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Any advice please?

C

captainlynne

Well-Known Member
Messages
253
Location
Sunny St Ives, Cornwall
Must admit to having a bit of a wobble about a trip I'm making in a couple of days. I'm diet controlled T2, eating low-carbs.

I'll be travelling a lot in the next couple of weeks, on holiday. Tomorrow night I've a long coach journey to Heathrow Airport, a long wait there, then a transatlantic flight and an onward flight. Altogether I'll be travelling for nearly 24 hours. :shock:

I 'll be getting breakfast at Heathrow, and a meal on the transatlantic leg of the journey. I'm taking nuts with me to snack on.

Apart from that, anyone got any advice.

Sorry for the wobble, but it's the first time I've had such a long journey since I was diagnosed a couple of years ago.
 
I have only this advice....

You know what you can and can't eat and you know what to do should your sugars run too low. The nuts are a good idea, but take some digestives or breakfast biscuits with you in case you need a carby boost.
But most important..........

STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY!
 
I agree, don't worry and enjoy your holiday.

I do the transatlantic thing all the time and, other that acknowledging that the aeroplace meal will be carby, there really is nothing to worry about. I usually just eat around the rice or pasta and try not to eat the desert.

With the jet-lag and the meal disruptions that you're about to experience, it might be worth taking a day off the diabetes (although don't eat so many carbs that you get an upset tummy).

If you're on diet and metformin only, there is very little chance of you getting a hypo, so I wouldn't worry about that either.

If you're flying BA (from T5), then Ramsey's Plane Food do an excellent packed lunch that you could eat instead of the nasty aeroplane meal. It's not too expensive, has lots of low-carb choices, and will make everyone else jealous.

Where are you going? Be sure to tell us all about it!
 
Thanks for the replies. I'd not thought of a carb snack!

I'm off to a very hot and very dry Texas, flying Delta from Heathrow T4. Only got a 1h 40m layover in Atlanta, so no chance of stocking up there, but lots of time at Heathrow to explore :roll:

Don't know what I'll be doing, or where I'll be going, over there (staying with friends), so will let you know when I get back how it went (before I'm off on more travels - but that's another story!).
 
Another pointer, seeing since you'll be doing more traveling. When you book a ticket for a long haul flight, it might be beneficial to mention to the person who is taking your booking, that you are diabetic and you require a low carb meal. Some good airlines will accommodate special request regarding health and so on.
 
When I travel I usually ask the cabin staff for fresh fruit instead of the starchy pudding; they always have some fruit on board
 

They have special meals "diabetic","vegetarian","kosher","halal" etc, but you'll probably find that they don't do a specifically low-carb one (at least non of the carriers I'm aware of do).

"Diabetic" usually means sugar free, rather than low-carb.

Delta do the following:
* Asian
* Baby
* Child
* Bland
* Diabetic
* Gluten-free
* Hindu
* Kosher
* Low-calorie
* Low-cholesterol
* Low-fat
* Low-sodium
* Muslim
* Passover
* Vegetarian (lacto-ovo)
* Vegetarian (pure)
http://www.delta.com/components/popups/ ... _meals.jsp

Another tip worth considering, although it probably doesn't apply if you're not a frequent flier, is that you can't be upgraded if you request a special meal (because they don't load extra special meals further up the plane).
 
A number of people here use the A1C Now meter to do their own informal tests between the 'official' ones.

If you fancy the extra feedback from a more frequent A1C, drop into Walmart, Walgreens or a Target drugstore and pick one up.

Cost me around $17 for a two-test pack last month.

Just a thought.

On the food front, on the occasions that I'm travelling steerage, rather than up front, I always skip the puds and, as someone has already mentioned, take some nuts. I take a few medium size packs and drink lots of still water, avoiding fizzy drinks except a big slug of diet coke before arrival to wake me up again.

BTW, if you've not used them, http://www.seatguru.com/ and http://seatexpert.com/ are really useful places to scope out the best seats before you fly.

I find that a comfortable relaxed flight keeps my BG down.

Enjoy the trip to the Lone Star state!

mark
 
If you are taking nuts, you may need to have an alternative in case the staff declare a "no nuts" flight due to a passenger having an allergy. Happening more and more these days, I'm afraid.

I managed a seven day cruise without any lasting effectson my HbA1c so I think you'll be all right.

Enjoy yourself.
 
Dougie22 said:
If you are taking nuts, you may need to have an alternative in case the staff declare a "no nuts" flight due to a passenger having an allergy. Happening more and more these days, I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

Really? I've never heard of this...

What is the thinking behind it? Is there some sort of airborne risk of "nut dust" that is dangerous in a confined cabin?

They could do with a permanent "no nuts" rule on easyjet and Ryanair...
 
markd said:
If you fancy the extra feedback from a more frequent A1C, drop into Walmart, Walgreens or a Target drugstore and pick one up.

Cost me around $17 for a two-test pack last month.
Click to expand...

+1

I always stock up with a load of A1CNow kits every time I'm in 'merica (which is often). The only problem with buying a few of them is that they come in huge boxes, so it's worth extracting the contents and dumping the box.

If you have the right meter, then test strips are also about half the price that they are in the UK (I just dumped my AccuChek Mobile because you can't get cartridges in America).
 
I've been on at least two flights in the last three or four years where one of the passengers (or their children) had a nut (maybepeanut) allergy and informed the flight crew. Their response was to withdraw nuts from sale and ask that passengers did not consume any nuts on the flight.

I'm not sure how global any such ban should be (i.e whether eatuiing other kinds of nuts affects people with peanut allergy, etc) but neither is the cabin crew so they just make a general announcement.

Every walk of life seems to be affected by this problem nowadays with all teachers learning how to combat an allergy induced reaction, epipens in schools and the like. Every foodstuff now has "may contain nuts" on the label, it seems too.

Seems to be a modern epidemic. I can't remeber any instance of it in my youth (40 or 50 years ago)
 
Thanks for your comments above. Well, I'm home from the trip. A great holiday with lots of good experiences, and lots of lessons learned! Delta flight food on long haul gave little choice (chicken or pasta - and the chicken came with rice!). I had the chicken with the few veggies served, and the cheese and crackers. Ignored bread roll, rice and dessert. Snack outward was microwaved pizza and ice cream! Breakfast on return was nearly unidentifiable LOL Some kind of English muffin with a filling, with OJ. Short internal flight was interesting. Only snacks served, so lots of folk taking on food. Great smell of BBQ! Staying with friends proved problematic, although they knew I was doing low-carb. About only food in house was carbs! Travelled to Big Bend (2 days each way, in Texas heat) and only snacks were carbs. To be fair, protein wouldn't have travelled well. Went walking in Santa Elenor Canyon and ran into difficulties. Friends had done this before, but this time it was much hotter, they were 10 years older, and hadn't taken these factors into account, so we didn't have enough water (and I'd forgotten to transfer snacks into the bag I had with me!!!) and we ran into trouble. Fortunately an EMT on holiday met us and helped us out of there. He asked all the right questions and decided we didn't need to go to emergency room, but friend (who is very overweight, very unfit, has asthma, etc, etc), was in trouble and I was really struggling without snacks. All turned out ok, and I learned from it. When I'm overtired I go for carbs, so yesterday after overnight flight was disaster food wise. Slept until lunchtime today, so too hungry most of day. Trying for earlyish bed tonight and back on plan tomorrow. Lots of no-carb foods in house (thanks to Tesco home delivery today) so testing and healthy eating starts again tomorrow.
 
Last time I flew on Continental, the flight attendant came down the aisle offering a fairly unhelpful and uncaring "chicken or beef".

The chap next to me decided to take her to task and asked for more details - How is the chicken cooked? Is it with rice, pasta or potatoes? Is there a sauce? What cut of meat is it? How is it cooked? What veg are with it? etc. How do you expect us to choose without more detail?

She looked him up and down, and replied aggressively "It's chicken or beef, which do you want?"
 
The flight attendant on outward flight said 'chicken or pasta'. When a guy queried what the chicken was with she just looked at him, so I uncovered mine and showed him - it was with rice! Still waiting for the cup of decaf flight attendant was bringing me after evening meal on return journey. She did apologise at breakfast the next morning for having forgotten it. The in-flight entertainment wasn't working coming home and they said to email Delta and tell them. I did, also told them about missing decaf, and they're sending me a £50 voucher against a future ticket
 
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