help! long term insulin and time difference/travel

[hollyslot]

ok if anyone can help me with this i'd be very grateful!!
i usually take 8U of Levemir insulin in the morning at 8am and then at 8Pm I take 4U of Levemir.
i am in london now so GMT time, but tomorrow morning i am flying to New York where there is a time difference of 5 hours (so in new york at 8PM London time it is 3PM in New York,
I don't know what to do about my levemir!
if someone could help me or tell me who I could ask that would be great!
Thank you!

 

[B583]

Having been to NY myself, but on Lantus, If possible get ahead of yourself, change times before you go, though as you'll soon be jetting off, just change to the times you get there. As your body clock will change too, you may have a time of being high but continue with new times of where you're at & stay alert of activity (a lot of walking!!!) On return do same as going, or if possible change times back to GMT. Not too hard when you get used to it, just remembering to do it, being caught up in excitement, meals, travel etc!! Are you ok for packing meds & stuff in holdall or cases?? Enjoy your time there, fantastic place!!
Brad

 

[AndyS]

I have done NY and the west coast of US and am also on Levemir.

How long are you over there for? If it is only a couple of days then I would say try and keep it on GMT times for your shots, otherwise this is how I handle it and it works well for me.

Day of Travel (west)
Start day as normal, do basal at normal time. Eat whatever meals I am eating on ground and in the air and bolus accordingly.
Once I arrive at destination I try and go for a meal or a snack just before or around the time I would normally do evening basal (give or take a couple hours) and will usually have to do a correction dose at that point as will likely be a little high.
Take my evening basal at the normal time but on the timezone I am in (so you will do evening at 8PM NY time)
Monitor and correct with bolus over the next couple of days till things settle.

Coming east is a little more of an issue but only since I am correctly with snacks rather than blousing.

Day of Travel (east)
Again start as usual, basal at "normal" time in the timezone I am in.
As last time meals and bolus, though if I have a meal just before flight or on the flight I will back off my dose a little.
If I am in the air when I expect to do evening basal (likely since they are usually overnight) then I will do it at the time of where departed. So essentially NY time, will do it as if you were still in NY. I know some people will actually reduce the bolus a little to avoid trouble with the next step.
On arrival in UK this will be around or after the normal morning basal so I will pick up and do morning basal then.

Obviously if you took off in NY that was 5 hours behind you will essentially be doing your normal basal (compared to last night time) 5 hours too early, hence why you may want to knock a small proportion off the night time basal you do in the air.

Other than that you just need to test test test and be sure you have hypo treatments with you.

Good luck,

A

 

[superskye]

An official Travel Dose Calculator ; http://www.diabetestravel.org/

Its easy to use, and gives good advice although it a little on the cautious side (as it should be, I guess) with the number of checks it recommends....

 

[AndyS]

Oooh that's a useful tool.
I do agree it is quite cautious and if I did that I would expect to have to do some pretty significant corrections.

As a starting point if you are not certain then definitely useful I would say

 

[Deleted Account]

I travel a lot so have to deal with time differences and long acting insulin.
Depending on actual time difference, length of my trip and how much advanced planning I can do, I have two options:
1. Continue taking long acting insulin at the same GMT time. This works fine for Europe where 8pm GMT is a time when I would be awake. If the trip is short and the time difference is longer, I can still cope with maintaining GMT time. For example, in NY, I would take my long acting insulin at 3pm local time. I should set an alarm to remind me because this is not a natural meal time. However, I take Lantus once a day so I only have to worry about one dose.
2. Knowing that 24 hour (or 12 hour) acting insulin does not last exactly 24 (or 12) hours, I start moving my injection time an hour at a time before I travel until I am about half way between the time difference. So, going to NY, I would take my 8pm dose at 9pm then 10pm and maybe 11pm. When I arrive in NY, I take my dose at 6pm local time one day, 7pm then next and then 8pm until a couple of days before I am due to return when I start moving the times back: one dose at 7pm then 6pm and then when I get home I am taking it at about 10pm one day then 9pm the next day and then back to normality. It sounds complicated when I write it down but I find it easy to adjust.

 

[hollyslot]

thank you very much for your help, and i apologise for the late reply!
xx