Haven’t taken pics of the Insulin yet, but seeing a growing stash makes me content…just never know what the future holds - Liam’s life means everything to me.
Misc Unisolve, alcohol wipes, bandaides, ointments.
PODs
Sensors
Lancets
Test Strips
Pen Needles
Vials for Diluent
Syringes
Large view of Diabetes Closet
Color-coded Test Strips stash
Wow @ClaudnDaye go you guys!!!
I was just thinking about our future house (someday, I swear, we are going to remodel) and considering if it would be nuts to build a diabetes storage room. (Clearly I’m not actually going to do a giant room, but our under bed storage solution isn’t rad, and IS frustrating when I’m looking for something after EH has looked for something.)
This is so inspiring! Actually everyone’s stash photos have inspired me a lot to be more prepared. Thanks for sharing!!!
Good looking supply!
What’s in those vials at the top of the colour-coded test strips picture?
Is this your house?
I thought you meant (mus)tache was growing… in which case I almost had to remind you that Movember was past, cinco de mustache prep hadn’t started yet… and July mustache contest wasn’t even in discussion yet…
But that’s a good stache start;)
In seriousness though, good job—- it’s basic survival to have a good stash set up and there’s no excuse not to. It looks like you’re well on top of that.
You talking about the large medicine bottles? If so, those are Glucose tabs - that’s what they pack his in.
That’s a heck of a stash of lancets you have. I’m still working on a box from the mid 90’s.
We hardly ever change them out so they continue growing. I figure by the time he’s an adult, he’ll have enough to last his whole lifetime. That’s my hope anyway. lol
At our Endo appointments, our Endo asks…“how much does he use of this or that…” and “should I make this for less?” I avoid giving specifics about how much he uses (except those things she can tell for herself like insulin) and; instead, I say…“Nope. I want everything I’m entitled, everytime, in as large of quantities as I’m authorized to get.”
Also, she already writes his insulin prescription for 7x the amount he uses which may sound like a lot more, but since his TDD is still only between 5 - 8 units per day, it works out to around 5 boxes of Novolog flex pens and 3 boxes or so of Lantus flex pens…plus we still have an active prescription for novolog vials that hasn’t expired yet so we get that also with our prescriptions.
When I pulled up to the CVS window to pick up my prescription this past time, the lady said “Looks like it’s early Christmas” before handing me 7 large bags filled with goodies. I did feel like it was Christmas…
Who are “they”?
Does insurance there cover everyting in those pictures? Glucaose tablets and Unisolve and alcohol swabs and the like?
Here insurance/government doesn’t cover any of those “accessories”. Everything like glucose tablets, tapes, adhesive removers, alcohol swabs are bought over the counter. (Hence why I have never seen glucose tablets in anything other than Dex4 containers!)
Is that every month?
The pharmacy (CVS).
No. That would be great. Our insurance requires that we get 90-day prescriptions only. So whenever get pick up our supplies, it’s always a 90-day supply.
Yes. Some things that aren’t necessarily prescription items like alcohol wipes, glucose tablets, etc., we can have them added to our prescription to remove any cost.
Let me clarify “to remove any cost.” With our insurance, if you bundle everything up into one prescription, we only pay for the most expensive item, which in our case is the insulin and we pay nothing right now for that either because we use the Novolog card which removes that full cost. So, because we bundled it, everything else in the prescription is at no cost to us.
Also, we don’t have Unisolve added to our prescription only because our Endo could only find the wipes in the system, which we didn’t want. Had she found the liquid, that could/would have been added to our prescription as well. As a result, we buy that using our HSA card.
That makes more sense. I get six boxes of Fiasp penfills if it were for 90 days (though I get them a month at a time). That amount is pretty close to what I end up using, but since I ate low-carb for a year I was able to use significantly less, so was able to save up three or four boxes of penfills.
I also have Lantus, Apidra, and Tresiba penfills and pens in my fridge from previous use. I would like to find a way to use those up before they expire.
Wow that is amazing and really, really organized. I might have that much. I just have no way of knowing. 
So pods to you guys then are like reservoirs and infusion sets to us. I don’t know what I thought it would be, but I somehow had an idea it was maybe hard to stockpile them. But I was wrong.
They come 10 to a box. I have them color-coded with a chart that specifies when I use each box, in a FIFO manner.
Expiration dates aren’t usually relevant and we use all diabetes supplies past their expiration dates with no negative impacts on health.
We’ve tested expiration dates in this community pretty extensively. I found a pod from April of this year that I plan to use next. Will update on the results. 
No, I don’t expect this to last into his adulthood. He’s 4 atm. This stash is for “hard times” that one never knows may come their way. In the event of some catastrophe in my work or personal life or in case of the ever-growing threat of a zombie apocolypse, I want to have more than enough to hold me over for a while, before I have to start figuring out ways to get more.
For instance, we live in the Cascadia earthquake zone. When the big earthquake hits, we know we won’t have help for weeks perhaps as long as a month. We don’t want diabetic supplies to be the limiter.
Unfortunately, the most likely bad event is getting laid off at a job, in the case of this, we want to be able to go for 3+ months without worrying about getting supplies.
This has happened to us. And having enough insulin on hand to get by until we figured out which insurance to buy and actually managed to do that was helpful. We actually didn’t carry much of a stock back then and it was rather stressful as it dwindled. So now we keep enough on hand to get by. Also we’ve used expired everything with no problems.
Finally finished my Dorganization (see what I did there?? Diabetes organization? hehehe…I kill me). Anyway, some shots of the novolog / sorting system
Getting organized / labeling:
Novolog Vials
Novolog Flexpens
Lantus Pens
Storage
Omnipod Chart
Test Strips Chart
Novolog Vials Chart
Lantus Pens Chart
Novolog FlexPens Chart
Supplies charts Ready for Access
