We went on are first vacation since amelia was diagnosed. I was wondering what tips anyone could share about making a trip a little easier and less centered around her diabetes We had some trouble keeping her insulin at the same temp. We have a little bag that we put ice packs in but it was hot and we had to change packs a lot. Here is what we did. Found a hotel with a fridge, took extra ice packs, a 1/2 gallon juice bottle for sharps, and plenty of carb tabs. We went to Holiday world splashin safari in Indiana and it was great!!! This place not only has a healthy alternative link on there website for people but also has a dietitian that I was able to call and she e-mailed me a excel spreadsheet with all the restaurants and food vendors on site with all of the nutritional info in a alphabetical list!!! We even meet a couple of type 1 kids in the wave pool. Anyways if you got some great tips my ears are open.
It sounds like you had a really great trip. For long travels you might want to get in touch with Maureen Israel in the parents group. They just came back from a 5 week trip with a lot of car travel time. You can find her on this site.
For us, we found that we could not always rely on getting a hotel with a fridge. Some of the hotels that David’s hockey team booked into didn’t have one, or it was first come, first serve. We bought a travel fridge unit for the car that works great for his supplies, + some juice, + some milk and snacks. Plugs into the same outlet that you would use for a GPS or blackberry charger or whatever in the car as well as an additional plug that will work in a wall plug at the hotel.
They are not overly expensive at someplace like Canadian Tire.
Cheryl
Here is a mini fridge for insulin… It can be used in the car…http://www.lifesolutionsplus.com/micro-refrigerator-p-534.html
We’ll also be taking our first vacation since diagnosis in September, we’ll be headed to Disneyland and I would love to see more replies to this on tips for vacationing! Thanks for starting this discussion
This was our first summer since our daughter was diagnosed and we were blessed to make a couple of trips. Here are a few things that we learned along the way:
Others have stated on this board that you need to take at least 3 times the supplies that you think you will need. This is must-heed advice. We never came close to running out of supplies but we did consume much more than we initially expected.
Estimating carbs is always difficult and we found that when we travel we need to always guess on the high side of what we would expect.
At least, in our case we consume a lot more insulin when we travel. We usually use 120 units over a the life of a omnipod and find it best to go ahead and fill the pod up to 200 units. In addition, we tend to be aggressive with starting a temp basal between 30 to 50 per cent above the normal rate.
For transporting insulin, we have found the frio bags to work very well. We were able to travel throughout Germany and Austria this year and the bag worked great.
We did not experience any problems on airplanes with our supplies. Both times we went through security in Germany they asked about the pods we were carrying but they quickly passed us on when we told them what they were for.
With a little bit of planning, we found that vacations were still wonderful and a good time was had by all.
Hi Roxanne! I have looked for info on Disney World, too. Eventually, I would love to take my two year old grandson -T1 - there and was wondering how that vacation might work out. I found a site that looks great and thought you might find helpful. The author has lots of great ideas! Hope this helps!http://allears.net/pl/diabetes.htm#13