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Travel

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Panice

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Type 1
HI. I am newly diagnosed and tomorrow have to go on a 8 hour train journey and attend a day long conference for work. I am worried about what food to take (that will be easily trasported with me) and will still be edible by tea time. I have not ventured far from home and work since I was diagnosed 4 months ago and feel a little worried about tomorrow. It will be a very long day (5am to 9pm). Does anyone else travel like this and if so how do you manage with food and injecting on the train? Any tips would be appreciated. I have an emergency pack of gluscose tabs etc in case of hypos. Thank you.
 
Panice said:
HI. I am newly diagnosed and tomorrow have to go on a 8 hour train journey and attend a day long conference for work. I am worried about what food to take (that will be easily trasported with me) and will still be edible by tea time. I have not ventured far from home and work since I was diagnosed 4 months ago and feel a little worried about tomorrow. It will be a very long day (5am to 9pm). Does anyone else travel like this and if so how do you manage with food and injecting on the train? Any tips would be appreciated. I have an emergency pack of gluscose tabs etc in case of hypos. Thank you.
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Hi Panice, welcome to the forum 🙂 When I am out for the day I usually take a home-made sandwich in a small sandwich box and an apple, plus maybe a biscuit - this way I have a much better idea of how many grams of carbs are in my meal. I don't worry about injecting at my seat - I would usually inject in my abdomen for the meal immediately prior to eating - in 10 years I think only one person has visibly noticed it. What insulin are you using? Are you able to vary your dose according to the carbs in your meal (also known as 'carb counting')? Try not to let it worry you, as long as you have your testing kit (again - do test in your seat, don't worry about doing this) and some hypo treatments you will be fine 🙂

I hope your journey goes well, do let us know how things go for you 🙂
 
Northerner said:
I don't worry about injecting at my seat - I would usually inject in my abdomen for the meal immediately prior to eating - in 10 years I think only one person has visibly noticed it.
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My guess is that people are (at least some of the time) deliberately choosing not to notice; all part of our social contract. The effect is just the same, though, so I agree that nobody should worry about just injecting when and where it seems appropriate.
 
Hi Panice. Welcome to the forum. I hope I’m not too late. When we travel, we tend to take things that are in a packet, such as Special K cereal bars, as they stay fresh all day and the carbs can be written on the packet if they are not printed on it. A small packet of biscuits is also a good idea as they are good snacks not too high in carbs. Sandwiches will stay fresh most of the day if in a lunch box or wrapped in foil. If you have time between trains, the shops on the station usually have healthy food options on sale. Fruit snacks such as Humzingers are also popular in my house.

Enjoy your trip and let us know how you get on.
 
If you can get a seat on the train it is fine. I travel to leeds about once a month, its fine with the early start as there are loads of seats, even tables and I will buy my breakfast form my favorite coffee shop.
If there are no seats its harder to test and inject on a busy train, you just have to do your best in these situations.
I will take something like @Northerner said, or some pasta in a little pot. You can never have enough snacks in these situations.
 
Thank you all so much for your replies. I am carb counting and so decided to take my own food. I tested and injected on the train and nobody seemed to notice or comment. The only small problem was that I had to inject my long lasting insulin (abasaglar) at 7.30am in my leg and so a guard took me to a small room to do this as the loo was out of order and I didn't want to pull my trousers down on the train as that would of been a step too far! Now I have managed this journey I have the confidence to do it again without all the worry. I am using Fiasp now as NovoRapid wasn't dealing with my insulin resistance. Its more under control now. It was a shock at aged 50 to suddenly be told I am Type 1. A huge learning curve as I knew little about diabetes before. Hats off to all who have it and manage it so well. I have completed the carb counting course and also had Libre for two weeks. Its all more time consuming than I ever would of believed but I am now fitting it in well with working full time and renovating a house and I feel so much better than I have for a long time. Hope you are all well. Is anyone else involved in the Research Programmes?
 
Panice said:
Its all more time consuming than I ever would of believed but I am now fitting it in well with working full time and renovating a house and I feel so much better than I have for a long time. Hope you are all well. Is anyone else involved in the Research Programmes?
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I've found it goes in waves. Most of the time it's a background thing (need to think at mealtimes, and pay attention to make sure I avoid hypos) and doesn't really require much thought. But then something changes and so for a while I need to pay more attention. At the moment I feel better than I've felt in a while: now I'm on MDI (so I can eat when convenient) and while I'm able to use Libre testing's easy, so I haven't seen a paramedic for a couple of years (had a few nasty hypos).

I'm not in a diabetes research programme. I am in Biobank (most recent event was being rejected for imaging: they didn't like that I'd had neurosurgery).
 
Hi Panice and welcome to the forum. It is a huge amount of info to take onboard when you are diagnosed. I was diagnosed later in life also - at 42. There are quite a few of us late bloomers on here. Glad the journey turned out ok 🙂
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I've found it goes in waves. Most of the time it's a background thing (need to think at mealtimes, and pay attention to make sure I avoid hypos) and doesn't really require much thought. But then something changes and so for a while I need to pay more attention. At the moment I feel better than I've felt in a while: now I'm on MDI (so I can eat when convenient) and while I'm able to use Libre testing's easy, so I haven't seen a paramedic for a couple of years (had a few nasty hypos).

I'm not in a diabetes research programme. I am in Biobank (most recent event was being rejected for imaging: they didn't like that I'd had neurosurgery).
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Hi Bruce. I have also had neurosurgery for a brain tumour 3 years ago. What is Biobank? I am slowly managing it and feel ok although I find the fatigue can be a real pain in the neck.
 
stephknits said:
Hi Panice and welcome to the forum. It is a huge amount of info to take onboard when you are diagnosed. I was diagnosed later in life also - at 42. There are quite a few of us late bloomers on here. Glad the journey turned out ok 🙂
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Thank you. Its a shock for anyone I guess but I feel lucky to have not had this all my life. A lot to take in initially but it has certainly made me consider how my body works and the amount of carbs I put into it! From what I have been told the advances have been good and are improving all the time. I think my husband has struggled with my diagnosis too as he is worried that I will have a hypo all the time. Its a big thing for all the family but I feel a lot more relaxed about it now than I did 3 months ago!
 
I don’t bother with adjusting a single layer of clothing (shirts, trousers) I just inject through them. Been doing that for over 20 years, never had a problem with modern ultra fine needles. This is not formal advice, just experience.

Don’t do it all the time, of course. Honest.🙂
 
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