BootsnAll Travel Community

Hello!

A few months back I took a nasty spill on a snowboard up on Mt. Hood and cracked up my left clavicle something fierce. The end result was that it required surgery to fix, and now I have a metal plate screwed into the bones to keep everything aligned for healing.

So, questions to anyone who might have such things:

1. Are airport security checks nightmares?

and

2. If you happen to have a clavicle plate...does it make backpacking unbearable?

Thanks!

My friend has a stainless steel rod in her thigh, from the knee all the way up to the hip, quite a few screws as well. She was afraid there would be problems with airport security checks but as far as I know she hasn't had any problems..

Anyway, hope your clavicle heals well and nicely!

About backpacking with a clavicle plate, and if it's unbearable..maybe you can walk around the house for a day with a really full pack and see how it feels at the end?

Thanks for the responses. I suppose I will just need to get to airports early and hope for the best.

I wonder if there are any specially-made backpacks that take pressure off the clavicle?

I have a full hip replacement made of metal (titanium) and have had no troubles in air ports. I've travelled through Austrian, Swiss, Spanish,Slovakian, Mexican and US airports since I got it. The metal detectors are sensitive enough that they no longer give just a simple red or green light for you, they have a scale. I lit up slightly more than my travel companions, but not enough that the security people were concerned or even noticed me. On the other hand, the simpler more basic metal detectors in our court buildings do beep every time I go through. But they are cheaper and far less sophisticated than those in airports.

I have a titanium plate and 8 screws in my ankle. I was concerned that I might set off a security detector in the airport but I never have. When I travel I carry a doctors note saying that I have metal in my ankle and I also have a small paper copy of my xray...I have never needed these things but I still carry them with my travel papers.

I earned my metal this year, with a titanium dental implant. Quite a bit smaller than the other interesting situations people are managing, however I had the same question about metal detectors at airports for my dentist - which he shrugged off quickly.

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I can't comment on the metal but I have seen backpacks w/ wheels built in. Perhaps you could check out something like that or you might even want to make your own little wheelie thing and keep it nice and small in your backpack so if after a couple weeks you just can't handle it anymore you can at least have the option to wheel it around. I think that walking around the house for a day probably won't give you answer you need unless you feel immediate pain, which if that were the case you probably wouldn't even consider this. It might be the type of thing where after a week or two it just starts to ache and hurt. Having a light set of wheels would help a lot. maybe you can make something w/ skateboard wheels since they are sturdy and light.