Hi, we are in the \*thinking\* stage of whether our 8th grader can go with a class trip to Japan for 2 weeks next year.
He would be 14 years old, and a Type 1 Diabetic (insulin dependent) for 7 years. But he’s never traveled without us, other than going to diabetes camps.
So, this is a broad question – wondering if any adult Type 1’s or parents of T1Ds have had experience with travel to Japan.
Issues like access to insulin, emergency medical services, carb counts on packaged food, etc.
Thanks in advance. We’d really like to make this work if we can. I don’t know if we can.
9 comments
They have diabetes in Japan. Food is labeled in Japanese.
If he’s only going for 2 weeks, it’s much easier to just bring the needed insulin
Japan has food labeling standards, so information should be available. Labels are easy enough to translate with Google translate or an equivalent. Or one can easily memorize the words for carbs, sugar, etc.
Might be a bit tougher in restaurants to know exactly what you’re eating. Many young people in Japan speak English well, but even so, would be tough to get a lot of detail.
Anecdotally, emergency services are on par with any developed country. Saw plenty of ambulances, hospitals, pharmacies, etc – like any major city.
Can’t comment on T1D specifically, but I’d imagine it can be handled normally. I’d perhaps just send them with a pre-translated laminated card or some such that gave specifics on their needs, just in case if emergency.
Carbohydrates are labelled in grams on pretty much anything I can think of, and it’ll be written as: ç‚水化物. This is probably the best thing to look out for, as sugar itself isn’t always in the nutritional information.
A lot of food will be served with a bowl of plain white rice as standard, so that might just have to be a thing to give to another student or leave.
E: Also, a lot of sugar free drinks are labelled as ã‚«ãƒãƒªãƒ¼ã‚¼ãƒ (calorie zero). Things like vending machine coffee or the “healthy” Mets Cola can be deceptively sugary.
I did it just fine. Obviously it’s harder to guesstimate food intake when eating new cuisine. Bring glucose tabs, take extra meds with you and enjoy. Also remember you’ll be walking heaps more than you normally do, so take all that exercise into account. Hope your kiddo enjoys it!
I’m Type 1 too. Basically I have no issues during airport security check with all the insulin and needles (they just don’t care, only questioned me once).
For carb counts, maybe I’m not a good model, but I walked a lot at Japan, therefore I believe the calorie from Raman, Sushi, …etc can be burned off. So I didn’t calculate them precisely, and my blood sugar are still stable most of the time.
Google translate has a camera feature that automatically translates the text your phone is hovering over to English. We’ve been using it in Japan for the last three weeks and it works fairly well. You can even use it offline if you download ‘Japanese’ in the app beforehand.
There are absolutely risks, a 16 year old Australian school child with type 1 diabetes died on an overseas school trip. Coroner likely to find Melbourne teen’s death on an overseas school trip was preventable
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-16/lachlan-cook-death-vietnam-school-trip-coronial-inquest/101158538
It’s probably important to consider whether the adults travelling with your child have in dept knowledge of your child’s condition etc.
Insulin + needles are prescription based but can be picked up at most pharmacies in urban areas.
It is worth calling your travel insurance provider before your son goes go to get a list of doctors and hospitals they have reimbursement relationships with in advance. This can often make for a smoother experience, because the hospitals and doctors can bill the insurance directly and your son/his trip supervisors won’t have to pay/be reimbursed if there’s any issues. Make sure the trip organizers and your son have access to the insurance help line. You can still go to any hospital in an emergency, but this is just something I’ve found saves a lot of headaches afterwards.
Most Japanese snacks and a lot of the chain restaurants (ichiran, coco ichibanya, gram, etc) will have their nutritional information posted online. I would suggest researching a lot of the common ones and both of you making a cheat sheet for insulin/carb calculations. If the trip is structured enough that you know roughly where the kids are going to eat, you might be able to email ahead to get some of that info or check out their websites and make educated guesses.