Refrigerated meds?

[Mudgirl930]

My son is on growth hormone therapy and his pen needs to be kept cold at all times.We are arriving early on our checkin morning(8-9 am)and plan on checking in to the hotel and then heading out for some fun. My problem is how will we keep his meds cold since our room will more than likely not be ready that early? Would they have a refrigerator available somewhere that we could put his meds in until our room is ready? We are driving down and keeping it in a cooler for the drive, but my DH is afraid that will not keep it cold enough through the night drive and the next day. Anyone deal with this before?

 

[Bass Fan]

My son is taking the same medication and we travel all the time. Put it in the plastic zip-up travel bag that they should have provided with your son's medicine stick and then put it in a smaller cooler (the styrofoam cooler that they overnight to you in is fine) with several of the ice packs (again the ones they use to overnight it to you are fine, just be sure to freeze them back before putting them in the cooler). Then DO NOT OPEN this cooler until you are ready to administer the medicine that night or until you are ready to transfer the medicine stick to a refrigerator. I promise it will be fine for at least 24+ hours.

 

[Bass Fan]

My son is taking the same medication and we travel all the time. Put it in the plastic zip-up travel bag that they should have provided with your son's medicine stick and then put it in a smaller cooler (the styrofoam cooler that they overnight your son's meds to you in is fine) with several of the ice packs (again the ones they use to overnight your son's meds to you are fine, just be sure to freeze them back before putting them in the cooler). Then DO NOT OPEN this cooler until you are ready to administer his medicine pen that night OR until you are ready to transfer the medicine pen to a refrigerator. I promise it will be fine for at least 24+ hours.

 

[ChelleinNC]

When you check in, Bell Services can take it and refrigerate it for you. They do that when people get groceries on the way to the resort.

 

[wdhinn89]

You could store it at bell service like the PP wrote but another option is going to the first aid station at the park you plan on visiting and they will store it for you in their fridge. We do this with my son's insulin.

 

[Figaro]

I have medications that need to be refrigerated and when we travel I use a small, steel thermos. I put three ice cubes in a ziploc plastic bag and then put that into a pre-chilled thermos along with a thermometer (found a perfect size one at Target in their baking gadgets aisle).

I also make sure that the thermometer is between the ice and medication because I don't want the medication sitting up against the ice. This will keep my medication at right around 40 degrees for over 12 hours without any additional ice and pretty much indefinitely as long as I add ice ever 6-8 hours or so.

One thing that I would warn you about, is to check the temperature of the refrigerator you have in your room. Many times it is either way too cold (and would freeze the medication) or too warm. I use the thermometer I have in the thermos to check the fridge temperature for at least a couple of hours before I trust it with my way too expensive medication.

Also, we have come back to the room (fortunately right after this happened) to find that the housekeeper had unplugged the fridge to plug in the vacuum cleaner and then forget to plug it back in. Since then, my spouse always brings along duct tape and taps the plug into the socket. We've had no further problems since that.

Hope this helps! Have a wonderful trip!

 

[mickeyluv'r]

I used to have a dog on insulin, so I asked my pharmacist about insulin being kept cold in case of power outages. She said that although cold is ideal, insulin that is not kept cold is really fine for several days.

I'm not saying this is the case for your meds, but it is worth checking with your pharmacist to see...just in case you ever have an emergency - you should know th details ahead of time instead of guessing. I recall the pharmacist saying most meds like this will be fine if they are kept out for a relatively short time like that.

I would make a point of asking the pharmacist and not the doctor in this case. The doctor is not an expert and will tell you the drug rep line....

Another good way to confirm is to read the drug insert, or call the phone number onthe insert and ask the company directly.

In any case, you should know ahead of time what to do in case of an emergency!

I agree that with my experience with insulin, freezing was more dangerous than not being kept cold. Frozen insulin is useless.