Come fly with me, Diabetes

Sharing tips and tricks and experiences for diabetics taking to the skies. How do you deal with airplane food, or the lack thereof, medication, sleep, jet-lag, security guards, air stewards, neighbours, customs, passports, border controls - the good, the bad, and the ugly. You name it!

Well - Nosher - normally I would agree with you! But my regular trip has been a very long-haul multi-leg journey (Sweden to NZ and visa versa). Can't imagine prepacking proper meals for travelling across the globe . This current journey is 31 hours. But I am presently sitting at Hong Kong Airport with my last blood glucose reading of 8.0 (because I couldn't resist one of those cute little toblerone packets with my coffee - my excuse is it was after 11 hours like a sardine in the plane I caved!), - so you are absolutely right in principle of course!

Yeah - I take a sandwich when offered and remove the meat and salad and eat that and return the rest. And with the inflight food I leave the rolls, the rice and potatoes and give them to Mr Svea to chomp away on - the lucky non-diabetic that he is. That works fine, and even though it is highly processed food (see the British Airways ham roll ingredients!) - on the next leg my post dinner meal BG was 6.7 - not too bad.

I was much more organised with food this time though - see pic - made sure I made a trip to one of the LCHF stores in Stockholm and stocked up on pork rinds and my favourite parmesan knäckebröd (hard bread), and Aussie macadamias and pistacios. They were most appreciated in the wee hours of the morning (or night? Who knows? I'm changing my watch to destination time at every leg). I have to say though - carrying around a bag of food with me this time has contributed to me looking like a (edited out country of choice - you choose!) peasant immigrant, and through three security check points already no less.

The first security check I did not 'pass', but I am used to the Swedes considering me a suspicious type - I try to take it as a compliment that a middle-aged female diabetic like me needs to have my cabin luggage swiped for bombs every time I leave that fair country. I don't really find it complimentary - far from it! But I realise that I might appear to them like a clumsy, anxious, athletic Middle Eastern woman who instead of bench pressing and Michael Mosley H.I.T. regimes (and not looking forward to these long journeys from hell) has been training in Syria? I wish they would just ask me though! What I actually am. But they never do of course. I guess they have explosives-swiping quotas to meet.

Just checking my post-post- toblerone post breakfast BG - (and a very nice egg and veg, a very little fruit, and a teeny tiny sausage for airplane breakfast) - 6.6. I notice that on my accu chek meter it is ten to one in the afternoon back in the cold country. (In Hong Kong it is ten to eight in the evening. I had to ask Herr Svea if it was indeed the evening! You can get a bit confused when having lived in subarctic regions during the winter - it is dark so much of the time after all.) But here it is the tropics - and if it is dark it is night-time - how civilised!

One more security point to go through - the infamous NZ bio-security screening. But the food will be well gone by then, and if not - chucked. (And no-one in my home country thinks I might have been training to kill people in Syria. Thank heavens for such mercies.)

Oh! And a note regarding long-haul flights and neuropathy in the feet. Two things save my sanity, and my feet for such journeys from hell - massage sandals, and support socks. I have a really groovy pink pair from the Swedish Design Torget - they work a treat against very painful uncontrollable swelling. And the massage sandals - I made sure I brought the pair this time that I can wear my support socks with. (Yes - it can look a little odd! But hey.) This time I also brought peppermint foot cooling spray (in photo of LCHF supplies) - and I feel like a new woman with new feet - even with my nerve damage! I haven't had to moisturise them (never in the cabin, I promise! Ditto the spray). But maybe I shouldn't speak so soon - another 11 hours to go, as a sardine passenger in a sardine can plane.

Looking at the long line at the boarding gate I am wishing I could do a 'fast track'. Good on you Shar!

Robbity said:

@AloeSvea - Before my husband retired he used to have to work abroad for long periods and I used to fly over for holidays with him. Every time I was picked out to have my baggage searched at Heathrow. In the end I asked one of the security people why they'd picked me, and was told they looked for people they thought wouldn't make any fuss over being searched.... Unfortunately for me I obviously never looked as though I might object!

Robbity

Click to expand...

Ah! Yes - my incredibly lovely, nurturing, gentle (middle-aged mother of adult children) British immigrant-in-NZ GP says she gets explosive-checked too, and when she asked them why the last time, they told her they deliberately check the least suspicious looking ones! Bizarre.

It's a true compliment that you look like you wouldn't object.

nosher8355 said:

Flying huh!
What you need to do is find a low carb recipe that can be reproduced into something small and easy to carry. Just like sweets, biscuits, nuts, something that has no carbs in but can can satiate you from a to b!
If you do manage to find that important bit of snack like 9 bars in mini bites, I think you will make a lot of money.

Any who,
Flying.

The last time me and the wife flew, getting out of Manchester was a joke, because they delayed the flight by nearly five hours and the wife smokes!
She nearly battered the poor sap trying to soothe her, at the desk, and as we had already booked in, we couldn't get back out to where you could smoke, she actually spent the last two hours of the delay puffing away under armed guard on the side of the terminal, I think that her escort had joined her and joined in the mass smoking session!
Fun days and we didn't get to our hotel till three in the morning!
From 5 a.m. in the morning almost 22 hours for a three to four hour flight!
We got free meals and goodies from the airline!

Click to expand...

That is a wonderful smokers-flying story . I will share it with (also badly jetlagged) Mr Svea when he gets back from having a smoke outside!