Insulin, being the most temperature sensitive has always been my main concern when traveling. Often in the past when traveling I hunt down the closest refrigerator I can find. Often times in Thailand this has meant that my insulin ends up in a refrigerator by the front desk of wherever we are staying along with the beer or soft drinks they are trying to sell. While I have had my concerns about it going missing from such a public place, I have never had a problem.
This trip produced more of a challenge because we were moving so often and are on the road for so long. In Europe I had no problem with keeping my test strips and meter within its temperature range, but finding a refrigerator for my insulin proved more difficult. My insulin is packed in a small 6x4 inch cooler case which at the beginning of this journey held 10 bottles of insulin and three small blue ice. Whenever we got the chance (mostly at friends houses) these were frozen and subsequently provided a day of cooling when traveling between places by train. The problem of refrigeration arose at hotels. Two of our hotels in Europe had a small refrigerator in the room and another had a small communal fridge for guest use. However, all others did not provide a refrigerator for guest use. Mostly this was not a huge problem, because I brought several items with me.
The first helpful item is a small medi-fridge. While it holds only 3 bottles of insulin, I found this helpful when I put my insulin the communal fridge – the thought being, if someone walks off with my insulin at least I will have some still with me. The second and
third items are both Frios – a UK product that is specifically designed to keep medication cold when you have no access to a refrigerator. This product was brand new to me and while it is no where near refrigeration cold it has come in handy. The extra large Frio is essentially a small purse with an inner and outer camber. The inner camber is removed and then soaked in cold water for a few minutes to allow the gel inside of its walls to expand and hold some of the water. Once removed and dried off the pouch is then placed back inside the outer pouch which keeps the 'wetness' inside. The Frio cools by evaporation. The advertisements for the Frio claim that it will keep whatever is inside the inner pouch around 68F when outside temperatures are 100F.While using it in Europe to try to keep my insulin cold I didn't feel much of a difference between the room temperature and the insulin temperature inside the Frio. I believe this is because the Frios real testing ground is those places where the temperature really is 100F. The Frio has been a beneficial edition to my supplies while in South Africa – not to keep my insulin cool, but my test strips.
When we first came to South Africa three years ago we went on a group tour of Kruger National Park. It was late October so summer was near but the rains had not come to cool the park down. It was HOT, really Hot. I refused to be told the actual temperature because once my brain knows it really starts complaining. If I can keep it in the dark it just has to deal. However, it was hot enough that when just sitting inside the vans, let me emphasis 'just sitting', sweat would be constantly rolling down the backs of my legs. While my body knew how to cope the real problem was my diabetes supplies. I had found and put my insulin in a fridge so it was fine, but the rest of my supplies sat all day in our canvas tent, which as you can imagine became much hotter than even the outside temperature. When we left two days later to drive back to Joburg my test strips had literally swelled from the heat and would not fit into my meter! Fortunately 7 hours later with the help of air-con they had returned to normal size and worked fine. This problem which I had never heard of before or since this episode taught me to adhere to the temperature range on the test strip bottle.
Having returned to Kruger this time and experienced 100+ degree temperatures again, the Frio was put to work cooling my test strips, as we were able to keep my insulin cool in a cooler with ice. The extra large Frio would only hold 8 bottles of test strips so I had to rotate them in and out, but where in Europe I couldn't really tell if the Frio was cooling, in South Africa it was very evident. I believe its advertising claim to be true.
The other thing of note for any diabetics traveling to South Africa is that almost all of our accommodation have had communal fridges for guest use. Most of the places we stay are 'backpackers' and provide self-catering kitchens. And in general I have always felt that my insulin is safe in there.
Andrea
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