Long haul flight uk to Vancouver

[Elsie77]

I fly out to Vancouver at 2.00 pm so I can take my usual two doses of Gabapentin on the flight, I will land at about 4.00 pm Canadian time. Any suggestions to how I can manage the time change would be very welcome. The thought of jet lag combined with out of control RLS is frightening. I tried to discuss my concerns with my GP on the online portal but it was closed midway in my submission.

[phantom388]

I recently did uk to Orlando and kept my Prami UK dose times the same for the flight, but once in the USA I slipped them by a couple of hours each day and it seemed to work fine, and did the same in reverse when we came back. My biggest concern was the flight so I made sure those times were spot on, and thankfully it was a good trip. Hope it goes well - I also took some ibuprofen as a small backup and kept off the RLS triggers like coffee and sweet stuff, stuck to a vegetarian meal and got up and did the “aisle” walk round the plane a couple of times with some tippy toe exercises.

[McNair]

I’m not sure if it will be helpful but I have recently returned from a trip to New Zealand from the UK and had similar worries regarding my Pregabalin. I usually take 200mgabout 9.30pm. New Zealand were 13 hours ahead so I took it slightly earlier in the days running up up the flight (going 22 hours between doses instead of 24). We had 30 hours of travel so I then set the timer on my phone for 22 hours and took the next. By the time we reached NZ it was due about 6.30pm so it only took a couple of days to be back on schedule. On my return I reversed it and took it later (about every 26.5 hours in the two days up to the flight and during the flight). I can normally get away with taking it up to about 3 hours later, but my rls tends to kick in, in the early hours of the morning. Again I used the timer on my phone to scheduled it. This time I did get terrible rls on last portion of the flight home but I don’t think it had anything to do with the adjustments to the medication.

I did query it with the Pharmacist at my GP practice beforehand who couldn’t come up with an alternative but did agree with the gradual changing of the timing of the dose and thought it wouldn’t have any adverse effects on me.

[Elsie77 in reply to McNair]

Thanks

[Munroist]

RLS Symptoms normally link in with your circadian rhythm with symptoms worse at night and I’d expect most people’s medications would do the same. When you change time zone apparently (according to sleep expert Dr. Matthew Walker) your circadian rhythms change by an hour a day until they have caught up so it would seem sensible to do the same with the medications. E.g. if you went from UK to East Coast USA which is 5 hours behind then you would need to delay your meds by an extra hour each day relative to uk time. Of course that is made more difficult as you would be in a new time zone so after arriving your first dose should be 4 hours early according to local time, then 3 hours early the next day then 2 and so on until you reach your normal time. I have to say I haven’t actually tried this but it does seem to align with what other people are saying, apart from the fact that most people seem to adjust by a couple of hours a day.

[Elsie77]

Thanks for that I’ll have to work it all out.