Hey guys so i'm on holiday right now and have never had any of these problems... about 10 days ago i left for australia. i had two plane flights, one 14 hour one to sydney and then a 5 hour one to perth. on the 14 hour flight i had no problems but on the second flight my blood sugar was uncontrollable.
I ate about two hours before the flight. I had two donuts and bolused 70 carbs for them both. That worked out fine and before I boarded the plane i believe i was at about 4.0-4.9 and had about 5 carbs just to boost it up a tiny bit.
About two hours into the flight i tested my blood sugar and was 19.8. I freaked out and did a correctional bolus of about 10 units. forty minutes later i checked again and was 20.8. My first reaction was to change my pump site (but not the insulin). After I had I did another bolus of about 10 units and after checking 45 minutes later it was at 19.4. I did a third full correctional bolus of 10 units with 1.5-2 hours flight time left. I am also certain I did not have ketones at any point during the flight.
I did not check my blood sugar until half an hour after landing and it was 5.0. From my experience my blood sugar should have gone down WAY earlier and to me it seemed like the insulin just wasn't working while i was on the plane but when i got off it did. That is just the half of my problems.
I have the same basal scheduel here as I do at home. 0.650 units per hour during the day and 1.350 units per hour during the night. However almost every night I have been here (ten) I have woken up 2-4 times during the night having to pee. Most of the nights I will blindly bolus about 2 units (Insulin:BG ratio of 1:1.2) every time i wake up to try to get my blood sugar down.
Most times I've just been way too tired to go find my glucometer and test my blood sugar but the two times I have I've been 19.7 five hours after going to sleep the first time and the second time I was 13.4 after bolusing 3 units a couple hours before at the first time i woke up that night.
Every night I check my blood sugar directly before I go to sleep and it's almost always perfect and if it's not I will do a correctional bolus. I have absolutely NO idea what this could be and i'm totally stumped. Please help because it's ruining my holiday and i'm so scared to think about what could happen if the same thing happens on my flight back from sydney to vancouver. I'll be happy to answer anything about my diabetes if you think it could help. Also sorry about this being really long but thanks for reading if you got this far :)
Wow! I wish I could help, but I'm as stumped as you are regarding the cause(s) of the sugar upswings. : /
Don't let the high numbers bother you. It happens, for a multitude of reasons. Your numbers will straighten out and things will become 'normal'. Until then, enjoy yourself, try your best, but don't freak out. You'll be fine.
You might try increasing your basal two hours prior to where you are seeing the problem. You might just need more insulin right now.
I often find that my BS goes up during flight. I think it's because you're just sitting there still doing nothing for hours on end. Plus, you may have some stress issues going. On a normal day you're walking around a litle bit, maybe typing on keyboard, exercising, playing drums, or whatever. I usually increase my dose a little on days that I fly.
I have troubles on vacation too.. for me it's mainly due to less activity and foods full of fat/protein. I've tried increasing my basal by 20-30 % and it's worked decent, although I experienced the same thing as you last night (went to bed at 7.4, trending down, woke up this morning at 12.2 - I think it's either from the protein/fat in the meals, or because my circadian rhythms are thrown off and I'm getting a dawn phenomenon at weird points, most likely the prior though)
Dylan
thanks for the replies. i'm going to try out some of the suggestions tonight
flying for me increases stress which increases (dramatically) my insulin resistance. I try not to eat fast carbs when I am n the plane. I increase basal rates between 50 and 100% for flights over an hour. Boluses most of the time (for me) have to be doubled when I am on a long flight and have a meal.
It takes my body about 2 weeks to catch up with a daylight savings time (1 hour adjustment) so a 12 hour time shift can completely mess up a basal requirement curve, for weeks. if I am more than 3 hours out of my zone I just use a flat basal, set up on a different pattern, unti I start to get low before lunch (it works for me).
repetition doesn't work for me either, I fly every week for months at a time. hope you are okay.
My blood sugar is stays in the 150's during flightsmmost of the time. This is mainly due to the fact that I have extreme airsickness... I went to the Philippines about 4 years ago and that is around a 15 hour flight all together and I vomited 10 times in the last three hours of the flight. Since, I am always puking and and cannot eat anything it stays about the same.
However, my endo told me that changing the time with the location you are in during flight can help get bloodsugars down sometimes.