As If Traveling With Diabetes Wasn’t Hard Enough
More A Sweet Life Aug 20, 2011, 3:58 pm
Traveling is always a pain when you have diabetes. Making sure you have everything you need can take up an extra bag – insulin, test strips, glucometer, extra needles etc. Like most people with diabetes, I take all my supplies with me in a carry-on. It’s uncomfortable and means there’s a fair chance of being harassed by airport security.
I once spent a week in Turkey without a glucometer. I’d forgotten to pack mine. My hotel didn’t have one and neither did the pharmacy in the town nearby. Since I was in the middle of nowhere in Turkey and had no good way to communicate my needs, I just gave up. I knew it was irresponsible to have no idea how high my blood sugar was. I guessed when I bolused and I was lucky that everything turned out okay. (My following A1c was high.)
Since then, I always stress about traveling and the longer the flight the worse it is. I have always found it difficult to manage my blood sugar levels on trips (even when I have a glucometer). The long periods of driving and flying (with very little movement) together with the unfamiliar food usually causes my blood sugar levels to rise. On short flights I don’t eat at all and on very long flights (like the 10-12 hour Tel Aviv – New York flight) I eat very little. I’ve also taken to completely cutting out carbs when in unfamiliar places.
As if all this wasn’t enough I woke up this morning and went to look at the latest news and found … Read the Rest
Tags: traveling, sugar, glucometer, blood, diabetes, little, unfamiliar, flights, levels, flight, turkey, everything, extra,
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- Description: A new study claims that changes in cabin pressure during flights may cause insulin pumps to deliver too much or too little insulin…
