Select to expand quoteSo at 35 I had a run in with a bee and needed a epipen due to anaphylaxis, which was a shock (and ****ing scary) as been stung 100s of times before.
Anyways the hospital gave me a epipen and said it has to be stored at 15 to 25 degrees.
That sounds like a real challenge living in WA, and I was told to keep out of my car.
Anyone else use these things and have some solution to store them?
As i spend a fair bit of time at the beach it makes things hard.
Cheers
whatabout one of those waeco thermoelectric coolers? on the hottest temp. theyre not a compressor fridge and pretty shxt at keeping things cool, which would probably help you in this case. i think they cool 20deg or so below ambient and are as small as yr console in a car (you can replace console with them). normally have to run at coldest setting but you could run at warmest
Honestly, for around $200 you can buy a small Jaycar fridge with a 3 year warranty I think, and if you want, you can cool drinks in it too.
If you wanted to splurge, they even sell dual zone models so you could have 15 degrees on one side and 4 degrees in the other for a nice cool drink.
My experience with the peltier type coolers is pretty poor, but maybe good enough for what you want. I would still go for a compressor fridge though and in theory they use less energy than the peltier type coolers.
edit: I think the prices have gone up, and they no longer sell the cheaper single zone fridges.
Epipen are very good at marketing, short shelf life efc. I would suggest that the advise would be due to the plastic mechanism failing, not break down of the drug inside. Our Ambo drugs are constantly in the van and we have no issues. Maybe discuss with your Doc getting a script for an ampule of adrenaline, and learning to draw it up yourself? ( not rocket science) and you get a better does, 2x 0.5mg compared to 0.3mg.
An ampule costs about about $4 compared to $150 epipen.
Don't be scared of of messing up, remember adrenaline is a naturally occurring hormone so no contra-indications and so it is very unlikely to get negative effects with one vial.
The paper below did research in storage of ALS Drugs in hot cars, adrenaline/epinephrine included. They found they do not deteriorate with heat.
Results: Seven sites exceeded 104 ?F (40 ?C) for as little as 30 minutes and as long as 795 minutes. Ten of the sites achieved a mean kinetic temperature (MKT) above 77 ?F (25 ?C), with the highest MKT calculated being 84.1 ?F (28.9 ?C) over a 45-day period. There was no evidence of drug degradation at any site, at any temperature, or at any time point.
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/472699
im not sure Gazuki if i'd trust anyone else though in the heat of battle drawing it up correctly?
My daughter was diagnosed with cold uticaria, so we have them all over the place, but have yet to use one in practice, not that i'm complaining.
We did a clean up of the medicines the other day, and have 4 that are 'past use by'.
Wife was/is going to through them (once we know responsible way of doing it), but I see them much like a flare, even out of date may be better than none? Any hesitation if you needed to use one that had expired, or should they def be disposed of?
We were first alerted one bloody hot day at the beach, combined with a dip in the cold torquay surf, and things did not look good for a while for my daughter.Now its daily tablets to compensate for the thyroid, coats during 10 months of the year, and Epipens at the ready.
Johnopark, get the training pen, so others are ok with having a go also.
