Good to know. 
I definitely would not have thought about that…
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@Eric, I have managed to get I don’t know what into 4 separate syringes… and have pictures to prove it. 
Seriously, I have a question— to which I think I already know the answer, but I don’t trust myself at the moment.
If I ended up with 4 somewhat evenly filled syringes, I would then want 25 units of the solution??? Instead of the 20?? I know this is simple math, but before I shoot this stuff into my muscle, I wouldn’t mind having a little unjustified confidence.
Yes. If X is the number of syringes you have put glucagon powder in, divide the total units of liquid solution in the vial (about 100 units of liquid) by X.
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If you have 4 syringes of powder, divide 100 units of solution by 4, and it would be 25 units.
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If you have 5 syringes of powder, divide 100 units of solution by 5, and it would be 20 units.
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If you have 3 syringes of powder, divide 100 units of solution by 3, and it would be 33 units.
You can divide it up anyway you want. Just make the liquid solution divide out evenly into the number of powder containers you have.
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Got it. And in theory, which I will either discover to be true or not through testing, these syringes should not be held to the typical ~2 day expiration as is true of the prefilled syringe (once mixed with solution). Right? Because this has not been mixed. Somewhat fair assumption?
I’d like to test one out before nightfall. Not because it’s Halloween and I’m worried about goblins but because my 6 year old has a stomach virus and has been vomiting all day. We got this last year, and it never once crossed my mind to do glucagon… and I seriously thought it was the end. This time I’ve got all the glucagon, whole sets and manipulated ones, placed strategically in every room of the house. 
Yes. The glucagon expiration happens after mixing. As long as you keep the powder dry, it will last almost forever.
I would suggest putting the syringe plunger back into the syringe to try to keep air from getting into it. And maybe also keep the syringes in a ziplock bag. Just keep it away from humidity (don’t store it by the shower, stuff like that).
The powder that is in the vial (in the kit) is in a completely dry environment, totally protected from moisture. Do your best to keep the powder in the same type of dry environment.
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So holy crap. Maybe this was just a practice round then. It just so happens to be a very muggy Halloween, and my house felt wet while I was trying to prepare it. At first I thought the glucagon powder was just trickier than I thought… and then I realized it was probably the humidity.
So. What do you think this means for those syringes’ fates? You think the humidity was enough to ruin them for long term purpose? I could just go ahead and use one this evening anyway, but what about the rest?
Use them in non-emergency situations. That’s the only way to know. Don’t discard them.
I think it’s probably fine. If it is only a few minutes in a humid house before you plugged the syringe back up, that’s no big deal. I bet it will work fine.
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If it works at all, what do you think I could expect from 1/4th of the powder? How quickly would I see a rise? And generally speaking, how much of a rise do you think I’d get?
Ok, so I just read through this entire thread and am wondering what kind of google hits we might get… “powder containers,” “filling syringes,” “getting the crushed stuff into the syringe” … 100% FANTASTIC!!!
However, what made me search up glucagon was my curiosity this morning, after accidentally injecting 7u Humalog at bedtime last night instead of 7u Lantus and having to stay up and scarf down a mealtime worth of skittles, whether I could have mixed up and injected some glucagon instead? (I didn’t even think of it last night.) Would the timing/duration have matched the decrease in BS from the Humalog? It was a long night – I had to chase everything down with a 3am (low) juice box as well. So, so, so dumb! Realized it right after I had injected and was so mad at myself.
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Sorry you had such a scary experience!! There are newer glucagon formulations that don’t require mixing and are shelf-stable. I keep Gvoke pre-filled glucagon syringes on hand because it’s easy to give a microdose. I had a bad low over Christmas last year and glucose tabs weren’t bringing me up so my husband gave me a 1/4 dose of Gvoke that brought me up but not too high.
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I live for moments like that. Time for, well, another Desperate Dan image:
Oooh. Or maybe some a lot a truly excessive amount of B&J Cherry Garcia.
My own opinion is that anything is better than glucagon, and the above are a lot better. Glucagon has a very short effect and it is quick; this is why it works for extreme lows. Subcutaneous insulin, even the supposedly short-acting stuff, takes a very long time to get into the blood stream in comparison so I suspect you would have been doing glucagon every hour or so throughout the night, other people please comment.
@CatLady interesting – I like the idea of microdosing with Gvoke. I did have an IRL d-friend use it and it completely did not work. She wasn’t in a position where her liver would have been depleted; it just didn’t bring her blood sugar up at all. She wasn’t super low, was just testing it out, and was shocked that it didn’t work for her. She called Xeris and let them know, but I don’t think anything came of it. I have been meaning to try to get a couple of free samples through their free co-pay program. To @jbowler 's point, I do worry about matching the timing – my insulin, even fast-acting, takes a long time to work. So I recognized my error right away and knew that I had time to carboload to match the insulin hit. And carbs also take awhile to hit for me. I don’t know how long glucagon takes, but am assuming it’s faster than even juice? Ugh… chalking it up to yet another learning experience! 
Jessica
Took about 10 minutes for me to start feeling more alert, about 15-20 minutes to see the CGM really start to climb.
ETA: I way overcorrected a high yesterday and chugged down a glucose shot (Relion pomegranate) as well as some G-tabs. The shot tasted kinda odd (not at all fruit-like) but worked pretty fast.
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To @Eric and any other diabetic endurance athletes, Do you think that glucogon will fail to do anything in a hypo (bonk) caused by long steady effort of 2+ hours?
There are some tricky things here. I usually use glucose tablets if I hit a real low - below 60 - and I get a hit in 5 minutes or so. It does take longer for me to feel recovered; longer than the time for a fingerstick or even CGM to show I am going up.
The problem with glucose in this context is that our bodies “rate limit” it; we can only adsorp so much per minute then the transport chain in our intestines maxes out. IRC the same applies to fructose. So it’s great for a quick correction, and it’s really great if given intravenously, but has limited ability to fight a serious insulin OD.
This does not apply to sucrose or to more complex carbs like the starches found in rice, potatoes or, so long as it does not use resistant starches (which are a whole other story) bread.
I find that fruit (which has the added benefit of some fast acting fructose), bread (non-resistant) and, indeed, cow pie (more flavoursome) are all highly effective in actually buffering my BG against an onslaught of insulin. They also all act faster than my insulin, even when I was using a fast acting one; my BG peaks then drops if I co-bolus the insulin.
Glucagon should always be faster if given intravenously. This is the approach used for the C-peptide test; inject 1mg of glucagon, victim experiences a massive intravenous glucose attack, measure endogenous insulin production over a period of maybe 30 minutes.
Here is the us.gov information for glucagon, it makes interesting reading:
The nausea (choking) is also reported as a side-effect of the C-peptide (GST) test. Of course some of the information, while correct, may not be particularly helpful:
symptoms of low blood sugar (i.e., shakiness, dizziness or lightheadedness, sweating, confusion, nervousness or irritability, sudden changes in behavior or mood, headache, numbness or tingling around the mouth, weakness, pale skin, sudden hunger, clumsy or jerky movements).
I still think of it as a last resort; I won’t do it to myself, but I’m 100% ok with someone doing it to me.
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It won’t do much after an extended effort. I have tested this out.
After long efforts, your liver glycogen is mostly depleted. Glucagon signals your liver to release glycogen, but your liver just shrugs and says - “Sorry, I don’t have anything left to give…
”
It may work somewhat if the long effort is very low intensity and your liver still has something left. So what really matters is the duration and intensity.
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