COPY from www.MelissaGPfight.com
Tips On Surviving A Car Trip With Gastroparesis
Posted March 30, 2014 by melissagpfight
Each person with gastroparesis can have different symptoms, will
react to medications differently and not all natural remedies will
work. For these “Tips For Traveling With Gastroparesis” will be based
on what I do. Keep in
mind that I do not have a feeding tube and not too many other medical
issues that I need to worry about when traveling. This list is simply
to give you an idea of what a person with a chronic illness must take
into consideration when planning a trip.
Around Town Outing
No matter where I go, I always have a small bag in my car with the following items:
- LifeSaver Mints – helps with nausea (click HERE for other nausea remedies).
- Protein Bars – the Balance Bar brand seems to be best on my
stomach. I eat 1 when I start to feel dizzy (lack of protein is my
trigger).
- Single serve size of peanut butter – again for the protein to ward off the dizzy spell.
- Vomit Bag – just in case
- Always know where you are going, so that you know where restrooms are along your route.
- A change of clothes – just in case
- A liquid item – for me I make a cup of hot mint tea and put it in my travel cup. Also have bottled water.
- Medications – nausea, headache, allergies and whatever else I can think of.
- End of a roll of toilet paper or tissues – those of you that have gone into a restroom with no TP will understand!
- Know which restaurants have ‘food’ that you can consume, in case
your with friends or family that want to stop for a bite to eat. Most
restaurants have their menu online, so it is easy for us to glance at
and know if we can eat there or not. Keep a list with you or in your
phone.
Planning A Trip
Even if it is going to be a short trip (or overnight) try to give
yourself plenty of time to plan, prepare (mentally and physically) and
pack. The short trips can be just as hard on us as a long trip. If
by chance there is a time change involved, that can even be harder on
our system to adjust.
- Keep in mind your health schedule when you plan a trip. Is there a
certain season that you feel better in? A certain time of the month or
week that you typically feel better?
- If your trip is for fun, then consider the weather of where you want
to travel. Will it be cold during the time you want to go? If so, how
does your body do in the colder weather? For a lot of us with
Gastroparesis either very hot or very cold can easily put us into a
flare mode.
Now that you have found
where you want to go and
when you want to go, now it is time to look
how you will get there.
- Car – typically the best
option for most of us, depending on how far you are going. This method
allows you to stop when you want along the way (rest stops for example)
and you can take the travel at the pace that is best for you. Another
plus is that you avoid all the TSA hassle (especially if you are feeding
tube dependent, take insulin, have a pacer for your stomach or other
medical devise.
- Train/Bus/Boat – I have not traveled by these means, but can only assume that there would be pros and cons to these as well.
- Air – My least favorite method of travel mostly due to the
heightened nausea I experience and dizziness. I need to plan
accordingly and made sure I have a day or two to recover when I arrive,
if this is how I travel.
You have picked
how you want to arrive to your destination
and hopefully have allowed enough time for your body to recover when you
get there. Now it’s time for our suggestions on what to pack and other
tips based on travel by car and plane.
Travel By Car
- Everything in the “Around Town Outing” goes into our magic bag of goodies.
- Recently I have found that SeaBands or Pressure Bands work okay if
applied 20 min before you get into the car and during the entire trip.
It’s not a cure or 100% fix, but in combination with other nausea
remedies, they do seem to help. They can be found online and most
local drug stores will carry them.
- My other favorite is Nauzene; which is an all natural nausea
over-the-counter pill. This has high amounts of Ginger, so it would not
be recommended if you have GERD (acid reflux). As soon as my tummy has
time to digest the pill, it is working for me. I never thought I would
find this small miracle. Every single other OTC or Rx nausea
medication has not worked or had too many side effects. My suggestion
is to keep trying until you find something that works for you.
- Music! It is a great distraction, just lay your head back, close
your eyes and focus on the music. This helps when the pain or nausea
wave hits. If you are playing the music on a phone or other devise,
make sure you have batteries or a charger.
- A pillow and/or blanket. I don’t know about you, but my body temp
really seems to go up and down quickly when I am in a car. Also these
are great to have on hand so that you can pull them into your stomach
when it is cramping or you are in pain. The light self-hug seems to
help me.
- I probably don’t have to tell you, but here it goes anyway: wear
shoes you can kick off and loose clothes. Heck if you are just headed
to a hotel, PJs are a good choice. My go-to is yoga pants and a loose
shirt.
- Heat is always my friend to help reduce pain and nausea, so don’t be
afraid to use those Icy Hot Packs (band of your choice) and put one on
your side pain or tummy area. When I can’t have my heat pad, this is
the next best thing. But be sure to pack it!
- Cooler filled with ice and anything that you are able to ‘eat’ or
drink. Take small amount of anything that you typically snack on
during the day. This will give you a wide selection to choose from and
you can pick what you think will be best for your system that day.
NOTE: after being Dx with GP and needed to travel by car, I thought it
was best to not eat. Eating always made me feel worse, so I thought not
eating was my answer. Turns out that my theory was not very good.
With picking the right food choice, making sure you eat a little less
than ‘normal’, really helped me keep the dizzy spells away, headaches
and I actually felt better that next day. The choice is yours!
- Since you don’t have to deal with weight limits, luggage size or any
of that stuff, this is when I like to pack a few extra amount of
clothing. Anything that I typically can wear in public on a bloated day
gets packed as well as maybe 1 or 2 of those favorite pieces I have,
which can only be worn on a non-bloated day. For the ladies: safety
pins are a great option if you choose to purchase a skirt that fits the
bloated day, so you can ‘keep it on’ when that belly goes down! Empire
waist dresses seem to be a perfect option too.
- As mentioned before, be sure to know where you are headed to so that
you can find some places that you would be able to tolerate food at.
- Even if you are in a hurry and just want to get there since you may
not be feeling very good, I find it is better for me to get out at a
rest stop or two. If you don’t want to walk around (or need the
bathroom), then just open the door or window. The fresh air (if the
temp is not too hot or cold out) does our body good.
Picking A Hotel
You may think a room is a room and you just want to book the least
expensive option. However, think about what you NEED and how long you
will be there. Here are some suggestions:
- A mini fridge is a wonderful thing! You can try to keep your cooler
filled with ice all the time, but that is a pain and you could easily
spoil the food in there and none of us want to deal with that, plus
gastroparesis. When I was doing smoothies for my main nutrition, a
fridge was a must needed item. Now it is a place to house the items
that my diet requires and gives me the ability to eat when I need.
- A microwave is a good thing to have as well. Besides to heat the
food you have or make tea, you can heat up your own rice packs if you
don’t have a heating pad. Check out all the ideas that are on Pinterest
to make your own heat pad. Add this to your list to pack too.
- A coffee pot can be used for more than coffee. I run just water
through it so that I can have my mint or ginger tea, cup of noodle soup
or hot cocoa. With that said, I pack a mug when I travel too. Those
hotel cups are almost worthless.
- Room Service Please – on those days that I am not able to leave the
room, having room service (some menus can be found on the hotel’s web
site) is a luxury to me. And I was not talking about not leaving the
room because I am on a honeymoon!!
- Free Breakfast – if you can tolerate gluten, then most of these
continental breakfasts don’t add that much cost to the room verses how
much your family would pay if they ate out. You can even find some that
offer muffins, waffles and pancakes (in moderation, can be okay with GP
— this is always different for each person).
If you are driving and have the space in the car, you could always
bring along: blender, microwave, personal size fridge and a box of dry
food that you can tolerate. We usually get rooms that have a small
kitchenette in them (depending on our length of stay), so that I will be
able to have some food with the family. It also saves a lot of money
to not got out. Yet the down side is, if you didn’t bring a maid or
cook, you may not want to spend the energy doing this … it is a vacation
after all.
We hope you walked away with a few idea and keep these main points
in mind: plan around your expected health flares, take anything that
you would use in a given day/week, do your homework to look for places
you can eat at along your route, map out potential bathrooms, have all
the conveniences you depend on at home in your hotel and be sure to stop
along the way for fresh air.
Here are a couple great resources as well:
