That's a good tip. I do this too. I even went so far as to find wire-free sports bras to wear when traveling. The only thing they see on their monitor is the metal in my knee area, so it is very clear to them that it is the artificial knee joint.
Out of curiosity, which "monitor" do you mean? The metal detector only identifies that there IS metal, not where (or at best, it may distinguish between lower body and upper body) and the MMW scanner shouldn't (AFAIK) be alerting on an implanted knee joint.
But again, the bottom line is that once you have this type of surgery, you will always have to leave a generous amount of time because you will pretty much always be flagged, and it will always delay you somewhat, depending how quickly an agent can be summoned for the secondary screening. Like RadioGirl, I'd rather deal with the nuisance of the checkpoint than the knee pain.
Ah, you're thinking of celle in that last sentence.
I live in a different c
untry, where summoning an agent for the patdown takes less than 90 seconds and the patdown itself takes less than a minute. I can (and do) arrive at the airport 45 minutes before departure and still have a coffee in the Qantas lounge. (My personal best is 30 minutes prior to departure = 10 minutes prior to boarding but I had to skip the coffee.) And my international travel takes me to Asia and Europe where airport security is also sane. Certainly under those conditions, the nuisance of the checkpoint is insignificant compared to the previous pain. If I lived in the US, I would probably give up traveling rather than face TSA.
In fact, my
first thought when my GP said I might need a hip replacement was
not "I'm 20 yrs too young for that". It was not worry about the hospital bills or the disruption to my work. It wasn't even concern about the risk and pain of the operation. My very first thought was "Well,
that's going to complicate airport security for the rest of my life!
"