? Storing Lantus SoloStar Pens in a Broken Fridge

[MommyOfIsis]

Howdy all, I have a bit of a situation that I need some help with.
Our fridge is dying. It's been slowly getting worse, and we've gone ahead and bought a new fridge, but it won't get here until Wednesday (4/29/15) evening.
We have 3 unopened SoloStar pens and 1 that I've been using.
The fridge is still chilling things, just not as much as it ought to be. The freezer is very cold, and had been freezing over, but the fridge portion is barely cool at all. At some point we will have to unplug the fridge and let it defrost, and we will also have to wait for the new fridge to cool down once we get it installed.
I'm worried about the Lantus' temperature during this time. I'm fairly certain that it's not currently as cool as it ought to be, but I don't know how dangerous that is. I don't know how long it will have to be unrefrigerated for during this process, but I want to keep it as cool as possible for as long as possible.
If I buy a styrofoam cooler and put some ice packs or bagged ice in it, would finding a way to suspend the pen in it be good enough to keep it cold, or would there be a risk of freezing? (By suspend I mean I am picturing a way to creatively tape the pen midair inside the cooler to keep it from laying on the cold-source.)
We may be able to bring the unopened pens to my mother-in-law's house and keep them in her fridge, but I'm concerned about the 'active' pen, too. We live approximately 20 minutes away from my MIL, so keeping them all in her fridge is out of the question as we wouldn't be able to drive to her house with Isis to give her her insulin.
I skimmed through this http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/9/2665.full.pdf but haven't come across anything that really jumped out at me for this situation.
Have any of you ever been through something like this?
Do you have any recommendations or suggestions?

 

[julie & punkin (ga)]

We traveled from Oregon to Colorado with punkin & his insulin. Took a small cooler and blue ice in it. wrapped the insulin in bubble wrap so it didn't touch the blue ice.

I think you could use a styrofoam cooler, put ice in it and tape the box of new pens to the lid, or put all of the pens in a sandwich-type box, and wrap the sandwich box in either a towel or some bubble wrap. You don't want the insulin to touch the ice or be in danger of freezing.

It might be a good idea to put the unopened pens at your m-i-l's fridge and just keep the open pen at your place in a cooler.

Or is their a neighbor who would let you keep the open pen in their fridge?

 

[Chris/China (GA)/Garfield]

Your plan to use a cooler works fine

Just wrap the pens up good in newspaper (it's an excellent insulation) and keep them directly off the ice and they'll be fine

 

[Wendy&Neko]

I did the same trip as Julie, but from British Columbia, with temperatures of 95 degrees outside. I had a cooler with the blue ice packs and put the insulin in it's box packaging, inside a plastic tupperware container, then with a face cloth between it and the blue ice packs.

I agree that storing the unopened pens at MIL's house it a good plan.

 

[MommyOfIsis]

Thank you for the suggestions!
We may end up purchasing a mini-fridge for this occasion, but it would certainly be cheaper to use a cooler instead. I'm a bit concerned about the potential amount of time the pen will be sans fridge. I've been told we don't necessarily need to defrost the old fridge, but we don't want any surprises when they install the new one, so it would probably be best to unplug it for at least a short amount of time while we clean and inspect what's behind there.
I will definitely take some time to think this over and apply your experiences before making a decision, and greatly appreciate all of your help!

 

[Ella & Rusty & Stu(GA)]

When we travel with Rusty we put his insulin at the bottom of a cooler (the pen wrapped in bubble wrap and then put into a small cardboard box and the whole thing then wrapped in newspaper). We add more newspaper on top (a layer about 2 inches thick) and then put the blue ice blocks on top of the newspaper. If you can keep a spare set of blue ice blocks in a neighbor's fridge, you can change them every day. I always have one of those little zipper-pull thermometers in the box with the insulin. Ideal temperature is 40 degrees F.

When our 'fridge died several winters ago we put all the food out on the porch, where the temperature was about Zero, F. To keep the insulin from freezing we wrapped it as above and kept it in the house, wrapped as above, in a cooler with blue ice. We eventually wound up buying a mini fridge because the delivery of the new fridge was delayed a month. It was the best purchase we ever made. I don't know how we ever survived without one. We use it all the time for beverages.

Good luck! Use your mom's fridge for the unopened pens.

Ella & Rusty