Reading/Storing, drawing and travelling with an injectable
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Storing, drawing and travelling with an injectable

Refrigeration windows, syringe sizing, and airport security.

By The GLP1 Support team · Last reviewed September 2026 · 5 min

Storage

  • Refrigerate at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. Most products also permit a defined period at room temperature once in use, but that window is product-specific and is on the label. Read yours rather than assuming.
  • Do not freeze. A product that has frozen is discarded, not thawed. This applies even if it looks normal afterward.
  • The fridge door is the warmest and most variable spot in the fridge. The back of a middle shelf is better.
  • Keep it in its original carton. Light protection is part of what the packaging is for.

Reconstituted vials

  • Once a lyophilised vial is mixed, a different clock starts and it is shorter than the unmixed one.
  • Bacteriostatic water contains benzyl alcohol as a preservative, which is what allows a vial to be entered more than once. Sterile water contains no preservative and is single-use. They are not interchangeable and the labels look similar.
  • Label the vial with the date you reconstituted it. You will not remember.

Drawing a dose

This is where the serious errors happen, and they happen by factors of ten.

  • Insulin syringes are marked in units, not in milligrams or millilitres. 100 units is 1 mL on a U-100 syringe.
  • Your dose is prescribed in milligrams. Your vial has a concentration in milligrams per millilitre. You cannot draw correctly without both numbers and the conversion between them.
  • Work the arithmetic twice, on paper, the first time at any new concentration. If a calculator tells you to draw almost the whole syringe for a small dose, stop and recheck rather than proceeding.
  • Subcutaneous injection uses short, fine needles. Air bubbles matter less here than people fear, but they displace volume, and displaced volume is a dosing error.

Sharps

Use a proper sharps container, not a household bottle. Most pharmacies and local authorities operate a disposal route, and it is usually free.

Travelling

  • Carry-on, never checked luggage. Hold temperatures are uncontrolled and bags get lost, and a lost bag here is a missed dose plus a replacement cost.
  • Use an insulated cool pack, and keep the medication from touching ice or a frozen gel pack directly. Freezing it in transit is the common failure.
  • Bring the original labelled pharmacy packaging. Travelling internationally, bring a letter from your prescriber as well.
  • Medication and needles are permitted through airport security. Declare them at the checkpoint rather than letting them be found.
  • Weekly dosing is forgiving about time zones. Keep the same weekday and do not try to correct by hours.

Sources

  • Wegovy and Ozempic prescribing information, Novo Nordisk
  • Mounjaro and Zepbound prescribing information, Eli Lilly
  • TSA guidance on medically necessary liquids and sharps

Related reading

Educational only. Nothing here is medical advice, and nothing here substitutes for a conversation with a licensed clinician who knows your history. Dosing, side effects and outcomes vary between people.