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Travelling Abroad with Type 1

Q

qbix

Well-Known Member
Messages
79
Location
Scotland
Hi All,

I have been asked to go away on business with work to India (not that exciting so no need to get jealous :wink: , I will be spending 5 days in an air conditioned office and talking about computers) and am wondering how I am going to deal with my MDI regime as India is 4.5 hours ahead of the UK. Should I be trying to keep my lantus injection at the same UK time, or try and swap it for the Indian time? I figured that trying to keep it the UK time would be much easier as then I don't have to worry about hypos or hypers when I swap through time zones.

The other question that I had was concerning the actual plane flight itself. I have a daily reminder on my phone to tell me to take my Lantus injection, if I have to have my phone off, how am I going to be able to tell it is the right time to inject. How does everyone else deal with this?

Any comments would be welcome as I have not had to travel with diabetes before, only having been diagnosed this year (I nearly forgot to tell the woman on the phone that I was diabetic when she was booking the tickets.)
 
Good questions,

I'm looking forward to the answers as I travel quite a bit with work. Only Aberdeen and Europe so far but I do some long haul as well. WIth only a one hour time difference I just swap straight onto local time for my Levemir.

Good luck with it and please report back on how it went.

Cheers

Dave
 
I flew from Albany, Western Australia, to London (36 hours in total) last year. I took my Lantus at about 9.39pm before getting on the long haul flight. I had the next Lantus injection just before going to bed in the UK (about 8pm UK time) and then injected the Lantus before bed each night. I had no problems with hypos - I was on on a small dose of about 6 units.

On the return trip, we stayed in Singapore for a few hours. Again I injected the Lantus before boarding the flight to Perth (about 9/10 pm Singapore/Perth time). Again, I had no problems.


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Not sure about the insulin question but as for the setting reminder on your phone, most can be set to "flight mode" and so can be left on after take off and right up until landing so you should still be OK to set reminder.


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qbix said:
Hi All,
I have been asked to go away on business with work to India (not that exciting so no need to get jealous :wink: , I will be spending 5 days in an air conditioned office and talking about computers) and am wondering how I am going to deal with my MDI regime as India is 4.5 hours ahead of the UK. Should I be trying to keep my lantus injection at the same UK time, or try and swap it for the Indian time? I figured that trying to keep it the UK time would be much easier as then I don't have to worry about hypos or hypers when I swap through time zones.
Click to expand...

Have you discussed this with your GP, practice nurse or pharmacist?
Also if you plan on keeping to UK time it makes sense to when and what you usually eat.

The other question that I had was concerning the actual plane flight itself. I have a daily reminder on my phone to tell me to take my Lantus injection, if I have to have my phone off, how am I going to be able to tell it is the right time to inject. How does everyone else deal with this?
Click to expand...

Most smartphones have an "airplane mode" which disables anything wireless. Could you use an alternative PDA or tablet? Even set an alarm on your watch.

Any comments would be welcome as I have not had to travel with diabetes before, only having been diagnosed this year (I nearly forgot to tell the woman on the phone that I was diabetic when she was booking the tickets.)
Click to expand...

Make sure that the airline understands your need for regular injections. Both their people on the ground and aircrew.
 
Great advice. Thanks guys. I told the woman booking flights I was diabetic and have been given diabetic meals. Not sure it is necessary so might cancel them. I suppose I am just fussing as I am being taken out of my comfort zone and don't know how this is going to pan out.
 
I travel quite a lot between here and the states for work. Starting about a week before I travel, I start shifting my Levemir injection forwards/backwards by an hour or so. The idea being that I get it closer to the correct time in wherever I am flying too. Sometimes, however, I haven't had enough notice to do this so I have just suddenly had to move my insulin back by x hours to compensate for the new time zone. When I have done this I have just had to monitor my sugars more closely and be prepared to compensate with extra insulin/sugar if needed.

Regarding your alarm, you can turn your phone onto flight mode when you're in the air. Your alarm will still work.

Em


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