First flight since my knee replacement and I'm dreading security. Does the metal actually set the detector off every time?

My daughter has finally talked me into flying out to see the new baby, which means my first airport since my knee was done. I know that sounds like a small thing to be fretting about at my age but here we are.

What I actually want to know from women who've done it: does the knee set the walk-through detector off EVERY time, or is it hit and miss? Do I have to say something before I walk through, or do I wait until it beeps and then explain? My surgeon's office gave me a little wallet card years ago with the implant details on it and I have carried it in my purse ever since without ever using it once. Is that card any use at all or was it just something they hand out?

And the part I'm honestly embarrassed to ask about. If it does go off, what happens next. Do they pull you aside somewhere? I don't love the idea of being patted down in front of a queue of people while my daughter waits with the stroller.

Mine goes off basically every time on the walk-through arches, and about half the time on the newer body scanners, where it comes up as a bright square on the screen exactly where my knee is. So plan for it to happen rather than hoping it won't.

What I've learned over four or five trips now: say it before you go through, not after. I just say "I have a knee replacement" as I step up, and the officer nods and it becomes a routine thing rather than a surprise. Nobody has ever taken me anywhere. It's a wand over the leg, sometimes a hand check around the knee, and I'm walking again in under two minutes. Twice they didn't even do that because the scanner picture made it obvious.

The card has never once been asked for. I still carry it, because it weighs nothing, but I don't hold it out any more. Holding it out actually confused a young officer once and made the whole thing take longer.

Same experience, and I'll add the thing that made a bigger difference than the security bit: give yourself an absurd amount of time. Not because security is slow, but because airports are long. The walk from check-in to the far gate was more of a test for my knee than anything the officers did.

I asked for the wheelchair or cart assistance on the way back and felt like a fraud right up until I saw how far gate 47 was.

Not flown yet with mine but I went through the courthouse detectors in January and got the beep and a wand and a very bored deputy. So it's not just airports. Worth knowing before it happens somewhere you weren't expecting it.

joanb1957 said:

Is that card any use at all or was it just something they hand out?

Joan, everything Carol describes matches both my own trips and what the site's long-term care guide says: a metal implant can trigger walk-through detectors and can show up on full-body scanners, you don't need a card or a doctor's letter to fly, and telling the officer up front turns it into a thirty-second routine. The screening itself does nothing to the implant, which was the question I was too shy to ask my own surgeon before my first trip.

The cards seem to be one of those things that vary by hospital. Mine came with implant make and model on it, which has been useful exactly once, at a hospital appointment, and never at an airport.

The bit I'd actually plan for is the flight rather than the checkpoint. Long stretches in a cramped seat are hard on a leg that already swells, so I book an aisle, get up when it's sensible, and do ankle pumps in my seat like a woman with nothing better to do. Whether you need compression stockings, and anything to do with clot risk, depends on your own history and how far out from surgery you are, so ask your own doctor before the trip rather than a forum. Mine had an opinion and it was specific to me.

Do report back about the baby. That's the actual point of the trip.

Home, and reporting back as instructed. Detector went off on the way out, didn't go off at all on the way home, which I still can't explain. Both times I said it before I walked through and both times it was a wand and a smile. Nobody pulled me anywhere. The queue behind me did not care about me in the slightest, which I should have worked out on my own.

Bigger discovery was the walking. Sue is right, the airport is the marathon, not the checkpoint. Coming home I asked for a cart at the connection and did not feel like a fraud for one second.

Baby is perfect. Knee held up. Card stayed in the purse.