wow - sorry to hear that Pops

what's your insulin plan look like? assuming a bumpy ride down...

are you stockpiling? how are you refrigerating?

I have a couple of years worth of regular and had a couple of years worth of Lantus but over the last few months my T-cells finished off my beta cells and my dose doubled - so I only have one year of Lantus right now. I had been using much less than my original prescription called for so stocking up was easy, it's taking me a little while longer to get back up to the supply I'd like to keep now.

That's figuring a supply with refrigeration of course. But my investigating indicates most insulin looses only 2%/yr effectiveness at 40* which is why the expiration is set at 2 years (it must be 95% potent to meet the rules) - so theoretically at 3 years it would still be 96% potent. Even at ground (root cellar) temperature of 50-55* I'd guess it would only accelerate degradation somewhat and at 2 years be nearly good as new. I'm pretty sanguine about grid reliability for the foreseeable future but if short term outages became a problem in summer I have an old walk-in freezer compressor unit that could be rigged up to the windmill, add lots of insulation and ground source tempering and I think I could keep the temps down in the 40's easily.


Ah ha! Here from my notes:


Also, Lantus (which to me is most important because I can easily get by with little to no quickly digestible carbs) also is not tolerant at all to light and freezing kills it dead so that is a big no-no.

Right now I'm using regular that is past expiration (again because my perscription was for much more than I actually needed) and I see no difference in dosage required.


I have lots of syringes (virtually unlimited supply if I reused them till the needle bends) and test strips for maybe a year currently (if I use 3-4 a day) of course in a pinch I'd not be so diligent and wouldn't be quite as concerned about the tightest control possible so I'd only use them periodically to check my fasting sugar to be sure I wasn't way out of control. Strips expire at 2 years so calibrating solution would be good to have or make.


So, I'm not quite done yet! Even if the whole thing came down completely I'd still be around for a couple of years easy.


P.S. here is a good link I found. http://care.diabetesjournals.org/conten ... l.pdf+html

pretty much along what we are doing Pops.

she does have a pump now - but we have supplies for lantus in the event it gets zapped/no batteries/dropped in the creek etc.

the root cellar is around 50 degrees all year - so that is good.

still - with everything else - this is a major deal - we try not to think about it too much, but it is ever present - every meal - every level check (3 times a day).

is it somewhat rare for us older guys to get it later in life? i don't reall know.

thanks for the link - bookmarked.

Yea, it really is big. It's worse when it's your little girl than when it's you.

Only a few percent of people with type I develop it as adults - they call it type 1.5 or LADA (latent autoimmune diabetes of the adult). It's autoimmune just like the kids' version. I tired for about a month, thinking I had a bad case of flu or something, then in a week I really went down, wound up in the ER with a blood glucose of 1400 and bad DKA, doc said I had maybe 1 more day in me and was surprised I didn't do any permanent damage.

wow

glad your still with us!

Thanks Roc.
One thing I wanted to add for anyone stumbling across this:

Never ever trust anything you read on the net when it comes to your health! Always follow your doc instructions!

Thanks Pops! I think the information you have provided can be helpful, though, to give some people reading an orientation. Maybe I should split the topic and put into Health & Medicine Forum?

Yes, please do.

Suggestion: a propane fridge? And a lot of propane?