What to have at home.

Everything, before day one.

The first protocol goes better when nothing is missing on the morning it starts. The list is short: the vials the first order names, one vial of water, syringes, swabs, a sharps container, a shelf in the fridge, and the saved protocol. When a plan is on this device the counts come from it, for the whole 90 days, so the reorder never surprises you.

Travel is the same list, cut to the days away. Count doses rather than days, keep everything cold and in hand luggage, and carry the printed protocol so every vial is accounted for. The storage guide has the rest.

Each item, and why it is on the list.

The vials are the protocol itself, and the first order is usually one compound, because the second joins at week five. Bacteriostatic water is what every vial is mixed with; one 30 ml vial covers a whole protocol. Insulin syringes, U-100 with the needle attached, are one per injection with a few spare, and the same ones people with diabetes use every day. Alcohol swabs are two per injection: one for the top of the vial, one for the skin.

A sharps container is the item people forget. Used needles never go loose into a bin; a rigid container with a lid, from a pharmacy or improvised from a thick bottle, is enough. A shelf in the fridge, away from the door and the freezer, is where mixed vials live. The saved protocol, printed or on your phone, is what you check against every day and what you take to your doctor. And the conversation with that doctor is the last item on the list for a reason: it is the one thing to do before day one that no tool can do for you.

Everything on the list except the vials and the water is sold at any pharmacy, and all of it together costs less than a single vial. Buy it the day you order, so it is on the shelf when the cold box arrives and the first mix is a five-minute job rather than a trip out.