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Hypos and jetlag

G

grey lady

Member
Messages
6
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi
I'm on holiday with my husband and I am posting on his behalf and with his knowledge. He is relatively newly diagnosed - he began injecting a couple of years ago. We had an 11 hour flight last Saturday. Since then he has had daily or twice daily quite severe hypos. This has not happened before - his hypos are rare and come on gradually. We are in the US and its fine - with glucose tablets the hypos resolve very quickly, but it is unnerving, and we'd be grateful for any advice as to why this is happening. Also - should he be driving??? We have a hire car and so far I have driven.
Thanks for any advice.
Amanda
 
There could be a number of reasons for the hypos including heat and more activity. I'm not sure whether or not the actual flight would now be causing hypos directly. What insulin is he on? I would try and reduce your long term insulin (basal) by a few units at a time to see if this helps. All the best and keep testing regularly then as you say, he will hopefully catch and treat the hypos in time.
 
Having navigated the globe more times than I would care to remember one crucial thing I always do is making sure I inject basal correctly. I use Levemir so inject twice a day with this normally at about 6am and 6-7pm. When I fly and change time zones I make sure I keep the injections at 12 hours apart no matter what the time on my watch says. Your watch may have changed but your body hasn't.
You can then start to move the basal injections by an hour or two a day until they come back to the normal times again. This way you don't get big overloads or spaces with no background insulin.
Apologies if your husband has been doing this but it is a valuable trick to know and easy to forget. Obviously it could just be stress, different food, change in temperature as well.
As long as he is hypo aware and tests before driving there is no reason why he shouldn't be driving.
Hope it works out for you.
 
Could well just be the timing of the injections, it should settle down over the next few days, but also remember that heat can effect insulin absorption and make us more prone to hypo's, so he may need to reduce his insulin doses to compensate or eat more carbs.
 
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