Tips 👏
- The insuline can stay at normal temperature for up to 6 months
- Freestyle libre and electronic insulin pen are great to have while travelling
- The NHS give only 3 months supply in advance, more one advanced request
- A GP letter justifying the insuline in various langages helps for airport security
⏱ Duration
It took us around 3 months to get all the prescriptions and medications.
Supplies 💊
Leaving for more than two weeks as a diabetic type 1 required some stocks. While insuline can be found in most of the world, getting it might be tricky without a prescription. We decided to leave with all the necessary for 5 months.
Insuline wise, we packed for 7 months of slow (Levemir) and fast (Novorapid) insuline, including needles. Barbara using a reloadable electronic insulin pen, we took only the cartridges with us, also helping us to save some space. We equally took with us 14 freestyle libre to be covered in case of a faulty one. To save extra space, we opened them all and merged them in the boxes. Lastly, we bagged a normal glucose and keytones sensor to be on the safe side.
To be covered for potencial hypoglycemia, we also grabbed a bunch of Rowntrees Pastilles. Half a roll is usually good to go back at normal level. Those are great because they are small, don’t suffer from the heat, airport friendly and have a long expiration date. We also carried with us all the time a GlucaGen Pen in case of bad scenario (learn how to use it before).
The complicated part was to get the insuline and sensors in quantities. For the insulin, we simply asked way in advance the GP to get us a prescription. For the sensors, we could only get half of what we needed, so we bought the rest in France.
Packing strategy 👜
To carry those supplies, we decided to get an extra gym bag. It’s simply because that wouldn’t fit in our luggages, but also because that couldn’t go in the haul of planes in case of very low temperatures over-flight. While most of airlines only allowed one carry on item, we didn’t had issues after explaining that was vitals medications.
We also decided to take two sensors and a box of insuline each in our personal back-pack in case we would loose our beloved gym bag. Basically to have enough for two weeks, allowing enough time to find a temporary solution.
Regarding the storage, we always left the bag at normal temperature. While it’s advised to keep the insulin in the fridge in a cool environment, it’s actually not a good idea in a trip since fridges are not reliable and can freeze anytime, hence ruining the insulin. We left it out for 5 months and even if we suspected that affected its efficiency, it was fine overall.
Documents 📑
The last thing we took care of was to get a GP letter proving the Barbara’s diabetic status translated in Arabic, Chinese and Spanish. Indeed, travelling in many different countries and airports with tons of insuline and needles might look suspicious, so we wanted to be covered.
To do so, we asked a letter to the GP and used Translated.com to have it in various langages, a bit pricy but high quality. We printed them all and kept them with us in the bag. We also saved them offline on our phones in case of lost.
Luckily, we didn’t had much troubles in airports or customs. We only had some brief searches in Maldivian’s airport which went fine after showing the letter. It seems the needles are sometimes violating airlines policies, so it might be better to put them in the checked luggage.
Hope this was helpful, you can ask us any questions on Instagram.