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giving myself nightmares over dream holiday

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Rosie.H.

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Parent of person with diabetes
Help, I'm having a panic. we are taking the children to Florida this Saturday. My 6 year old son is on a pump and I'm having a panic about how we adjust for the time difference. the advice we have been given is to adjust the time when we get there. we land 6pm florida time, which is 11pm our time. ethan hypo's at the drop of a hat at night and we reduce his background rate by 30% to stop this. so if we put the pump back to 6pm his background rate will be nearly 3 times what it usually is. i'm having nightmares that he is going to have terrible hypo's all night.
I've also just read that some people increase the basal rate by 50-100% during the flight.
has anyone travelled with children, particularly on a pump over timezones. any advice will be welcome please.
Rosie
 
High rosie have had my pump about 3yrs now. Regularly go to cyprus on plane, have been to Asia on motorbike & other trip to russian bourder. Lots of time zones. Have never done anthing with pump but temp basal on for time when siting in plane. (when i sit still, high bg). Do lots of tests & stay up later for first couple of days to time zone. Have a good time !! 😎
 
Hiya

Don't panic, it will be ok. I've done this a few times now with Jessica on injections and a pump, its easy peasy lemon squeezey.

The best time to change the time for us is during the flight when the lowest basal rate is on. Flights to Florida are normally first thing aren't they. I am making the assumption yours is. At some point during that 8 hours you will have a low basal so make the change then. Don't worry about what happens because you can just go with the numbers.

Don't confuse things with temp basals or anything like that. Just test more for your piece of mind more than anything, maybe hourly during the flight or 1.5 hourly and just go with the numbers. Its better to be running a tad high than hypo as a hypo is just a pain in the butt up in the air.

So deep breath, no more panicking and change mid flight. I think I changed if halfway through as I decided in my head that we were halfway over the Atlantic so nearer their time zone than ours.

Hope that helps and hope you can calm a bit now. Really no need to panic.

Take snacks and hypo treatment with you and you'll be fine. Have a fabulous time. 🙂
 
Rosie.H. said:
Help, I'm having a panic. we are taking the children to Florida this Saturday. My 6 year old son is on a pump and I'm having a panic about how we adjust for the time difference. the advice we have been given is to adjust the time when we get there. we land 6pm florida time, which is 11pm our time. ethan hypo's at the drop of a hat at night and we reduce his background rate by 30% to stop this. so if we put the pump back to 6pm his background rate will be nearly 3 times what it usually is. i'm having nightmares that he is going to have terrible hypo's all night.
I've also just read that some people increase the basal rate by 50-100% during the flight.
has anyone travelled with children, particularly on a pump over timezones. any advice will be welcome please.
Rosie
Click to expand...

Hi Rosie, It is a difficult question to answer. I went to Antigua in September and decided to change my pump and meter to Antiguan time whilst flying, I did the same on returning to UK. I definitely got my basals wrong outbound (high readings) despite raising my TBR. On return I raised my TBR to 200% which worked well for me, I think the most important thing is to keep testing!
Enjoy Florida....I'm sure you will have a fantastic time. 🙂
 
Rosie.H. said:
Help, I'm having a panic. we are taking the children to Florida this Saturday. My 6 year old son is on a pump and I'm having a panic about how we adjust for the time difference. the advice we have been given is to adjust the time when we get there. we land 6pm florida time, which is 11pm our time. ethan hypo's at the drop of a hat at night and we reduce his background rate by 30% to stop this. so if we put the pump back to 6pm his background rate will be nearly 3 times what it usually is. i'm having nightmares that he is going to have terrible hypo's all night.
I've also just read that some people increase the basal rate by 50-100% during the flight.
has anyone travelled with children, particularly on a pump over timezones. any advice will be welcome please.
Rosie
Click to expand...

Hi I just recenty went on hol to Mexico and was given the same advice as you re time zones - I did as I was told and ended up having a massive hypo and eating copiuos amounts of Jelly babies as my body thought it was the night (for which I am on a lot less insulin just like Ethan) and the pump thought we were now much earlier in the day and was happily delivering me more insulin!! I dont know what the answer to this is - but I do know that I wouldn't be as quick to alter it if I went again!! I think I would try and be a bit more canny and perhaps not alter until the next morning or alter just before I am going to bed and have twice the low amount of insulin - if you can follow my drift. Then correct as necessary the next morning.

I did have to increase my basal rate on the flight - was advised to do it very gardually, 110% then 120% etc etc and ended up at 180% - I just went to 180% straight away on the way back - but we are all different so take it easy and test test test.

And finally have a great holiday!:D
 
Hi thanks for replies, breathing a bit easier now. Rosie
 
Rosie.H. said:
Hi thanks for replies, breathing a bit easier now. Rosie
Click to expand...

Excellent. It really is just about the numbers and following what the numbers tell you to do. Good luck and have lots of fun 🙂
 
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