General
Travel concerns with organ transplant
Updated August 4, 2021
in General
No one's going too far these days but for those of you who traveled with your transplant pre pandemic, what did that look like? I know pills in original packaging - did you need a medical letter? If you were going to be gone for longer than a few weeks, did you need to arrange to get your labs done in the place you were visiting? If you went somewhere with travel vaccines required, how did you handle that, especially if they were live virus vaccines such as yellow fever?
I'm not going anywhere soon, just planning for the future
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Transplant Patient
Well - I am in Europe so that probably counts as far away! I used to travel all the time pre Covid but now it has been 18 m since I was in a plane!
my routine is the same though - pack enough drugs to last and some extra of the important ones (tac and azathioprine in my case), pack in different bags if one is lost. Be careful w food and drinks and I never travel to places where there is no transplant expertise or where the hygi be is deficient - unfortunately that leaves really only NA and Western Europe ( parts of Asia probably would be ok - Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa maybe also)…
I make sure to know where to go if I were to get sick and I stay on top of my metrics and try to rest a lot! Travel drains everyone and we can’t afford being tired - weakens the immune system
Transplant Patient
@AliEm14 Here's what I do:
-travel with meds in original packaging
-make sure to have a pharmacy that refills can be called into at my destination
-hard copy of lab orders
-mask with carbon filter when on a plane/crowded spaces. (I've done this for a while pre-covid and seem to stay healthier)
-pack my own snacks
-Ningxia packets from YL
Transplant Patient
I never would have thought to have hard copies of lab orders, and to make sure with the pharmacy where I'm going they can fill my meds if need be. Do you carry your pills/requisitions... in your carry on? I've heard they should all be in the carry on, half and half...
Transplant Patient
I keep enough in my carry on for a few days, along with lab orders and extra masks/filters and snackies.
I love to travel but hate carrying a lot on the plane with me.
if you really wanna nerd out, look at my travel highlights on my Instagram. 😂
-I always carry an extra week of medication just in case of cancel flights or delays.
-A list of all my medications, insurance cards and list of phone numbers for my doctors and transplant nurse.
-I also let my team know I'm traveling and ask what hospitals are best in the area should I need one.
-I also do a set a labs before I go just to make sure nothing is "out of whack" before I go.
Love this conversation! I actually am travelling next month - no where as exciting as Europe or South Africa, but for the first time since tx, out of my time zone. How do you all do your immunosuppressants? Switch to local time? Stay on your home time? I'm getting labs done before I go and two weeks after I get home (unless something is immediately out of whack). That part I've got down, but the timing issues are what I'm curious about.
@Karin and @brookegurrad what did you do about the time change?
I did a two-week cross country driving trip earlier in the summer (pre-Delta surge in the US.)
This was my first trip post-transplant, so I was pretty mindful about minimizing my exposure to COVID. (Our activities were outdoors adventure type things: hiking, mountain biking, etc. And we camped and stayed in air B&Bs.)
As far as my labs & meds… I get labs every 3 months at this point, so I didn’t need to worry about that. Also, my meds are for 90 day supply so I just took enough for the trip plus 4 extra days (just in case). I carried some of the days supply on my person and the rest in my suitcase, figuring if my purse got stolen, I’d have extra in my suitcase, and vice versa.
For food, I basically packed food and picnicked my way across the country since I still have some pretty tight sodium restrictions with my diet.
I don’t know when I’ll feel ok about getting on a plane again. I imagine when that day comes, I’ll wear a mask.