Really? Well that's reassuring! So I might not even set the darn thing off! I thought it was inevitable. My mother has a metal hip, and she sets it off every single time. I will definitely try to get in the WTMD line, and maybe I'll get lucky and this will all be a moot point!
I thought that too and my doctor told me that it could happen and even gave me a letter about it, which I never traveled with because what he wrote was entirely too technical to just hand someone. Then when I went through laguardia with my grandmother, who has a metal hip that did set off the WTMD while I had no problem, I decided to ask. The doctor said his only guess was the depth of the metal in the body. So, as I understood him, a metal hip implant is closer to the surface and less inclosed in tissue compared to where screws and other metal implants connected to the spine generally are. It could certainly be wrong, but still haven't set off any WTMD in the 7 years since I had the surgery!