• Travel with diabetes

    ResaMedDiabetes

    We have collected a few important advices and tricks for when traveling with diabetes – enjoy and take care!
    (Please note that the advices are of “diabetic to diabetic” character, meaning not written by any medical educated person. Diabetes looks different from person to person, and what works for one might not work at all for another.)

     

    1. Start in time
    Packing your diabetes devices isn’t something you do the day before leaving. Therefore, start in time making sure you have everything at home. Maybe you’ve run out of something and you have to order it? Maybe the pharmacy has holiday opening hours? It’s better to start a week before you had imagined, and not have to deal with the panic. If you’re flying somewhere, an advice is to talk to the airline and see if they offer ‘diabetes food’ for the flight. If they do, you can avoid the massively carb loaded normal meals – and actually get tastier food!

    2. Plan your packing

    Think about what you’re going to need on your trip, and then double it. Then you have, in my opinion, enough marginal if something would go wrong. Gather all stuff on your kitchen table to double check you’ve got everything.
    3. Pack you bags cleverly

    Bring manuals or copies of manuals for the devices you can’t manage by heart, as well as extra glucose meters, shots and/or insulinpump. If you’re a pumper, ask your pump company if they have the possibility of giving you a ‘travel pump’ – a service a lot of pump companies offer.

    4. Pack your bags tight

    You will realize that you’re facing a minor mountain of diabetes devices, and so the next challenge is to pack it all as tight as ever possible. Try to get rid of unnecessarily big packaging, and repack in new boxes or bags.
    5. Get yourself a travel certificate
    If you talk to your diabetes doctor, he or she will gladly give you a travel certificate. A travel certificate is a pice of paper saying that you have type 1 diabetes, that you need your medication during the entire flight, and that they therefore are OK to bring through the security. It’s rather rare for the security people to actually ask for the certificate, but if they’d want an extra confirmation except for the devices you wear and bring, an unpleasant discussion can begin if you don’t have it with you.
    6. Split up your packing
    When flying, never send your diabetes devices in the checked in luggage. That is luggage being exposed to low temperatures, being handled roughly and that can – in worst case scenario – get astray. Therefore do the diabetes packing in your carry-on baggage. Also make sure to split it into as many carry-ons as possible – unpredicted thing can happen to these bags too. Make a couple of copies of your travel certificate and store one in each packing load.
    7. Reserves and ‘just in case food’
    In a lot of countries, getting hold of your usual or similar food to what your eating at home might be difficult. And when you’re on vacation, the normal food times and routines looks a bit different. Therefore it might be good to bring small food reserves in addition to the glucose that you’re (of course!) bringing. A tip is bars of different kinds (protein, raw…), crackers or hard bread. Something you can bring through the airport security to eat on the plane, but also something that can last a few days in a suitcase climate.
    For those of you who are used to reading the carb content on the nutrition declaration in ‘grams per 100 grams’, should be aware of that all countries does not use that method. In the USA for example they count ‘grams per serving’, where the serving can vary. So be observant!
    8. Time change
    If it’s a vacation far away you’re looking forward to, maybe a time change will make your diabetes care even trickier. My best advice to this is to think in advance how you will handle it, so you won’t wake up at a new place, in a new country, at a new time, not knowing if you should take your insulin, how much and when. Maybe consult your diabetes nurse before leaving?
    If you’re a pumper my advice is that you change your pump clock settings (meaning the insulin dosing) when first getting on the plane, so you won’t be as confused when landing.
    9. Temperature
    If you’re traveling abroad for a holiday in the sun, make sure you keep an eye on the temperature around the diabetes devices. Insulin should not be stored too cold (therefore it shouldn’t be transported in the luggage room in airplanes where the temperature can drop to freezing), but also not too hot.
    If the hotel has minibars, you can store your insulin in there. If not, ask the hotel staff for some kind of staff refrigerator, and if you can use it for you insulin. It’s usually never a problem.
    You also have to keep an eye on the temperature when being out in the sun. If you’re a pen user, bring a small cooling bag (see our Mabox here) or keep your pens close to a cool drink. If you’re a pumper, it might be a little trickier. Try to always keep the pump in shadow, under your towel or under the chair.
    The glucose levels (for a lot of diabetics) drops a lot when being in environments warmer than you’re used to.
    10. Enjoy being on vacation!
    I’ve had type 1 diabetes for almost seven years, and my values are never better than when being on, and right after, a vacation. It’s like that for a lot of diabetics, since a calm settles in your body. Make the best out of that, and don’t ‘over-think’ or ‘over-do’ your diabetes. If the heat brings your levels down, use that as an excellent excuse to eat ice cream every day without feeling bad about it. Think about how happy your body is when lowering the insulin doses. Lean back, relax, spend time with your travel company and just enjoy having some time off!
    As travel buddies on your vacation, we recommend the AnnaPS tank tops, swimwear and panties or briefs. All of them with integrated pockets that simplifies your ‘diabetes traveling’.
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