Traveling with Diabetes: The Week After Matters as Much as the Trip Itself

You may be planning a long-distance trip for the summer, or perhaps you’ve just returned from one. Living with diabetes, you’ve likely long since gotten used to planning ahead for what you’ll need to pack. However, many people may overlook one detail during their planning: once you land, you might find that your blood sugar levels have become “unpredictable” or unusually fluctuating over the past week. This aspect actually deserves just as much attention as the trip itself.

Traveling with Diabetes Doesn't End When You Land

If you spent your trip eating on a different schedule, sleeping in a different bed, and moving a lot more (or a lot less) than usual, your blood sugar probably noticed. That's not a sign you did something wrong — it's just what happens when everything your body is used to changes at once. The goal for the week after isn't to feel guilty about the numbers. It's to ease back into your routine without turning that into its own source of stress.

Give Yourself a Minute Before You Try to "Fix" Everything

As soon as they get home, people often can’t resist taking drastic measures to “correct” their blood sugar—such as strictly limiting carbohydrate intake, frequently administering additional insulin doses, or checking their continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) data every ten minutes.

Rather than trying to force your blood sugar back to baseline levels overnight, making gentle adjustments over the course of a day or two usually works better. At times like this, remember: even a week of less-than-ideal blood sugar readings will never undo a whole year’s worth of effort.

A Quick Look Through Your Diabetes Travel Kit

Before you toss your travel kit back in the closet, do a quick pass through it.

• Used lancets and pen needles that piled up over the trip belong in a proper sharps container, not the regular trash.
• Check how many test strips, pen needles, or lancets you have left, since travel tends to burn through supplies faster than a normal week at home.
• If you wore a CGM or pump through heat, humidity, or a lot of pool time, glance at the adhesive to make sure it's still holding. 

A stocked, organized kit at home makes this five-minute check a lot less annoying.

Getting Your Schedule Back to Home Base

Time zone changes, later dinners, and shifted wake-up times all nudge your insulin and meal timing out of sync. Rather than resetting everything the moment you land, ease your schedule back over a day or two, especially if you crossed more than a time zone or two.

If Things Still Feel Off After a Few Days

A few rough days after a trip is normal. Heat and travel stress can affect glucose monitors and insulin pumps too, so unusual readings right after a trip aren't always about you.

But if your numbers are still noticeably out of range, or you're feeling unusually run-down, a week or more after you're home, check in with your care team rather than waiting it out.

References:

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tips for Traveling With Diabetes. cdc.gov. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/about/tips-for-traveling-with-diabetes.html
2. Johns Hopkins Medicine. Traveling With Diabetes. hopkinsmedicine.org. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/diabetes/traveling-with-diabetes