I'm going to visit a friend in LA this August and it'll be the furthest I've ever been from home. I've only been as far west as Nashville, which is only a 1 hour time difference. I'm concerned about how a 3 hour time difference is going to affect my blood sugar, since I've never done this before. Obviously, I will be testing my blood sugar regularly to make sure I'm OK, but what about insulin and eating?
Here are my flight times, to give you some perspective:
Baltimore (BWI) to Chicago (ORD) 7:50 PM - 8:54PM
Chicago (ORD) to Los Angeles (LAX)10:05 PM - 12:32 AM
Los Angeles (LAX) to Chicago (ORD) 6:54 AM - 1:00 PM
Chicago (ORD) to Baltimore (BWI) 2:35 PM - 5:29 PM
Before I leave BWI on the way to LA, I do plan on eating dinner and giving myself my insulin (I do MDI) as I normally would. I will also be traveling with a friend on the flights to LA, but will be by myself coming back.
I have enough trouble regulating my blood sugar when I go to the beach 3 hours away, with the change in my schedule and exercise routine. I can't imagine what this is going to be like. :-/ Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I'm on MDI too. I always worry about time changes!! But, I actually find it's not as bad as I expect, and I just try to cut myself some slack on numbers. Honestly, the hardest part for me is how high I get sitting during a long plane ride -- I always need a dose of short acting for the flight. When I went from FL to Tokyo once, my sugars managed to stay under 300, so I considered that a huge success b/c of all the changes. (: I tested every hour on the flight to be sure (it was before I had a CGM).
For your long acting, you could start moving it slowly towards to new time the few days before maybe?
Have a fun trip!
You'll figure all that stuff out pretty easy. just watch your night time sugars.
When I traveled out west I started having the Dawn Effect at 12 am instead of 5 like I did back home. It stunk and caused an instant hormonal spike to 350. Keep an eye out for it because I can't be the only one o.O