Traveling: Storing Medication

Hi,

I am going travelling to Southeast Asia and Australia's East Coast soon and was wondering if anyone had any tips or advice, particularly when it comes to medication and storing your insulin.

Many thanks

Hi Samantha,

Have a look at http://www.friouk.com/ I have a gel pack & wallet and also purchased the travel bag which I use daily as it keeps all of my diabetes stuff in nice & neatly

HTH

Mick

+1 for the Frio. It keeps my insulin cool even in our Australian 40+ degree heat. You just need to soak the gel bag for 2-3 minutes every now and again (can be a few days, or a few weeks depending on climate. One of the greatest diabetic aids ever.

Thanks for the advice! I'll definitely give Frio a search

Hi, I was just wondering regarding these Frio packs... This might sound silly but I just wanted to make sure. I'm going to stay in a hut for 3 days in Thailand and I just wanted to double check that you literally keep soaking the gel packs now and again while i'm there? This is just as good as storing your insulin in the fridge? Also, whilst you're in the these hot climates do you tend to keep the insulin you're using at the time cool too? As i know it's meant to be room temperature. Thanks

As long as you can keep the stored insulin relatively cool you should be fine. Personally I choose not to put the insulin in a fridge after flying long distance as it would have been out the fridge for a while by that point.

Your insulin should *not* be stored in your main luggage when you travel, because if it goes in the hold it would freeze and become ineffective.

Finally it's also worth considering how you're going to handle the time zone difference. When I was flying over to the US recently, I took on a few shots of QA and delayed taking the BI for a few hours until we got to 7am US time. On reflection, might have been better to just stick to UK time when getting there as it's harder to inject when there's turbulence!

If you keep your insulin in a Frio, it will be good for up to a month. Basically, they don't replace a fridge, but they will keep your insulin below the temperature that it would spoil. (I think that the leaflets say keep it below 30 degrees Celcius and it will certainly do that) If your trip is less than a month, then put the insulin that you are taking on the trip into your Frio the night before, and leave it there for the whole trip. Don't forget to take spare insulin in case of issues. After a month, throw any unused insulin away that has been stored in the Frio.

For three days in Thailand, I'd be surprised if you needed to soak it more than once. Here in an Australian summer - above 30 degree days, the most I have to soak my pack is once every 10 days or so. Sometimes I can go much longer. Humidity does affect it though, so Thailand may need more frequent soaking.

If you are going for longer than a month, then what I would do is either pick up some insulin locally from your destination, or store in the Frio as little as possible, and keep as much in a fridge as possible. It may spoil though so could be a high-risk strategy.