Traveling with insulin

I have a response from Abbott. Sounds like I have been doing the right thing in flagging with the airport staff as Libre sensors cannot pass through an X- Ray full body scanner.

"The Sensor can be exposed to common electrostatic (ESD) and electromagnetic interference (EMI), including airport metal detectors. You can keep your Ssensor on while going through these. However, the Sensor should not be exposed to some airport full-body scanners (i.e. x-ray and millimeter radio-wave). To avoid removing your Sensor, you should request another type of screening to be performed by the Security Officer. If in doubt about the type of security scan you are passing through, notify the Security Officer prior to proceeding through the airport security checkpoint."
 
Ivostas66 said:
I have a response from Abbott. Sounds like I have been doing the right thing in flagging with the airport staff as Libre sensors cannot pass through an X- Ray full body scanner.

"The Sensor can be exposed to common electrostatic (ESD) and electromagnetic interference (EMI), including airport metal detectors. You can keep your Ssensor on while going through these. However, the Sensor should not be exposed to some airport full-body scanners (i.e. x-ray and millimeter radio-wave). To avoid removing your Sensor, you should request another type of screening to be performed by the Security Officer. If in doubt about the type of security scan you are passing through, notify the Security Officer prior to proceeding through the airport security checkpoint."
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Hmm. I think they are just covering themselves because the sensors haven’t officially been tested with full body scanners. Personally I’ve been through FBS many times with Libre and had no effects whatsoever. Others will report differently, but who’s to say whether a malfunction was caused by FBS or something else?

I want to be through security as quickly as possible and to me that involves not drawing anyone’s attention to anything! So far it has worked, except for one over-officious official at Birmingham who insisted I had the “wrong” sort of plastic bag and made me transfer everything to one of theirs.
 
I agree with @JJay as highlighted by the use “some” from Abbott.
I am more cautious with my pump as it can do more harm if it goes wrong. But, if my pump manufacturer told me it was fine, I would be happyto take Libre through the body scanner.

I have also heard a few times that airport scanners do not have a fixed, standard X-ray strength. Which probably explains why Abbot says “some”.
 
helli said:
I agree with @JJay as highlighted by the use “some” from Abbott.
I am more cautious with my pump as it can do more harm if it goes wrong. But, if my pump manufacturer told me it was fine, I would be happyto take Libre through the body scanner.

I have also heard a few times that airport scanners do not have a fixed, standard X-ray strength. Which probably explains why Abbot says “some”.
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Well Insulet say scanners "should" be fine, so if you're using an omnipod...
 
rebrascora said:
I was only there for 4 days, so my in use pen was more than enough to cover it and spare was in it's plastic and foil blister, and I have been told here on the forum the cartridges are plastic anyway, so if it had hit the deck, I very much doubt it would have broken. You can't foresee every possible disaster. The general advice is to take twice as much as you expect to need and I did that.

I had an interesting thought on the plane on the way home. We were sitting in the emergency exit seats over the wings and you are not allowed your hand bag under the seat, it has to be in the overhead locker and after they went through the spiel about helping others in an emergency with us and not taking any bags with us in an emergency evacuation, it occurred to me that I wouldn't last very long if we did crash because I wouldn't have my insulin with me. Odd that the thought of being left without my insulin was more frightening than crashing in a plane!! I got up and stuffed my insulin pen case down the front of my bra as soon as I was allowed to get up and kept it there for the remainder of the journey! 🙄
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My experience was from the days when I used Humalog and Lantus and the cartridges were glass ones. It actually hadn’t occurred to me that my current Novorapid and Levemir ones were less breakable plastic! But my natural “just in case” instincts mean I will probably still take way more of everything than I need. That goes for clothes too, much to my OH’s exasperation!
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I think the disposable pens are plastic but the cartridges for reusable pens are (I think) glass.
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I thought they were glass too until someone corrected me. To be honest I took that correction at face value an haven't checked by hitting an empty with a hammer but if you tap an empty against a solid surface it sounds more like plastic than glass, so I think the Penfill cartridges for Novo Nordisk insulins are likely plastic. Don't know about other brands.
 
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