This is my first post on this forum. Can anyone offer advise for international travel with a pump? I"m heading to London, Ireland and Scotland next week. This is my first trip out of the country since my T1D diagnosis and I"m anxious about it! Other than bringing plenty of supplies, backup pens etc is there anything else I should plan for? I plan to travel with an extra bottle of insulin and have been told I shouldn’t have to refrigerate it until arrival at our hotel (probably at least ten hours). It won’t be exposed to extreme temps in the interim. Any issues at airports when wearing a pump? I’ve travelled domestically with no trouble other than some extra TSA screening. Can I keep my pump on and go through the screeners? I have in the past but have since heard Medtronics advises against that. Any advise/comments would be appreciated. Thanks.
I went the the UK a couple of years ago and had a great time. I found their level of security comparable. I have found it easiest to just declare my pump, walk through the metal detector, then they have me hold my pump and do the hand-swipe test. Only takes a couple of minutes and just smoother for me. I have been through both metal detectors and the body scan thingy dozens of times and never an issue, just don’t put it on the X-ray belt. You can also rent a backup pump from MM with like a $50 deposit that you can return after you’re back, nice to know you have it just in case. And of course, as with any travel, try to anticipate all the supplies you could conceivably need and take double of that. I was stranded with a layover in Italy last year and was glad to be prepared. Enjoy your trip!
For any travel, domestic or international, I think it is a good idea to have a “doctor letter” from your doctor confirming that you are Type 1, need insulin etc. My endo had a form letter that she printed out and gave me. No one has ever asked for it but if TSA has questions, I have answers!
I went to Paris and London a year ago, first time abroad with a pump though I’d been over when I was on MDI before. Here are a few things off the top of my head:
- Time change. You need to reset your pump’s clock for local time so it can continue to track your basals. Some people recommend gradually advancing it over a couple of days, but I didn’t have the patience for it and just advanced it when I arrived. Obviously things are going to be out of sync while your circadian rhythms catch up, so…
- TEST A LOT. I actually got a CGM specifically for dealing with the trip and it was hugely important. I had a number of surprise hypos that I wouldn’t have caught. Not just the time change, but I was walking a lot more–everything was off-routine for me.
- Weird things I ran into: you can NOT buy alcohol or alcohol swabs in English pharmacies. They have some other antibacterial stuff that I ended up using when I ran out of my own, but I vastly prefer alcohol because it kills virtually everything and evaporates quickly without leaving anything behind. And Parisian pharmacies don’t carry glucose tablets.
Some pump manufacturers say no, some say it’s ok. For safety’s sake I decided to go for the pat down, but it’s probably not a problem. They do seem pretty clear about not putting it through the scanner. Well, you’d have to detach the thing for that unless you have an Omnipod, and I wasn’t about to do that. The security guys aren’t phased by any of this; as you can imagine they deal with all kinds of things and pumps aren’t that rare.
Also too, there’s this: