Holiday Diabetic Medications - amounts needed

[RWJ]

Enough calculating I think! Take what you are comfortable with!
Please remember to take your NHS EHIC card and your repeat prescription, imperative if you need to top up your "bits" while away - best to find the local medical practice/doctor who recognises these when you arrive. Insulin is very expensive if you don't get recognition of these (from experience!).
Enjoy!!

 

[Copepod]

This is the scariest post I have ever read - I am off to Singapore and China for a month (my husband is working there at the moment) in October, can I carry it all?!!

Don't be scared - just take enough insulin & strips plus spares, but no need to go crazy with needles and lancets. EHIC card is no use is Singapore and China, although still carry it, in case you pass through a European (EEA) airport. The UK does not have reciprocal healthcarfe agreements with either country, so make sure you have appropriate health insurance that includes replacement of medical items that are lost of stolen. But better to take measures to ensure things aren't stolen. Read up about local carbohydrate foods - rice, noodles etc - so you can estimate insulin doses for each meal.

When I travelled to Chile, Falklands and South Georgia for 4 months a few years ago, my total supplies of insulin (apart from pens in use, each with a spare cartridge of each type of insulin) fitted in a 0.5litre stainless steel vaccuum flask, with an in use and a spare meter, each with strips and lancets inside a small cliplock box. A few more spares in an plastic drug tub from a pharmacist friend. Obviously, I had some emergency sweets and muesli bars, but didn't set off from UK with 4 months' worth, as there were plenty of shops in Chile and Falklands, although not South Georgia, where there's only one post office that sells stamps and souvenirs.

Have great trip.

 

[heasandford]

Thank you!

I have been to Singapore before, but really not taken as much as recommended, not considered what could happen if stranded somewhere. Wow, travelling to South America for 4 months, that would be at least 16 boxes of strips plus extra spares!

I have compiled a little grid on Excel now, and feel much better about it. Just to convince my GP surgery that I need it all!

 

[Copepod]

No, that's the point, I took nowhere near 16 boxes of strips, probably 400 in total, ie 8 packs. As I explained, just a 0.5litre vacuum flask and a few cliplock boxes and tubs. I took the strips out of their boxes to reduce bulk. In fact, I'm still using up the 7 boxes of 100 lancets prescribed by my GP, having returned in Jan 2004! And came back with lots of insulin which saw me throught most of the rest of 2004.

 

[Tina63]

Too late for you now, but I bought a tiny little travel sharps bin off Amazon last year. It's more the size of and old VHS video tape - maybe a bit smaller. Slim though, so not too bulky to pack. I think I got a tube of Glucotabs along with it! Packed hypo treatments?

 

[Tina63]

Yes, have just looked on Amazon, they do 0.2l and 0.3l sharps bins. Wonder if any chemists stock them?

 

[trophywench]

No - not round here anyway. I gave up in the finish - Pete used to take Glucosamine and Chondroitin tablets for his knee and I've been taking an empty tub on hols with me ever since. Bring em back and lob em in the proper one at home.