A few months ago, my wife woke up, checked her blood sugar, and upon finding it at about 40mg/dl, proceeded to take her oral diabetic meds (glipizide and metformin). People with any experience with diabetes will no doubt see the problem; by the time I got home from work, her blood sugar was 23 mg/dl, our daughter was in a panic, and it took a 911 call, a trip to the ER, and the combined efforts of several professionals to restore her to consciousness.
In our researches since then, we have learned that we migjt have been able to avoid a lot of trouble, if I had had an emergency glucagon injection kit on hand. For those who require exposition, glucagon is a hormone, secreted by the pancreas, which stimulates the liver into releasing glucose into the bloodstream.
Being the procrastinator that I am, it is only this week that I have gotten around to learning if it’s covered under our drug plan. Mirabile dictu, it is covered (with a $45.00 copay, to be sure, but hat’s actually a bargain, compared to ambulance, ER, and physician copays, if it can prevent the need for them). I also learned that what’s available frrom my pharmacy, should we be able to persuade her doctor to prescribe it, is an emergency injection kit, with a single 1mg dose, in powder form.,
So how does this work? Is the powder in a little bottle with a septum, and a seperate vial of distilled water for mixing, and a syringe for mixing and delivery? Any Dopers use a kit like this in the past, and can educate me on the mechanics of responding with this kit to a relevant emergency?
TIA.