Travelling with Growth Hormone (Flying): MaryO

This is from another blog post here.

Just after 3:00 pm Friday August 25, 2017 we took an Uber to Dulles Airport

Going through TSA there was no issue with my refrigerated growth hormone injections.

The Omnitrope was in its own case from the manufacturer.

I put that in that new iCool weekender case I’d bought for this trip.  I chose this one for these reasons:

• For vials or pens (insulin, growth hormones, L-Thyroxin, polyarthritis medication)
• Keeps your medication between 36°F – 46°F (2°C – 8°C) for 12 hours (I knew this trip would be about 20 hours, start to finish)
• The iCool bag uses a new generation of chemical gel pack that generates very little condensation and have a slower thawing period than traditional ice packs. This allows patients with diabetes or those using temperature sensitive medications to transport their medications for a longer cooling period. The iCool Weekender keeps insulin or other temperature sensitive medications cool for up to 12 hours at 36°F – 46°F (2 to 8°C). This bag can carry either pens or vials. There is enough space inside to store needles.

I had the gel pack from the iCool frozen solid and put that in a small Rubbermaid lunch bag with 2 thin ice packs,  1 on top and 1 on the bottom.  If you don’t want to read all the way to the end, this system kept the growth hormone cold for the 20 hours going and returning but the 2 thin blocks had completely thawed.  The inner iCool was mostly frozen and the growth hormone was still cool.

Hooray!

I had the sharps separately in a little square container with just enough for the week.  I used the side pocket of the lunch bag to store my doctor’s note and clipped the whole thing with a carabiner to my backpack.

I also found a smallish sharps disposal container, although this was still kind of big for my needs, it was better than taking the whole huge one that’s in my bathroom.  This worked well and I have enough for 5 more trips 🙂

And that’s about it for medical information, at least until we get to Heathrow 🙂

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Then, since we were coming from outside the UK we had to leave security area and go through TSA again.

I told the agent I was carrying refrigerated medications and she read the doctor’s letter.  Everything seemed like it was going well until I was flagged for more screening 🙁  I had to take all the stuff out of my carefully packed Growth Hormone bag and everything else was taken out of my backpack to be swabbed down.

…

After 20 hours at 4:15pm  (11:15 am at home) I finally removed the growth hormone from the cases.  The 2 ice packs had melted but the GH in its weekender case was still cool and that gel pack mostly frozen.  A good solution except for issues at Heathrow.