How to travel overseas with diabetes

I hope anyone who wants to travel overseas and is worried about buying insulin or just generally making it work will read Braving the World: Adventures in Travel and Retirement http://www.amazon.com/dp/B091BCNVWQ . I am ready to stop dreaming and start packing. Paris and Budapest, here we come.

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If you have a pump and that company offers a loaner program, be sure and get one. If not ask around to see if anyone has an older in your line that might work.

I was in Korea in 2019 and my pump stopped. Thankfully I had a spare.

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I never thought of that. Good idea.

When I travel I bring double what I think I will need, for my pump, then I also bring lantus and syringes in case my pump fails. I have gone off my pump enough times to know how to do it. My control ,isn’t as tight, but I could manage.

I did that in Hawaii, so I could snorkel and swim and all that more easily. I switched back on the plane ride back home with pretty much no interruption.

I might consider a second pump, but it depends where you go.
I had a hard time in Eastern Europe with explaining one pump.
I was kind of treated like I was pumping illegal drugs or something. A second pump might look sketchier.

They took to smelling my insulin vials, like they know what that should smell like. I never had anything confiscated, but I got nervous a few times.

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@Tim Wow! It is funny how many non diabetes related people in the medical field have no knowledge about pumps and have never seen them.

When we traveled in Europe for a year the “bring double the supplies you will need” rule didn’t work! I took paper prescriptions from my doctor and got insulin at pharmacies. When I couldn’t get my pumps delivered in Croatia, I went back to MDI, with disastrous results in London but that is another story.