above 90 degrees.  When she's in the pool, I've brought a cooler to drop the pump into.  Yet I encourage her to plug back in whenever she's out of the water, so again it's hot. The high school, where my daughter spends each morning at her summer music program, is at least 90 degrees at this point.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but it's now pretty obvious that by 36-48 hours after each site change, for the past couple of weeks, those numbers have crept up.   The more frequent site changes are not terribly popular here, but it's been the only solution.  Fortunately, it appears that this stretch of heat is over for a few days at least.

The insulin won't be the only one happy about that.

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