www.incontinentsupport.org

I travel often. For short trips, I do carry-on only. For longer trips when I have to check a larger suitcase, I carry on a backpack with spare diapers, supplies, and a set of clothes in case of a delay.

Also, I have TSA Precheck to make things easier in the airport.

My wife and I travel several times a year both in the US and internationally. Going through security in the US has rarely been an issue. A few times with the scanners they would notice my diapers I was wearing, even if it was dry. I just got a pat down and everything was fine. I think once I needed to explained I was wearing a diaper for incontinence during the pat down. Coming out of Europe and Israel I have never had any problems. I always have extra diapers in my carry on and take quite a few with me in the check luggage. However, I have found where I can buy the Seni Super Plus diapers in Kiev, Ukraine where we go regularly. That has helped quite a bit, so I only carry enough diapers in my checked luggage for 3-4 days. I think going through the scanners with a dry diaper does cut down with problems. the TSA Pre-check also helps since you only go through the metal detector and not the full body scanners.
Gary

I travel for work at least once a week. Mostly domestic, but I do about 6-8 international trips a year to Asia & Europe. I manage to pack everything into one carry-on roller bag except for my laptops (second bag) and my C-Pap (medical gets an exemption). So I carry all three on the plane with me- nothing gets checked. I never lose anything that way, and nothing gets broken or abused by those gorillas on the tarmac. That also means I do not fly those regional carriers where your bags are checked plane-side.

For airport security assistance, I use PreCheck, Clear and Mobile Passport. I also have club memberships that get me into the airline lounges. The snacks are better and so is the WiFi.

I have metal implants, so I cannot use the magnetometer, but I have to use the nude-o-meter. They work much better any where else in the world, but I always have issues here in the US. Mostly because of TSA's poor scheduling of people. I often have to wait for 10-15 minutes to get somebody who can look at the screen while I get scanned. It's all part of the administrations "security drama".

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- Tom

Occasionally, I travel with my husband on business trips, and obviously on vacations. Dealing with incontinance while away from home is increasingly stressful for me as years go by and my leakage issues increase. Over the years, I have managed to wear underwear through security, then change into appropriate protection past security while traveling, depending on the flight time. Over the last few years however, I have had to wear a pull-up as a minimum through security as my leakage is much worse now. I pack only a few pull-ups or disposable diapers and generally buy the drug store brands once we get to our destination with only a few insistence of baggage checks and pat-downs. Lately, at the destination, I flood at night and depending on my sleep position at the time, I can and have leaked on the hotel bed. I’ve tried all of the tricks like poise and other pads inside the drug store brand diaper, but never 100% confident of a dry bed. Consequently, I don’t sleep well at night while traveling and change at least once at night. At home, I use cloth at night and quality diapers like Abena or 24/7 during the day when I’m leaking a lot. When traveling, cloth isn’t an option, nor is the availability of quality diapers. The result is a shying away from some travel lately as I simply don’t want the hassle. When I feel like that, I realize that my physical issues are now controlling my life!!! Over the years, I have been able to live a near normal life style as I’ve learned to deal with my wetting with relative ease. Now, I’m simply frustrated with the thought of travel and the extradinary issues I’m forced to deal with.

Hi Ellyn:
At night I use a thick cotton cloth (actually a Walmart "Flour Sack Cloth", 5 for $5) folded into six layers and placed inside a pull-up. I also add a Gary PUL pant over everything and this has worked out great for me. I guess I'm not ready to go the full cloth diaper route at night but the times a month when I have had a significant wetting the mini "cloth diaper" in my pull-up has worked perfectly to absorb everything with no leaks whatsoever. When I do wake up at night I can just pull my protection down and use the toilet normally.
In fact this has worked so well for me that I've used it as a type of disposable cloth diaper on trips. Each cloth costs only $1 so just throwing them away when you wet them is somewhat affordable and certainly less than some disposable diapers. In addition if you are staying a few nights you can easily rinse them out in the sink and just hang to dry for reuse. Obviously this method may not work for everybody but it is working great for me and might be something you may want to try.

The sack cloth idea is interesting and creative... then I suppose all you need to bring is whatever you need during flights going and coming. I have been using cloth at night at home lately and really have come to value it. No leaks and very comfortable.

Even though my issues are primarily at night, I’ve worn my night time protection while on trips for some time - I get extra anxious while traveling and it seems to affect my whole GI system and make everything unpredictable. It gives me stress relief to know that I don’t have to be constantly looking for bathrooms or worried about the seatbelt light turning on while on a flight.

The solution I have landed on is to pack a separate suitcase that only has incontinence supplies in it. Every airline I have used allows customers to check medical supplies for free as long as the given suitcase or parcel only has medical supplies in it. So I just fill in a suitcase with more than enough for what I will need for the entire trip and check it through. Every airline I have used allows customers to check medical supplies for free as long as the given suitcase or parcel only has medical supplies in it. So I just fill a suitcase with more than enough for what I will need for the entire trip and check it through. Sometimes gate agents will remind me that they will check the bag to verify that it is medical supplies, but it doesn’t bother me as I am not present for that investigation.

I realize that this may not work for some people, those who use more than one or two diapers per day for example, or those who do not check luggage ever. But for me, on most trips, this is a good solution. Guarantees that I will have what I need instead of being dependent on what I can find any given locale.

Earlier this year, my wife and I went to Australia (from the UK) for 2 weeks. One of my checked bags was nothing but diapers: a 15-pack of BetterDry and a 21-pack of Tena Ultima, some loose Tenas, 2 pull up cloth diapers, plastic pants and bed pads. My carry-on had a few more diapers mixed in. As much of a pain it was to drag a suitcase full of diapers around every time we went to a new city, I'm glad I did. I checked out the chemists everywhere I went, but never saw anything good enough on the shelves.

In addition, going through security was never an issue. I always made sure I changed just before getting in line and wore something thin & discreet. I learned several years ago not to put a bottle of powder in my carry on, as it can trigger a bag search. Now, I just buy a travel size on the other side of security.

I have read recently that Boeing and Airbus are launching passenger aircraft that can travel from the UK and Europe to cities in Asia and Australia, in one hop, without refueling. Aside from the WOW factor, this should increase the anxiety incontinent passengers endure. And airplane passenger toilets are already so small as to seem to be afterthoughts to designers and engineers.

I'm not a heavy wetter during the day (but I am during the night) and wear protection all the time. Under normal conditions I change my protection before going through the body check. Once in a while I'm late and have no time to change. I don't care at that moment and I must admit that the security people are very professional. This happened in the EU and North America. With those body scans you can see clearly a wet spot in the pants, but a simple pad down by the security officer was all what happened. When they open your bags and see the diapers they really don't care. I have to admit, I have had only positive experiences at airports.
When packing incontinence material I put most of it in my suitcase. I do make sure that I have enough for 2-3 nights (plus protection for multiple days) in my carry on luggage. I have always a large plastic pant and four diaper pins in the carry on luggage. Just in case my luggage gets lost and can't buy replacement diapers, have no disposables available and must find a solution with a towel for the night. Again, I never needed to use it, but it is all about feeling secure that you have a fall back scenario.
Again, traveling through the airport with incontinence protection is no issue. Remember that 3-5 percent of the people have incontinence issues. That means there are hundreds of people with incontinence issues going through security ... every day!
Cheers, Bob

My wife and I went through Heathrow and Linate this week for a short fun vacation to Milan, Italy. Heathrow is huge, and it's all about high volume. They don't have time to care about your diapers, really. European airports are as circumspect as the US ones. Don't worry about it.

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- Tom