Fortunately, I had a cooler and some cold packs. As soon as the power went out my first thought wasn’t the milk, waffles or other food in the fridge. Not even the ice cream. Nope…after about an hour of the power being out and being unsure how long it was going to be, I put all of the important things (all of the boxes of novolog vials) into ziploc bags and placed them into the cooler with the cold packs packed around them.
Glad I did it because the power ended up being out all night and just coming back on 30 minutes ago. Not sure if the vials would have been OK, but the other stuff we’re throwing out…fortunately for us, our stock wasn’t as full as it typically is.
InsulIn will last for a month at up to 86 degrees farenheight before even the FDA starts saying to exercise caution about its effectiveness-- in all likelihood far longer in the real world. Where refrigeration becomes paramount is when you’re talking about storing for months and years instead of for days and weeks…
That said I get paranoid about it too… but I just have to refocus on the reality once in a while, and because I store insulin indefinitely with no regard to its expiration date I do try hard to keep it at temps in which it will remain stable indefinitely…
I completely believe the experiments you guys have done and posted the results on for us to see. I really appreciate your efforts.
That being said, when our power goes out (we are on the edge of the grid so it doesn’t take much to put us in the dark) I drive the insulin (from the fridge) down the road to a neighbor who has a generator for his house.
If the insulin was for “me” - perhaps I would not feel the need. But it is not. So I do.
I’ll be posting a link on here hopefully within the next week or so about how to home build a refrigerator that you can power with your car engine for under $15… mostly just for fun… could be powered by a car battery alone for a while or by a beefy enough solar panel too but the solar panel would wreck the budget
Seeing how we only use 1 vial per month, we are literally talking about months and years. 24 vials I put in the cooler…that’s 2 years worth. Remember…we’re dealing with a Toddler who is able to stretch insulin out far longer than you old crusty folks.
Experiments give peace of mind, but taking appropriate action in a power outage is just plain smart, whether that be drive it to a neighbors or store it in a cooler.
I use same strategy. I put the cold packs in 2 crumpled plastic bags, sandwich boxed insulin vials or pens between in another. All wrapped tightly in another bag, stored in top of fridge, which I avoid opening. Leave out working supply as might be needed. Have done 48hrs out without noticeble ill effect.
Remember…we’re dealing with a Toddler who is able to stretch insulin out far longer than you old crusty folks. 