Insulin care and storage before you get it.

[UBFester]

After a nightmare couple of months with sky high blood sugar, illness and a bunch of other rubbish i've finally got to the bottom of my blood sugar issues.

Turns out the Chemist wasn't storing the insulin in the fridge after delivery and it was sitting out for X number of hours in the main shop where the temperature was a nice 25+ degrees. By the time I got the insulin it was already going off and by the time I got halfway through the batch it was next to useless. I've had unpredictable blood sugar, seen numbers up into the 20s on some occasions and have been unable to get a number reliably below 10 unless engaging in strenuous ( 45 minutes on the X trainer) exercise AND eating a low carb diet.

How did i find out?

I went in this time and miraculously I was about 30 minutes after the delivery and noticed it was still cold, i overheard them say 'we haven't booked that in yet so it's still on the floor and not in the fridge'. My suspicion is that that they were only putting it into the Fridge once it had been booked in and allocated to a prescription which could be taking literally hours and in the temperature the Chemist is kept at, it was enough to ruin it.

It cannot be coiincidence that on this new fresh batch ( that they haven't stored ) my blood sugars have dropped back into range in less than 48 hours and my old carb to insulin calculations are almost perfect again - nothing else has changed. Duly tested with half a thin crust pizza last night, spiked up to 10 and back down to 6 again an hour later purely on insulin alone. It isn't the first time I've had the problem with that Chemist and on previous times they have denied fault - in the 10 years I was with Boots where i used to live, I never had this problem. My blood sugar has been less controlled/ controllable since moving towns and I now realise this is why.

My dispensing Chemist has now been changed to the local Boots superstore ( not so close to the house ) and after a chat with their Pharmacy and discussed their booking in system for refrigerated medicines, I'm much happier with it.

If you've been diabetic 20+ years - trust your meter and your skills - the problem may well not be you!

 

[noblehead]

It is worrying when these things happen, yours story is not the first on the forum and won't be the last, pleased you found out the cause for your high bg levels.

 

[himtoo]

Wow -that is frightening and very true in trusting our experience with testing

 

[UBFester]

You just assume that people 'in the profession' will take as much care with your medication as you do - sadly not. It's not a mistake I will make again and if i move area again, my prescription will go to Boots again.

Also with the new electronic systems in place, you can redirect prescriptions to any dispensing Chemist of your choosing.

 

[monkehwife]

Wow that is shocking. I don't know about anyone else but I do expect professionals to handle medication appropriately! I would write to the manager of the pharmacy or the pharmacy group and express your concerns although it will not make up for the mistakes already made, it may at least draw attention to the issue and perhaps prevent it from happening to yourself or others in the future

 

[UBFester]

Purely to show how fast things return back to normal, after 3 days of good insulin - my average ( taken over 8 spaced tests) reading has dropped from 8.7 on the first day to 7.2 as of this evening. I reckon that will drop another full point over the next few days. It also means i can adjust my am/pm basal split down from 20/18 back to the 18/12 it always used to be. What it also shows is that any correction dose I use is also working as it should be.

Once that's settled and I'm happy with the control, it's back to 45 minute of X trainer a night. On the plus side due to frustration with my previously high sugar, 4 weeks off the bread has let me ditch about 13lbs of unrequired weight which will no doubt help with the return to lower basal requirements.

I can go back to appearing non diabetic to anyone that watches what I eat now that i have my control routine back as it should be and that for me is the holy grail.