Heathrow and the Pump interrogations and scaners and xray machines!!!!!

[Seacrow]

"you shouldn’t have your medication in your check in bag anyway"

You are REQUIRED to keep ALL your insulin in your check in baggage. Letting it travel in the hold can denature it and render it useless.

My problem comes when they decide if it's a liquid, and needs to be in the transparent bag without packaging, or a medicine, and needs to be in its original packaging.

I'm not trying to be pedantic, or stir flames, it's just, it is an important point. I'd hate to arrive in a foreign country and suddenly have to try to find life-saving medicine.

 

[gemma_T1]

This is a lack of information by the airport and the government, my father is in a wheelchair so i have to take him through the security and the amount of times they have got him to stand up and talk his shoes off gets me angry. Then i tell them about my insulin pump and show them everything. There are consultants letters, doctors letters and a letter off medtronic telling them why i have a spare pump. They asked me to go into a side room i refused, i said ring the consultant up as we are in Newcastle they refused. Then the person in charge came to me but while i was waiting i phoned my consultant up and as he was just about to take me away i put my phone on speaker and my consultant went crazy with them. He told them they had seen the letter and could see the pump was attached to my body. they tried to say they did not know what was in the bottles which got a reply of can you not read. That was it on my way and when we got back to the airport i was stopped oh no not again but to my shock one of the airports managers said they were very sorry about what happened and gave me a £25 voucher, i told them i did not want the voucher just for them to get more information to staff about diabetes. As we were leaving the airport one of my friends heard a mother telling the check in staff that her son had diabetes so i gave him the voucher. When i saw my consultant next he said the airport had been in touch and all the staff had got a pack each on diabetes and pumps.

I so hope that this is the case. I’ll be flying from there in a couple of months and they have always been a total nightmare!

Thank you so much for getting your consultant involved. If it’s the same one I had at Newcastle General Hospital years ago when I lived in the city he is brilliant!!! I’ve never had a better consultant, if I’d always had him I wouldn’t have the complication I have now.

I will let you know in September how it went for me.

Best wishes

 

[gemma_T1]

This, is what they refer to and all travelers can be random by exposed to this swab test routine from time to time. Really harmless really, fast and easy. The security officer typically swabs the little test clothing piece across your hands, in your bag, across your toiletry items if you carry on such and also your diabetic equipment, laptop and what other interesting pieces he might find in your carry on...
https://yourmileagemayvary.net/2018...d-getting-a-false-positive-on-tsa-swab-tests/
And then puts that swab clothing back into the analyzer machine, which only takes a few seconds to report back.

Btw a question to the pump users: Is it very troublesome to disconnect the pump to lay it loose on the separate luggage scanner belt, just for that 3-5 minute duration for you to pass through the body scan? (I stopped trying a pump like 12-15 years ago as back then it was messy with the feeder tubes, batteries, etc and I am travelling like 3-5 times a week with airplanes. But would have expected the technology to have developed to the better since then?)

I am myself working in the medical field where we employ permanent implanted devices to our patients for pacemaking/neurostimulation and they all carry with them a medical ID card identifying the device and their need. We do not get any stories from them this causing any trouble in the airports, so surprised why the moveable and external device as an insulin pump really is causing such problems. The airport staff worldwide is seeing it all, all the time and on a daily basis, so its not like an insulin pump is something new to them.

Medtronic(my pump manufacturer) says that under no circumstances should it be put under the X ray scanner or through the total body scanner.
If it breaks/malfunctions( which it has after being forced to do the body scanner) this is at your cost- and for me they cost a lot!!!

If you have documentation from the manufacturer which states not to go through the X Ray or the body scanner and you duly consent to the body pat down and swabbing., surely that is enough?

It seems not... they have never read a single document I have presented as evidence for the pump in 14 years of use.

Believe me if we had been told by Medtronic ( I speak only of what I know.. I have no idea what other pump manufactures advise and maybe therein lies the problem if each pump manufacturer has different rules) to go through X Ray and body scanners without a problem we would easily comply

 

[gemma_T1]

don't think anyone has any issue with getting their pump swabbed, the problem is if they try to make your pump go through either the xray machine or the full body scanner. The manufacturer of my pump says these machines may cause the pump to malfunction, and possibly give you far too much insulin There have been stories of security refusing to swab and trying to force people with pumps through body scanners, or people taking the pump off and security putting through xray nachine.

Personally this has never happened to me but from the UK I usually fly through Edinburgh where security guarantee never to ask an insulin punp user to remove pump I have been stopped in Budapest and Iraklion where they did a manual search and swab.

This is exactly the point... we do get anxious when our pump manufacturers state not to put the pump through the X Ray or body scanners ... as you rightly said no-one has a problem with swabbing the pump.

It’s very stressful knowing that security could yank it off your body (Bristol airport) or make you go through the scanner.

It makes me hate travelling to and from the UK. So far this has never happened to me in the rest of Europe.

 

[sprokowski]

I possibly over reacted too. So I’m sorry. I’m not saying people are lying about being diabetic but I do know that type 2 is very common in certain communities so it’s almost unfortunately accepted by them that it’s going to happen and they almost compare what special treatment they’ve received with each other. this is very sad. I have a friend who told me he was pre diabetic and was going to ‘join the club’ ‍ It didn’t go down well with me with your hand luggage, if anyone tries to take it off you tell them you have medication in there and usually (not always, I can’t talk for everyone) they will let you keep it because it’s less hassle for them. I have also removed the tag that they have put on at the gate so the staff on the ground don’t know my bag has been picked to be put in the hold. But I’m not condoning that... I think I’m quite ballsy sometimes because I’m from that environment so I know what I should expect and what I can get away with. Another thing with hand luggage is to put a carrier bag in your bag and if they insist you give it to them, open your bag up in the middle of everyone and take everything you need including valuables laptops medication and documents. If they haven’t listened to you or taken the fact you have important supplies in your bag seriously there’s not a massive amount you can do, you’ve got to look after yourself. You are number one.