So glad for this news. Hope Liam feels a whole lot better today!!
Is the refrigerated shelf life (after being mixed), indeed, just 24 hours? Just want to make sure before I throw it out this evening.
If you happen to have a willing guinea pig around (which I personally do not include my child in but… willing adult??) it could be an interesting thing to see for yourself.
I’m sure this is something the FUD guinea pig (@Eric) has already tested many times.
To be on the safe side, I’ll just throw it out, but it would still be interesting to know. I guess the reason to throw it out would be that the mix just goes bad after 24 hours of being mixed, but I can’t find anything specific as to “why” it’s important to throw it away after 24 hours. If it’s just a “the FDA has only approved 24 hours” thing then that doesn’t hold much water since we are constantly using things longer and in more extreme circumstances than have been approved by the FDA.
Eric?
I did the expired glucagon test and on this thread below, I did a demo where I used it 5 days later and it worked fine!
Check out this post:
haha. I should use SEARCH more than I do! I even thanked you for that post and added your image!
Thanks, Eric.
I’m just wondering if there is anything negative about using it…like are the mixed chemicals possibly going to make him sick if I were to use beyond the 24 hours. Did you feel any different using it (nausea, etc.,?)
It sucks that you get so little of this so when you use it really is limited. Can’t wait for glucagon with longer shelf life to be a feasible thing.
I’m so glad the mini-dose glucagon worked well.
Technically, I don’t believe the FDA or any other country’s health authority has approved glucagon for mini-dose at all, so it’s all off-label anyway. Here in Canada, CDEs and endos do officially recommend it, but it sounds like that may not be the case in the US from some posts I’ve read.
I have no data to add as I’ve always just thrown it out after 24 hours. Hopefully the stable pens designed specifically for mini-dose glucagon will come along soon.
It’s fine.
I think the thing to do is - don’t make a plan for using it X days from now. I mean, don’t plan to make him low for the purpose of testing it. Just hang on to it. If you need it at some point in the next few days, then try it. Just a little bit. Draw it up with an insulin syringe, just a small amount like 10 units. Watch the magic. Instead of a 50 point jump, you could see a 20 point jump which might be just perfect.
This is why I am very interested in the shelf-stable glucagon becoming available. Once that happens, the next thing is that pumps could use it for lows.
Imagine how much more effective it would be to treat a low if your pump spit out a few units of glucagon, instead of stopping your basal for 30 minutes or an hour and waiting for your BG to eventually come up! Much faster!
That’s why we need the shelf-stable stuff. It opens up an entirely new avenue of treatment. And that’s why the nasal glucagon to me is a step backward, because it potentially reduces the interest and excitement in the development of something that would eventually be much more useful…
you can likely use it up to 72 hours in the fridge. That’s what our endo says anyways. I know people (older nurses who have had D for years) who use mini-glucagon for weeks, until they use it up. But I wouldn’t recommend that; it gets gradually less potent over time as it denatures and it forms amyloid fibrils when it denatures. Probably harmless but I’m not keen on using it personally.
Here are some studies on glucagon denaturing:
Eric, how can we micro-dose BAQSIMI?
At $280 a pop,
Pour the powder out and cut it with an additive like laundry detergent or baking soda. You can cut it a little bit, but if you cut it too much your rep will drop and nobody will buy from you. Reputation is everything in that business.
Just kidding!
Seriously, I don’t think there is a very practical way to do that. I am guessing you could take the powder out ahead of time and put it in a small container. And then snort just a little portion of it when needed instead of the whole thing. But doing that when low does not seem like it would be easy.
I don’t think there is really much of a good option with Baqsimi.
I’m sure someone who has a free one kicking around could take one apart and see how it works, but I don’t know why someone would…
So apparently one benefit of Basqimi for emergencies is that it begins working significantly faster than the injected stuff. Not sure why. Another thing I noticed is that they did a test in children and it raised bg not that much after 45 minutes ,to about 180 mg/DL on average from 55 mg/DL. To me, that’s actually a totally fine level and a far cry from the 300+ that we were always warned was possible with giving even the half-dose of the injected glucagon (see Figure 1):
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pedi.12668
The cost and inability to microdose is for sure a huge issue of course for most diabetics. But it seems to me that, for emergency situations, it’s significantly better for kids in a school setting.
Apparently another plus for baqsimi is it can be used for unconscious child or adult. No need to snort (inhale) it.
How’s Liam feeling now?
He’s feeling ok but his bgs are acting strangely. Since his stomach bug or whatever it was his insulin requirements seem to have gone down, so I’m battling lows and trying to figure out what’s the right new mix… Hopefully it’s right for the first day back to school today. I had to pick him up last Thursday at noon due to a persistant lows that wouldn’t come up. Nurse asked if I could get him since he was only in her office anyway.
I hope it gets back to normal soon!
Thanks so much for checking in on him! He’s definitely NOT 100% yet but hopefully this week he’ll get there.