I was telling a friend how unfortunate it is that I live in the south and kept a bottle of this in my car for over a year. I have pretty bad heartburn issues and used to take it only on occasion. Maybe I'll get $35 from a settlement to go with my cancer one day.
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Just as a heads up from a professional semi-chemist: dont ingest anything thats been at car temperatures.
Its hot enough to chemically alter things, activate diffusions, speed bacterial growth, etc.
Its not hot enough to sterilize what you're ingesting.
But the white spiky crystal fuzz that grew out of some advil left in my car over a desert summer was so cool!
(sadly before the era of camera phones, but the needle crystals really did look neat. The contents of the bottle were not ingested.)
Good advice for sure. I suppose I should make sure the tums in my center console won’t kill me
FYI dont drink Diet soda thats been left in hot places. Aspartame degrades to some nasty compound.
Coke delivery guys make sure to rotate the diet soda when they deliver it (my wife took a day-in-the-life tour when she was at coke)
Aspartame breaks down in to methanol (which is then metabolized in to formaldehyde) when heated.
This sounds bad, but it's worth keeping in mind that plain tomato juice has something like 6x methanol in it than diet sodas. The quantities involved are tiny. Aspartame is metabolized in the same way when consumed cold. The big reason soda manufacturers are concerned about heat is that it loses its sweetness.
(all that being said, it's probably still a good idea to avoid anyway)
What would be your advice for someone who lives in a van and can't reasonably store their medications elsewhere?
Im assuming you're employed but live in S. Cal. Some of my suggestions assume that.
Thoughts:
- You really need a cigarette lighter mini fridge. They're less than $100 at home depot. Note, they suck, but you don't have alternatives and you'll be able to have a cold beer occasionally.
Careful not to drain the car battery, and keep it in a shaded part of your vehicle.
- I find that there can large T differences in the car. Under the seat is fairly cool, and the T is more stable.
Keep your meds and the mini-fridge there, preferably by the floor vent if equipped.
- Does your van have windows or is it a workman's van? Glass is your enemy. You probably cant afford to just buy a van, but a white windowless Transit van is better than a Pacifica.
- Use white bed sheets to cover your interior and shade everything.
- you probably do this, but solar windshield covers.
- Keep your windows open a crack. Really just a crack small enough to keep even the rain out. Convection is huge. This is most important at day if crime is locally a problem.
- Paint it white.
- If you can, take advantage of the van's mobility and move to fairer weather throughout the year. If you have to stay in the LA region, go north just across the mesa (?) towards S. Barbara. Much cooler there. Id set myself up in Montecito myself.
Easiest method? Keep them in a cooler/fridge that's cold enough but still within the range listed on your medications packaging. Especially if you've already invested in a small solar setup to keep a 12v fridge going.
Its not ideal but even just keeping them in a small drink ice chest in a shaded/insulated area and keeping the van ventilated will help keep temps down.
What is a professional semi-chemist?
A trained physicist who finds himself doing more chemistry (50% of my time - mostly theoretical) than he ever cared for (none would be ideal)
Never seen Breaking Bad?
Not quite as cool.
he's only working half the time
Wouldn’t that be a semi-professional chemist?
A professional semi-chemist sounds much more interesting.
Not too cool in reality, but glad you caught that subtlety. Im not a chemist, I just play one for my employer
I realize you mentioned the South because of the heat and not the food, but as a fellow Southerner who used to also have bad heartburn, may I recommend cutting out ice and sweet tea, if you use them? God, I love them, but I realized after long suffering with heartburn that iced drinks and sugar in my tea was killing my stomach. Cutting these out means I'm now the only member of my family not constantly popping Tums.
Interestingly, all the Southern grannies knew this: they distrusted ice and made their tea with a pinch of baking soda, although this does change the flavor a bit.
I certainly learned over time what my triggers are. As I've gotten older, anything bad for my body ultimately makes me sick in some way. I have it bad enough now that I'm gonna get it for any reason, it's even become a problem that occurs when I haven't eaten after a while (12+ hr).
Luckily I don't like sweet tea or other full sugar drinks (you can pry diet coke from my dead hands). Hadn't heard about the ice thing though.
My biggest triggers are fatty foods, tomato, chocolate, and palm oil.