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store at 10-25 degrees C???
Apr. 10th, 2005 11:05 amMost of the snow has melted, and it's beautifully sunny outside. There were young lunatics selling car washes outside the high school yesterday, running around in nothing but shorts. It was cold enough for me to zip my light jacket and put my frivolous gloves on, but warm enough that I felt silly about it. Summer will be here soon.
Several of the medications I use have the active ingredient encapsulated in a special adhesive. I stick the patches on my skin, and the medicine slowly diffuses into my body...great stuff. Unfortunately, it all becomes useless if the adhesive melts. Last summer, I kept them in the refrigerator. Now there's a new version of my main medication patch, with a different adhesive. It sticks better, and seems to provide a more consistent level of medication. And it's generic, so it's cheaper. The package insert for the new material says "STORE BELOW 77 ° F (25 ° C). REMEMBER, THE INSIDE OF YOUR CAR CAN REACH TEMPERATURES MUCH HIGHER THAN THIS IN THE SUMMER. DO NOT REFRIGERATE." My apartment regularly reaches temperatures above 25 ° C. On bad days, it reaches temperatures above 45 ° C.
My refrigerator is the only reliably cold, reliably controlled, space I have. I don't have central air conditioning, only a feeble little wall unit in one room. I don't run the A/C when I'm not home, because I don't want to spend all my money on electricity. (Even when I am home, I turn on the A/C when the heat and humidity become unbearable, which is nowhere near 25C.) I called customer service for the manufacturer of the new patches, and asked about temperature sensitivity of their adhesive. The person I talked to was really steadfast about the "do not refrigerate" requirement, and could not tell me whether heat or refrigeration was worse. (They probably never tested it. I guess I can tell them. *sigh* I know it's possible to make a silicone adhesive that would be stable at freezing temperatures, but they may not have bothered. Or it may not have been compatible with other requirements of the patch.) I've thought about keeping my meds at work, which is usually air-conditioned. But the security concerns there are nerve-wracking. I don't have a locking cabinet or a desk drawer where I can hide something...and this is something I need frequently, I would prefer not to have it become the subject of gossip, and there's a growing black market for it.
What I really want is a little constant-temperature box I can keep in my apartment. It wouldn't have to be very big...a 6" cube would be more than enough. I don't need precise temperature control, either. Those fabulously expensive controlled-environment chambers that maintain temperature to 0.01 ° (with a great wodge of insulation on each side) would not be appropriate for my budget, for my size of apartment, for the amount of time and energy I have for maintenance. I know there are insulated boxes with heaters and thermo-electric coolers, for keeping food hot or cold. The problem is that heat and cold are exactly the conditions I need to avoid. Does anyone know where I can find a device that will let me set it for "lukewarm?"
Several of the medications I use have the active ingredient encapsulated in a special adhesive. I stick the patches on my skin, and the medicine slowly diffuses into my body...great stuff. Unfortunately, it all becomes useless if the adhesive melts. Last summer, I kept them in the refrigerator. Now there's a new version of my main medication patch, with a different adhesive. It sticks better, and seems to provide a more consistent level of medication. And it's generic, so it's cheaper. The package insert for the new material says "STORE BELOW 77 ° F (25 ° C). REMEMBER, THE INSIDE OF YOUR CAR CAN REACH TEMPERATURES MUCH HIGHER THAN THIS IN THE SUMMER. DO NOT REFRIGERATE." My apartment regularly reaches temperatures above 25 ° C. On bad days, it reaches temperatures above 45 ° C.
My refrigerator is the only reliably cold, reliably controlled, space I have. I don't have central air conditioning, only a feeble little wall unit in one room. I don't run the A/C when I'm not home, because I don't want to spend all my money on electricity. (Even when I am home, I turn on the A/C when the heat and humidity become unbearable, which is nowhere near 25C.) I called customer service for the manufacturer of the new patches, and asked about temperature sensitivity of their adhesive. The person I talked to was really steadfast about the "do not refrigerate" requirement, and could not tell me whether heat or refrigeration was worse. (They probably never tested it. I guess I can tell them. *sigh* I know it's possible to make a silicone adhesive that would be stable at freezing temperatures, but they may not have bothered. Or it may not have been compatible with other requirements of the patch.) I've thought about keeping my meds at work, which is usually air-conditioned. But the security concerns there are nerve-wracking. I don't have a locking cabinet or a desk drawer where I can hide something...and this is something I need frequently, I would prefer not to have it become the subject of gossip, and there's a growing black market for it.
What I really want is a little constant-temperature box I can keep in my apartment. It wouldn't have to be very big...a 6" cube would be more than enough. I don't need precise temperature control, either. Those fabulously expensive controlled-environment chambers that maintain temperature to 0.01 ° (with a great wodge of insulation on each side) would not be appropriate for my budget, for my size of apartment, for the amount of time and energy I have for maintenance. I know there are insulated boxes with heaters and thermo-electric coolers, for keeping food hot or cold. The problem is that heat and cold are exactly the conditions I need to avoid. Does anyone know where I can find a device that will let me set it for "lukewarm?"
