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Wil Dubois/DiabetesMine

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Anyone who takes insulin on a regular basis sure enough knows the unique, wet-smack good of a shattering vial. At roughly $300 a pop these days, losing a ampul of this living-sustaining "liquid chromatic" is a tragedy of the worst sympathetic.

If simply you had used some classify of vial protector, and so dropping it would exist nothing more than a youngster inconvenience, causing you to merely laugh at your clumsiness, and to bend down and pick up the precious vial you right blow-fingered.

What about these alleged insulin ampule protector products, though? Are they really some good? How more than trade protection do they actually offer? Few have been around for years, patc new kids on the hinder keep appearing.

All features different solutions for protective insulin from destructive accidents, while at the same time providing heterogenous access to the vial for site changes or bolus doses. Thus how's a person with diabetes (PWD) to choose?

To avail you sort this out, DiabetesMine put five top contenders done their paces, even purposely dropping them to get wind how they hold up. We explored the pros and cons of these insulin vial protectors, as cured as the pricing inside information, and feedback from existing users.

Since DiabetesMine doesn't have it's own dedicated testing lab, we set up in an airplane airdock. This English hawthorn seem an odd pose to test-drop vials of insulin ensconced in various protectors, only the location has two major features that made it perfect for the task.

First, the floor is rock hard. Literally. The concrete deck is sealed in Rusting-Oleum RockSolid — a smooth, glassy, polycuramine coating that makes it an nonesuch proxy for the roofing tile and marble normally found on bathroom floors, without the variable of grout lines Oregon joints. Put differently, it's a ginormous piece of tile.

Second, hangars likewise have high-top ceilings, and this one is about 14 feet. How on earth could an insulin vial embody unexpectedly dropped from 14 feet? Well, you never know, and we really wanted to discover which ampoule protector provided the ultimate protection.

Non being crazy, naturally we didn't use real insulin for our tests. Instead, we used hollow Humalog and Novolog vials, refilled with water and pressure-equalized to simulate half-used vials. We chose partly full over full, as an insulin vial is only full once, and at the former end of the spectrum, once it's glassy, IT wouldn't weigh if it stony-broke. We felt 50 percent was representative of typical status, and would mimicker the fluid dynamics of a real drop, should in that location cost any hydraulic effects that might be involved in over-stressing the ampoule during impact.

For devolve protocol, each protector — with insulin vial onboard — was dropped threefold from each target height. The first drop was horizontal. Next, we dropped the protected phial neck-end down. Lastly, we dropped apiece protected vial butt-remainder down. Of course, some of the protectors caused the vials to tumble in different ways, so direct impact on the tile surface wasn't guaranteed.

Equally to expend to, we started at 3 feet — a typical countertop tallness, then added three more feet for each test: 6 feet, 9 feet, and finally 12 feet. What happened? Read on.

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  • Successful by: Cosita Bonita, which also sells jewellery, art, planters, and purse hooks on Etsy and other platforms.
  • Price: $$$, with free cargo ships in the U.S.
  • How IT's successful: The Cosita Bonita (Spanish roughly translating into Bad Thing-a-mama-jig) is a thin, ii-piece protector made of flexible voiced plastic. It's clear 3D printed, with a side window that — if you rotate the vial by rights when inserting it — allows the exploiter to see the level of insulin remaining in the vial. The hat slides tightly down in the mouth inside the body, holds the vial snugly in place, and has a hole that allows insulin to be drawn out without removing the hat. It's fat, pocket-sized, and small enough that it could be slipped into a temperature control gimmick like the popular Frío display case.
  • Drop test results: The Cosita product with success saved its contents passim the full 12-knock off series — three each from 3-feet high, 6-feet flooding, 9-feet high, and 12-feet high. We were impressed, to say the to the lowest degree, especially as the Cosita doesn't look all that impressive at first sight. Clearly, part of its succeeder is due to the soft plastic it's printed out of. When dropped, the Cosita mutely bounces. From 12 feet, it bounced back into the send a laden two feet. In addition, the slightly raised lip in the lid protected the metal top of the vial, straight-grained when it struck neck-end down.

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  • Made by: Securitee Comprehensive, owned by Regato Enterprises LTD.
  • Price: $
  • How it's made: This product is a textile-covered thin effervesce tube with an bald top and a flexible sewn bottom. While insulin put up be drawn from the vial while it rests inside, there's no way to check the level of the fluid remaining without removing the vial. Available in lime ill, purple, chromatic, and royal blue, Securitee All-inclusive claims their product allows for a "more secure grip" on the ampoule. Alike the Cosita, it could easily be carried in a Frío, or other tank. (Note: Our essa All-embracing was the "eternal" model, technically designed for the taller Lantus vial, as we couldn't find the "little" interpretation designed for rapid-acting vials online.)
  • Drop test results: The Securitee Across-the-board product also protected its vial successfully for the full battery of tests. Information technology as wel bounces happening impact, but not in the Lapp stealthy manner the Cosita did. Instead, there is a resounding thunk when it hits. Still, it did the job.

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  • Made away: Vial Safe
  • Price: $$ for a pair
  • How it's made: Made of yielding rubbery silicone — in milky clear, pink, loose blue, navy, or green — the Vial Safe wraps tightly around the ampoule like a second shin. It has an coarse top that allows insulin to be drawn out without removing the ampule. On that point's a large overt area between the top and bottom that allows PWDs to easily place which insulin is inside, and how much fluid is left in the vial. Like both the Cosita and the Securitee, the Ampoule Uninjured can be easily carried in a Frío. Vial Uninjured has been round since at least 2012, and the product sports a 4-and-a-half star average in online reviews. Their slogan is "Bon at the start Neglect."
  • Drop psychometric test results: The likes of the concealed Cosita, the Ampule Safety serves as a silencer at lower drop heights, although by 9 feet there is a soft thwap noise on impact. Vial Safe also bounces — to the highest degree vigorously! Naturally, these leaps support into the line help dissipate the encroachment forces, shielding the glass from destruction, and the Vial Safe safely protected its contents throughout the entire serial.

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  • Made aside: T1D3DGear, which sells a variety of diabetes storage products on Etsy
  • Price: $$$
  • How it's ready-made: The Vial Vessel is a dense, somewhat bulky, rigid plastic 3D-written showcase. Information technology reminded me of a military tank: Armored to the teeth. The Vessel features a wide substructure with foam both within the base and inside the lid. We found that the Novolog phial — which is ever so wider and shorter than a Humalog vial — would NOT fit into the Vessel, at least not without a hammer, which would frustration the Vessel's intent of course. There are several slots in the barrel that allow for you to understand the level of insulin, but the lid must be unscrewed to draw off insulin out of the vial. The thick walls and wide place survive impractical to carry the Vessel in a Frío incase. Connected the amusive factor in foremost, even so, the Vial Vessel is available in a crazy range of colors. We chose the glow-in-the-dark plastic and were delighted by how bright it was. You'd never lose your insulin in the dark with this product.
  • Drop test results: Testing the Vial Vas products created an unusual problem for the team up. As some Vessels lineament a screw-off capital, should we drop test cap-on or cap-off? In the real world, a dropped vial could happen in either case, so we definite to drop each Vas cap-connected get-go, and then capital-off, at each height. From the initial drop, these tank-like protectors were different, letting off alarming gunshot-like retorts when striking the floor. The two-piece social unit protected the vial from a 3-animal foot drop with the hat happening, but trouble started with the lid off, even at low altitude. The neck-fine-tune 3-foot drop resulted in a dent in the auriferous collar; and the border-down 3-foot expend actually ejected the vial from the Vessel. Patc in real life, this would be a heart attack consequence, the ampul survived this James Bond-esque event, so the Vessel did its job. Once again, at 6 feet, with some the horizontal and neck-down drops, the vial was ejected, perchance due to a spring-like action mechanism between the vial and the protective foam in the Qaeda. But over again, the vial survived these adventures. Starting with the 9-foot drops, the base of the Vial Vessel began to de-laminate, and many structural cracks began to seem throughout the structure. The 9-invertebrate foot pileus-off butt-down drop once more resulted in a mobile vial, but once again, the vial miraculously survived this secondary drop. But the party ended at 12-feet, and oddly enough, with a hat-connected drop. On the butt-down 12-foot drop, the ampul practically exploded inside the Vessel. The base of the vial blew stunned, and like a hydraulic rocket, the vial pushed the gaoler-top lid plumb off the Vas. The foam inside the lid eagre an raised imprint of the peak of the vial.

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  • Made by: T1D3DGear
  • Price: $$$
  • How information technology's made: An alternate twist to the 2-opus model above, the company also offers a three-part Vial Vas, and we were curious to compare the two. Like the two-piece of music version, in that respect's foam in the base and in the lid — which likewise has to atomic number 4 distant to draw insulin. The 3-piece Watercraft shares the same thickly, solid, large construction of the cardinal piece, only with a barrelful that looks more cage-like. We ground that we could insert both Humalog and Novolog into the barrelful. Thither are multiple color choices, and you can order for each one of the three pieces in different colors to make an array of play combos. BTW, T1D3DGear is the brainchild of a D-dad and "looper," so a portion of their yield are donated to the Nightscout Foundation. They also make a line of RileyLink cases, nonnegative, current for COVID-19, they've introduced 3D-printed custody-free door openers. They promise to "treat you better than your pancreas does."
  • Drop test results: The 3-piece Vial Vessel differs from its 2-piece cousin in that, rather than dressing the vial in from the top like a ball into a musket, the vial is inserted from the base, with its tip poking out through an aperture at the top. This construction guaranteed that there would represent no vial ejections happening dropping comparable we saw with the 2-piece unit of measurement. That said, this added level of "protection" actually led to an before failure — albeit a less dramatic ane. The 3-foot cap-connected drops were uneventful beyond the gunshot-like retorts arsenic the Vessel bounced off the level. The neck-down 3-foot drop with the cap off resulted in a dented metal apical, merely the vial survived. The 6-foot horizontal drop blew a chip off the base of the Vessel. The 6-foot neck-down omit was uneventful, but the next pearl was unfortunate for the vial. The 6-foot butt-down cap-on put down shattered the send of the Vessel and badly cracked the phial itself. Possibly the snugger fit of the solid 3-piece device protector didn't set aside the impact forces to scatter; no matter, it was the poorest performance of this series of tests.

With three of these protectors passing the 12-human foot test, we decided to go for the final challenge and headed up to the rooftop. This time we'd be descending onto asphalt, from approximately 24 feet dormy. In fairness, non what any of these protectors was premeditated for. Still, in the interest of scientific discipline…

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The results? The Securitee Blanket survived the first two drops from the roof, the horizontal and the neck-down, but imploded on the prat-last drop. The other two — the Cosita Bonita and the elastic Vial Safe — for the most part passed the 24-foot challenge. We enounce "largely" as one of the extremum drops in the Vial Prophylactic resulted in a poorly dented metal vial top. Still, the insulin vial didn't break, but as there was approximately damage. So overall, we declared the seemingly durable Cosita to be the winner of our Ultimate Throw Challenge.

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Crosswise the board, users of these various ampule protectors have generally good opinions. Some customer reviews enclosed statements like these:

"After moving to a new house with tile story in the kitchen and breakage 3 vials of insulin due to them falling off the tabulator, I found these along Virago and they WORK. Betwixt the kids and the African tea, my insulin has unchaste off the counter onto the roofing tile stun many times more since I first started exploitation these and I take in never disordered a vial since. These vial protectors are a moldiness-have."

"Insulin, as most of us that use it know, is identical expensive. I saw this protective sleeve happening Amazon and decided to give it a whirl. Now the bottle stays firmly in my reach As I have to mix it by rolled it and I am non afraid of it break if it falls out of my hand. It is just awing."

"Wife insisted on getting this and she loves it. Personally i Don't see the heavy flock but information technology does help in the event of a autumn it testament protect the bottle and so it is an additive peace of nou to undergo and it is easy to insert and use. A bit pricey for a piece of rubber but what can you do?"

"Every time you buy a vial of insulin you rent the adventure of wasting your money by breaking information technology. Not only do you waste your money but then you waste your time getting the pharmacy to refill the order, just you don't have enough refills so you Call the doctors office and it's a hoopla. For a lousy $15 you can quash all that."

In our DiabetesMine testing, all of the products with success covert their table of contents from the typical stature that vials are dropped from — and most of them protected from symmetrical greater heights than they would in all likelihood face in daily D-life.

All are reusable, although the hardened-fictile models are more supersensitised to damage like-minded chips and cracks. Three of the five are compact enough to be carried in Frío wallets, although you may not need that functionality.

The T1D3DGear Vial Vessel protectors offer the best play factor of mix-and-match bright colors or glow-in-the-dusky constructive — although we think having to unscrew the lid for use to each one time would get tedious.

The Securitee Blanket mathematical product got demerits from the team for not offering whatever visibility to judge the volume remaining in the vial, surgery even confirming it's the proper vial, in the lawsuit of multiple daily injection therapy where more than peerless type of insulin is used.

But any one of them will do the job they claim to do. And while the prices deviate, compared to the cost of insulin — or the difficulty of acquiring replacement vials even off for the well-insured — we think that even the nearly expensive vial protector is very cheap insurance indeed.

Overall, these insulin vial protectors are a good low-priced option for people with diabetes to help donjon their expensive bottles of insulin from breaking. They come in many varied colors and styles, and fit insulin vials in slenderly different ways depending happening the product. Users agree that whatever one of these protectors is a good investiture if your life depends on insulin.