Our 15 year old daughter, who is on Lantus and Humalog, is leaving for a week in Hawaii with a friend’s family. The Humalog is not a problem, but how should she handle the Lantus in flying from Cleveland west to Hawaii? She currently takes her Lantus at 9:00 pm, and we were thinking that with the five hour time change, she could take it at 5:00 pm every day and still maintain our Cleveland schedule. Is that correct? Will she need to test more often? Should she cover with Humalog at all initially? Keep her watch on Cleveland time? It seems we get different answers, and we are very worried!!

This is how I would approach matters. Lantus (insulin glargine) is such a long acting insulin as the basal dose, that (assuming it lasts 24 hours in her, and that may be a large assumption) theoretically, it would not matter when she gives it. She could stay on Cleveland time and take her Humalog with meals and snacks as she normally would do. If that is too cumbersome because she is a creature of habit and likes to take her insulin at “bedtime”, then for the three to four days leading up to her trip, she could adjust her dosing of Lantus at home in Cleveland to be “ready-to-go” by the time she got to Hawaii. Personally, I’d lean towards this.

Yes, she should check her glucose values often! Her eating schedule will change, she may have different activities at different times, stay up late, hula dancing, pig roasts, whatever.

Remember to be prepared for possible security issues while traveling, See our Flying With Diabetes Supplies and Traveling with Diabetes pages. Bring extra insulin, etc.

DS