How Long Can You Survive a Disaster Without Your Insulin?

This morning we ran a two related story in Diabetes News Hound about having diabetes during a natural disaster.

The first talked about how people with diabetes were some of the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The article even noted that the event took up to four months off the lifespan of some of those in New Orleans. You can check out the full post here: Hurricane Katrina Victims With Diabetes Among Hardest Hit

The second article talked about what to do to prepare for a natural disaster if you have diabetes. We summarized a blog post that, at times, seemed a little too focused on "gloom and doom" scenarios. You can check out the full post here: Diabetic Tips For Surviving a Natural Disaster

However, it did raise important questions: Have you taken any steps to make sure you can manage your diabetes during a disaster and how long can you live without your diabetes supplies?

Interesting thought for an article (I would have preferred a more in depth article actually addressing the issues).

My diabetic related preperation for this type of occurance is keeping 2 extra bottles of each type of insulin I use in my refrigerator. A disaster which would not require me to leave my own household would allow the insulin to survive enclosed in a rarely opened refrigerator for longer than 90 days.

My personal experimentation (during economic trying times) has revealed that even though the efficiency of Humalog decreases after 28 days of injecting air into the bottle it does not expire (for me it just takes longer for the Humalog to start working).

Stock piling non-expiring food supplies is another precaution I have taken (if supply chains are interrupted I want to have medical supplies, toliet paper, shampoo, soap, and food stocked in a back closet for my consumption).

I also make sure I have necessary camping equipment that will allow me to survive off the grid. Another thing I keep backup supplies of is batteries for my needles. And of courge our grab and go bag contains syringes and a couple 100 test strips...just throw the insulin in a ice chest and we are out the door.

I try to keep at least one bottle of each insulin I use (Lantus and Novolog). As for how long without insulin, my guess is 2 weeks- one month maybe.

Katie

(for me it just takes longer for the Humalog to start working).

Please explain this.  I feel like when I open a new bottle of insulin it takes a few days for it to jive with my body so to speak and start workin... Is this what you are referring to?

Keith221

I try to keep at least one bottle of each insulin I use (Lantus and Novolog). As for how long without insulin, my guess is 2 weeks- one month maybe.

I keep extra vials of insulin on hand and never get too low on the syringes and test strips.  Ah, the beauty of good health insurance.  When I go out of the house of any raeason I take my tester and Lantus and Humalog and a couple of syriges in case for some reason I can't get home for my next dose like a crash or road closures or earth quakes etc.

I asked my endocronolgist about this once if I should try to keep insulin outside of the house somewhere in case I can't get in the house ( we have earth quakes here ) and he said he thought they'd have emergency stuff pretty fast and even the peoplein Katrina for the most part were able to get it hospitals etc.  Not sure if I'd want to bank on this though!

As far as how long I could live without insulin I'd guess 5 days tops.  After even one day or two it'd start getting iffy.

Kate

Katie

(for me it just takes longer for the Humalog to start working).

 

Please explain this.  I feel like when I open a new bottle of insulin it takes a few days for it to jive with my body so to speak and start workin... Is this what you are referring to?

With a new bottle of Humalog It starts working / lowering my blood sugar in 20 to 30 minutes and peaks around an hour after injection.

With a bottle of Humalog that I have used for more than 28 days the amount of time it takes to start lowering my blood sugar after injection increases. I usually don't start seeing a drop until about an hour to 90 minutes after I inject it.

The Humalog insert states it is only good for 28 days after the first injection of air into the bottle. I have found it still works after that time period, but it is not as effective (takes longer to work and I usually need to increase amount slightly).  

I forgot about keeping a bottle outside of the house. I do have extra bottles of each insulin at my fathers house about 60 miles away in town.

When I was a freshman in high school, 3 years after dx, my sister crashed her plane on the way back from Baja. We were stranded on a beach at a closed small resort for 5 days. I had insulin, but no syringes. (crossing the border with syringes is a hassle and I thought I'd be home in a couple hours)The caretaker found a horse syringe, but I choose not to use it. This was back in the days of one shot of NPH a day. Got home went back to taking my insulin, saw Dr the next day. No ill effects. Although I was considerably lethargic by the time a nother plane came to fly us out.

I must admit I am very poorly prepared for such an event.  Mostly because I really have to budget my insulin and test strips...

I actually have wondered about this myself. What happens when or if insulin can no longer be mass produced? Diabetics worldwide last for a couple months and then keel over dead?

My thing is more apocalyptic than disaster. Think 2012, people! Haha. But really, what would happen if some worldwide disaster or event led to a halt in RNA insulin production...or stop in production of any of a number of things that we as diabetics rely on, and some of us take for granted, on a daily basis?

Food for thought...what did diabetics do hundreds of years ago? Anyone have any idea?

Pat

Food for thought...what did diabetics do hundreds of years ago? Anyone have any idea?

According to our DE, they died within several weeks of onset.  They literally liquified from the inside as their bodies broke down organs, muscle, etc. trying to feed itself.  It was a pretty miserable way to go.

Mo

Monique H

Pat

Food for thought...what did diabetics do hundreds of years ago? Anyone have any idea?

According to our DE, they died within several weeks of onset.  They literally liquified from the inside as their bodies broke down organs, muscle, etc. trying to feed itself.  It was a pretty miserable way to go.

Mo

Well that's a fun predicament. Should the unthinkable happen, I couldn't think of a better group of people to waste away to nothing with :)

The American diet or worldwide diet was considerably different prior to the implementation of insulin therapy than that of today.  The plethora of refined carbohydrates that surrounds us today simply was not around back then.  From what I have read prior to insulin therapy some diabetics were placed on high fat/ protein diets with very few carbs (think bean sprouts and salad greens).  You may ask how can one survive such a diet for more than a month?  It is doable if  one considers the diet of the native Inuit tribes of the Arctic prior to assimilation into western culture, their diet was just that. High fat/ protein with virtually zero carbs (Gives a new meaning to the phase, 'living off the fat of the land' ). This diet is quite extreme and would only prolong life a few weeks or months. Ultimately  basal glucose number continually increase even without carbs and death still comes knocking.

Thanks for bringing up this topic.  Although I had updated our son's emergency stat sheet to reflect his dx, I didn't think to update our family's emergency response plan.  I'll have to do that when we get back home.  Ironically, we've been on vacation in Florida while our home state of Georgia has been in a state of emergency from flooding.  While out house is fine, we're going to have a pretty nasty mess to clean up in the basement by the time we get home.  Lovely.

On a daily basis, our son never leaves the house without both types of insulin and enough supplies for at least three days, and we have a three-day grab-and-go emergency backpack in the truck at all times.  Having spent most of my life in earthquake country, I guess it's just become second nature for me to think "three days till help arrives" every time I leave the house.  But, I didn't think about keeping the insulin cool in the event of an emergency.  Which cooling pouches do you all recommend?  I also keep all of his extra supplies in a backpack in the kitchen, so it's easy to grab if we have to evacuate.  I just need to work on getting a small stockpile built up; our insurance only approves 30-day supplies at a time.

Anyone care to share their T1 emergency plans?

Mo

After reading this post, I went home and created a Ziploc bag with a 3 day supply of everything, Including an extra meter, and alcohol wipes (if we aren't in our home for 3 days, who knows how dirty things will be whereever we are! and a few fruit snacks to treat lows.) The only thing we'd have to grab is the insulin. I plan to ask about this at our next appt. I am considering storing extra insulin (both kinds) at our daycare provider's home, just in case too. I've thought too that we would plan to run our son on the high side - 120-200 just to make sure that he doesn't get too low if we were on short supply of food.

What happens if we only had one kind of insulin? I'm guessing I could probably make it work, but not as good of control as now. I guess I'd prefer to only have short acting? 

Monique H

Pat

Food for thought...what did diabetics do hundreds of years ago? Anyone have any idea?

According to our DE, they died within several weeks of onset.  They literally liquified from the inside as their bodies broke down organs, muscle, etc. trying to feed itself.  It was a pretty miserable way to go.

Mo

You beat me to it.  My answer was going to be "Die."

Thanks goodness I wasn't born 60 years before I was!