Forgot to refrigerate insulin

[Nikki & Sadie]

Hello, I am only on day 3 of insulin since diagnosis and am new to all of this. After Sadie's injection this morning the insulin was accidentally left out in a 73 degree room for 6 hours and 45 minutes. Is it ruined? What do I do? Thanks for any help you can give. -Nikki

 

[Djamila]

Hi Nikki, and welcome! While it's certainly not ideal, it's most likely okay. Are you home testing? That's the best way to know if being left out has impacted the insulin. If it's lost its efficacy, you can see it in the blood glucose numbers. The other thing that could go wrong with it that you can check is to look at the insulin and see if you see any white floaty bits. If you gently roll it, it should look uniformly cloudy.

 

[Noah & me (GA)]

I've done worse, 6 hours is not the end of the world. Djamila's advice is sound.
Drove my wife to the airport last month early morning so out went the hound for a quick pee. Marco likes to sit on the steps when I do this, he's too smart to wander off. It wasn't quite 6 hours (1 hour?) when I pulled back into the driveway and there was a very annoyed and fairly wet cat at the door. We all make mistakes, welcome to the club.