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long haul flights

spondoolics

Newbie
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3
has anyone been longhaul and on insulin? I suffer hypos a lot. would love to hear from anyones experience during the flight and maybe dealing with hypos in-flight.

I am looking forward to it. :D
 
You will need to speak and check with your doctor. However For long haul flights and time zone difference I have eaten very small amounts regularly and skipped by Novo Rapid for the flight just to avoid dealing with Hypos in flight. It has also helped me accomdate myself into the new time zone but you will need to check with your doctor.
 
spondoolics said:
has anyone been longhaul and on insulin? I suffer hypos a lot. would love to hear from anyones experience during the flight and maybe dealing with hypos in-flight.

I am looking forward to it. :D


Hi spondoolics

Here is a link to the information for Diabetics and Travel from this website main pages. There are other links to more information. Have a read.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/travel.html

Ken.
 
Depends on how long your longhaul flight will be! And what insulin regime you are on. I fly to the US 5-6 times a year, and occasionally much further. Historically I always found that it was my long-acting insulin that needed tweaking, adjusting the dose according to how many hours I was losing or gaining. Short-acting was always dependent on the food I was eating so no major changes there. Still use the same principles with my pump.

Don't forget to take all your diabetes paraphernalia with you in the cabin, you'll certainly be testing and probably more so than usual. So it's not a bad idea to have a letter from your GP/consultant just in case you are questioned about lancets, needles etc at security. I never have been, but there's always a first time...

Talking of security, some airports are still a bit twitchy about taking liquids on board. I've always found the best hypo treatments to be in liquid form, so to get around this quandary buy a few cartons of emergency fruit juice AFTER passing through the security check. No problem at all.

And have a great trip! :wink:
 
I have flown with my son who is a type one to the US and Canada. This is only about an 8 hour time difference.

What we have done is to give the basal according to the time zone we are in but always going for the longer time interval rather than bunching up. That is, it is okay to be late with it but not early.

We correct the blood sugar with rapid acting insulin at every meal.

What happens is that Steven's blood sugars tend to be higher during flights and for a few days afterwards and there is quite a lot of corrective doses.

The good thing is that there are very few hypos.

I hope this helps.

I know that Gary Schiener has a more complicated plan in his book "Think Like a Pancreas".
 
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