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Permalink Reply by solobaricsrock on July 4, 2010 at 5:43pm

I believe most insulin remains good for ~3 days when at body temp. That's why they recommend changing infusion sets and reservoirs at the 3 day mark. Ive seen its stay effective for longer, but don't recommend trying it just for safety sake.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on July 4, 2010 at 6:27pm

thanks - still gets me nervous on the third day of heat.

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on July 4, 2010 at 6:58pm

In this my first summer of managing a child with diabetes using an insulin pump, I have found that my son's reservoirs are great for the first 48 hours after changing, but anything beyond that is like the miracle of Easter: "on the third day, he rose again!" I change the reservoir as soon as I get a number that's outside his upper limit and behold, we're back in business. I'm guessing you can push it to 3 days if you don't spend a lot of time outdoors running around in the heat like he does, but for the sake of your nerves, you might want to just make a habit of changing the reservoir every 48 hours. In this heat wave, though, I simply take his pump off him and put it in the coolest room in the house for an hour or so in the morning while he's doing things like running through sprinklers and doing pratfalls in his kiddie pool - stuff you don't want to expose a pump to, anyway. Then when he's had about an hour to an hour & a half outside, it's time to come in for a snack and I try to keep him indoors during the worst heat of the day, and the pump goes back on. Works great!

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Permalink Reply by Joe on July 5, 2010 at 4:51am

In my experience the temperature ranges stated for insulin are gross estimates only. I cycle in extreme heat (Death Valley,e.g.) and extreme cold and I have never had a problem. I try to keep extreme temperature exposure to a minimum, and I always consider the temperatures at which my insulin was kept if I'm having a problem, but I don't think I've ever had a temp related problem.

My advice - don't worry about it unless you begin to have repeated problems.

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Permalink Reply by solobaricsrock on July 5, 2010 at 6:21am

I have to go with John and Joes answers. I live in South TX and everyday its 95+ degrees. I ill say I do work indoors, but I have kids and so on, and we are outside a lot on weekends. It has never had an adverse effect on my Novolog in the pump. Mind you I use 100 or so units a day so I refill every 2-3 days anyways.

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