Help! Flying with medicine...

[JulieEck]

My dd3 tested positive for Strep last night. We've started the antibiotic (Amoxicilin) and I know she won't be contagious for our flight Sunday morning. I do hope she is feeling better and is no longer running a fever too. The doctor said her ears look great so that shouldn't be a problem. My question is how to safely get her medicine down there since it has to be refridgerated. We are flying AirTran at 9:20am. Will need to leave the house at 6am. We get into Orlando at 10:46am and are using ME so we do not have our own transportation. The only thing I can think of is to put it in an insulated lunch bag with those frozen blue ice things and carry it on. Surely TSA allows prescriptions through without a fuss? Will it stay cool enough for 6 hours - 6am to noon, provided we can actually get into a room right away? We are staying at CSR so we will already have a fridge in the room. I guess I can always add some ice to the bag at the resort if we don't get into a room right away. Anyone have any other ideas? Getting it back home on Thursday may be more of a problem if the freezer part of the room fridge doesn't really freeze the blue ice things well. But I could always pick up more medicine once I'm at home. Does anyone have any ideas/input??? TIA!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

We did that very thing in October and it worked out fine. If the fridge in your room doesn't have a freezer section, ask the front desk if they have a freezer you could store the blue thing in during your stay. As a last resort you could put some ice in a ziplock bag for the trip home.

 

[mhaley]

If your room is not ready, the front desk has a fridge to store the medicine. We have done this many times. They will also store it there when you check out if you want to go to the parks. The freezer pack in the insulated bag will do fine...we have done that many times. It becomes much easier when they can start taking chewables or swallow tablets.

 

[scraphappy92]

DS has an ear infection and when we told them we were leaving before the 10 script would be completed the doctor prescrbed the chewable tablets. Can you get those instead? DS says they taste like bubblegum (so I guess it is the same flavor as the liquid). This way we don't have to worry about a refrigerator. Have a great trip! We leave tomorrow at 6 am too!

 

[SueM in MN]

Ask the Pharmacist. Amoxicillin is usually recommended to be kept refrigerated, but should be OK at room temperature, if a frig is not available. The Pharmacist will be able to tell you for sure for the preparation of Amoxicillin you have.

 

[JulieEck]

Thanks guys!!! I remembered that a friend of mine is a pharmacist - not sure why I didn't think of her in the first place, LOL! She said the same as you Sue, that it's probably recommended but not required. The bottle does say Refrigerate but nothing else. I'll call CVS tomorrow just to make sure that the kind I got is like that.
I didn't realize that the front desk had a fridge I could use. I'll definitely make use of that if our room isn't ready. That way I won't have to carry it around in the park with me that first day.
Have fun scraphappy92! See you there.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

You're right - now that I recall they said that refrigerating it only makes it taste better.

 

[SueM in MN]

You're right - now that I recall they said that refrigerating it only makes it taste better.

Yep, a lot of medications are like that.
Liquid Amoxicillin just needs to be used within 14 days of mixing if it's not kept refrigerated (which should be after you are finished with it anyway).

If you need to chill it to make it taste better, you can dispense it into the oral syringe (or whatever you have for measuring it) and just cool the dispensor with that dose in a cup of ice.

 

[vhoffman]

If you're concerned about not having medicine when you return home ask for another prescription to leave at home in the fridge, or just split what you have.

Don't worry about security. I travel routinely with a prescription drug that must be kept cold. I take it in an insulated pack (like a lunch pack) with ice packs inside. Security has never even questioned it. Just make sure its in its original, labeled container, just in case.

 

[tinytotrn]

The first time I ever had to use Amoxicillin for my kids, I didn't realize it had to be refrigerated. I called the pharmacy (CVS) and I remember them saying it had stayed out too long, and I had to get a new one. Can't remember how long it stayed out though, but I know it was quite a few hours. It was never cold, as it was mixed while I was standing there.

Personally, I would put it in an insulated bag with at least two of the frozen blue things. It should keep it nice and cold. If they thaw before you get there, the medicine should still stay cold for quite a while after, and should take a while to get back to room temperature. (We just got back from Disney on Friday, and I would put yogurt in the insulated bag with 2-3 blue things and even once they had thawed, the yogurt was still quite cold for quite awhile!)

 

[cymomtx]

Ask the dr for samples so that you can mix it daily and not have to worry about having to store it during your travels.

 

[sskem96]

At the hospital where I work, the pharmacy tells us that it's ok to use if it's been left at room temp for no more than 12 hours. If you take it in an insulated bag with an ice pack, even if you're delayed and it didn't stay cold the whole time, it definitely wouldn't be back up to room temp for that long. There of lots of manufacturers of generic liquid amoxicillin, so that's probably why you're getting varied answers. Go with what the pharmacist where you had the prescription filled says since they know the manufacturer's recommendation of the particular kind that you got.

 

[KerriMc]

We travelled to Florida last March with my youngest dd, 19 mos at the time. She was on Amoxicillan for ear infections and a respiratory infection. We were only half way through the script when we left, so my family doctor recommended the pharmacy filling the presciption mixed for the days we were home and then giving us the powder amount and we could mix it ourselves with distilled water once we got there. All they do in the pharmacy is take out the powder and a bottle of distilled water and mix it up before they give it to you.

Now it ended up that our pharmacist felt that we would ok to take this medication with us down to the hotel the night before, where they had a small fridge in our room (but if they hadn't, we were going to leave it in our car as it was cold enough out). Then we were up and at the airport by 6:30 am and arrived in Orlando at 1pm. I used an icepack against it in the diaper bag and as soon as we got to the house, around 3, we put it right in the fridge. So I think you will be ok!

You can always do the split amounts thing like a previous poster said so that you won't have so bring more than you will need while you are down there! Or see about taking the reconstituted powder amount and mixing it yourself while down there (the pharmacist can tell you the amount of water to use).

Good luck
Kerri

 

[JulieEck]

Thanks for all of the replys!

We took the whole bottle with us in an insulated lunch bag with 2 blue packs. We were delayed a little bit, but it was still cold when we got to the room. Coming back home yesterday we were delayed a good bit and I forgot to put it back in the fridge right away (prob close to 12 hours total), but it was still a little cool. I had turned the fridge up to the coldest setting and the ice packs actually stayed frozen without there being a freezer compartment!