Chlorocresol allergy

[Mumto2withtype1diabetes]

Hi. My 19 year old son has had patch testing done due to severe eczema and has been found to be allergic to the preservative chlorocresol. He has type1 diabetes and uses Novorapid and Tresiba, which both contain chlorocresol. All available insulins in the UK contain it. Does anyone know of any companies anywhere in the world that produce a suitable insulin? Or does anyone know of any endocrinologists that have experience of dealing with people allergic to insulin? Many thanks

 

[Deleted member 21371]

It seems to be well known.
I have no idea what it is unfortunately, but a

"parabens-based insulin"
seems to be better for some

Severe adverse cutaneous reaction to insulin due to cresol sensitivity - PubMed

We present the case of an 80-year-old lady known to be sensitive to chlorocresol (4-chloro-3-methyl phenol) who developed severe erythrodermic exfoliative dermatitis with atypical features 2 weeks after commencing subcutaneous insulin. All medications except insulin were stopped, without major...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

but there are other articles with different solutions.

Insulin Allergy: A Case Report and Review of Literature

Objective: A case of insulin allergy to insulin aspart, insulin aspart protamine/insulin aspart 70/30, insulin lispro, and insulin lispro protamine/insulin lispro 75/25 in a patient with type 2 diabetes mellitus is reported. Case Summary: A 76-year-old ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Leadinglights]

Hi. My 19 year old son has had patch testing done due to severe eczema and has been found to be allergic to the preservative chlorocresol. He has type1 diabetes and uses Novorapid and Tresiba, which both contain chlorocresol. All available insulins in the UK contain it. Does anyone know of any companies anywhere in the world that produce a suitable insulin? Or does anyone know of any endocrinologists that have experience of dealing with people allergic to insulin? Many thanks

There seems to have been some reported cases and the individuals went through a slow process of desensitisation.
This from 2012 outlines what they did. https://jmedicalcasereports.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-1947-6-263
This must be quite unusual so I hope you find a solution that will hel

 

[Inka]

It might be worth giving Diabetes U.K. a ring tomorrow. They might know specialists who are experienced in this. It must make things very difficult.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Nothing useful to add but sympathies! That must be a real hassle.

 

[rebrascora]

All available insulins in the UK contain it.

So sorry to hear about your son's difficulty with the preservative used in insulin. Have you checked that animal insulin also contains it as well as modern synthesized insulins. I think consultants may be inclined to overlook animal insulin because it is old fashioned or not "cutting edge" but I believe some people do still use porcine insulin. I have no idea if or what preservatives are used it it though.

 

[void]

Hi. My 19 year old son has had patch testing done due to severe eczema and has been found to be allergic to the preservative chlorocresol. He has type1 diabetes and uses Novorapid and Tresiba, which both contain chlorocresol. All available insulins in the UK contain it. Does anyone know of any companies anywhere in the world that produce a suitable insulin? Or does anyone know of any endocrinologists that have experience of dealing with people allergic to insulin? Many thanks

Hi, call and/or write to the specialist team at the hospital explaining the problem in the first instance. I'm sure they'd have experienced this problem before. You might also want to contact Novo Nordisk directly - when googling the problem, many matches were to patents belonging to them, so i suspect they might make it, just not for the UK market.

https://data.epo.org/gpi/EP1131089B1-STABLE-AQUEOUS-INSULIN-PREPARATIONS-WITHOUT-PHENOL-AND-CRESOL for example

searching terms "insulin preparations without phenol and cresol"

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

So sorry to hear about your lads allergic reaction @Mumto2withtype1diabetes

What a nightmare for you!

Hope you are able to find a suitable alternative or way of working around the problem.

Looks like others have faced it before you, so hopefully there will be some options to explore. 🙂