One of the more interesting aspects of life and sport is travel. Regardless if you are a pumper or MDI, planning ahead can make life easier when changing time zones (especially if you plan on actually living in your new time zone for more than a few days). Obviously the direction and number of time zones are the most basic principals.
For a simple example, take East Coast to West Coast of the US, a three time zone change – not the most drastic change in this globalizing world. On a pump, this could be a very simple task of changing the time in the pump right before take off. However, if you are taking off around midnight and will be flying through the night, temporary basal may be necessary – since many pumpers will utilize greater basal overnight to compensate for sleeping and dawn phenomenon.
On Lantus, I have two theories – one for once a day users and the other for twice a day users. For once a day, I always kept the time of injection the same on my “home clock” – which works well if the time is still easily working in the destination time zone. For twice daily Lantus users, giving the injection 12 hours apart may become a bit of an issue for some time zone changes because one of those injections will likely be at a time that does not correlate well with your schedule – you may be sleeping! Starting with the dose 12 hours prior to travel – I always try and delay or advance giving that injection somewhat (depending upon which direction I am traveling). So that 12 hours later, I will be more on-target with the time zone in my destination. For once a day, if my daily injection does not align well with my destination time zone, over the course of 2-3 days before leaving, I will migrate the injection to the destination time (by a few hours forward or back every day) and compensate with shorter acting insulin.
Traveling can be a wonderful experience and with a small amount of foresight and planning, it can be a truly pleasant experience. And if you are lying by the beach, or going to ride 100 miles in a distant location – changing time zones should not hold you back. Let some gnarly hill climb be the most difficult part of your trip.
