CPAPtalk.com

Do you all take your machine out of your carry-on to get through security? I hate announcing my condition to everyone

I have never once taken it out. I don't think there is any stigma associated with sleep apnea. I really don't care who knows.

Needing privacy is not uncommon; you might ask for it at check-in.
No reason for inspection to be a cause for anyone to travel untreated.
Since undiagnosed/untreated OSA is so common, I welcome any opportunity
to discuss my therapy with strangers and try to help someone else.
I do not consider my condition a disability, but failing to treat it a scandal.
--But that's my personality.
Never saw myself an evangelist; but having been "saved", I want to share!
You do not have to!

I would love to get to the point where it doesn't bother me who knows about my condition. But even after 5 (?) years, I'm still self-conscious. Lame, I know!

Not really lame, just inconvenient, as long as you don't let it interfere with your health!
Everybody has some peculiarity. I embrace mine.

Resister wrote:Do you all take your machine out of your carry-on to get through security? I hate announcing my condition to everyone

Yes! They know exactly what it is. In theory you don't have to take it out but since I am hauling out the lap top, tablet and camera anyway, the cpap comes out too. It makes it easier to repack too. If any onlookers know what it is it is probably because they or their partner uses one too. As far as I am concerned it is no more embarrassing then having supports in my shoes.

My stats are as follows: in about 100 passes through security in the past two years packed in my rollaboard, I have been asked to remove the machine, i exactly twice. Athens, Greece and Missoula, MT.

As for privacy, I never noticed anyone's CPAP being carried on until I started doing so myself. Now I see CPAPs a lot when I travel, and I don't care about them, nor they me. YMMV. I'm skittish enough about being stuck somewhere without the CPAP that even when I'm just going to be in another state for a day I take a small travel-sized machine with me. Delays and cancellations happen all too often and the last thing I need when dealing with flight irregularities is a headache and thick-thinking from a bad night's sleep.

I have never had TSA look twice at the machine in the CPAP case. It passes through the scanner with no problem. If anything gets looked at it is usually the carry-on luggage that might have something that looks like an oversize container.

I was required to take it out one time at PDX when I didn't get the usual Pre-Check from TSA... That was a pain. I now put it in a plastic bag in the carry case and the mask in a zip close bag to keep their paws off it. As long as they can see it, the TSA is cool. They see many of them every day, no big deal to them. The time I had to take it out of its bag, the lady behind me was doing the same thing with hers and we had a short chat about it!

cherylann wrote:Aside from the possibility of my luggage getting lost, is there any reason not to wrap CPAP machine in a towel and put it is checked luggage? I will be traveling with a rolling computer bag with TWO computers in it plus my regular carry-on. I recently injured my right arm and still feeling a fair amount of pain. I just don't think I can manage three carry-ons.

Sorry to hear you were injured -- I wish you speedy healing!

If it were me, I would make the CPAP a carry-on priority, and put other things in my checked bags instead. It's way too important to lose or have broken by TSA (which has a tendency to search your checked bag and handle everything inside -- including your dainties).

As far as being worried what people think, I remember my daughter coming home from college at the end of the year. While she was gone, both my husband and I ended up diagnosed. She described being at the airport (this was years ago) and the TSA person saying "please remove cpap devices from your bags." She looked at her traveling companion and said "What's a cpap?" She soon knew what it was upon arrival at home.

Resister, I agree with you about announcing my condition to everyone within site. Most people with sleep apnea are overweight and there is definitely a stigma to it. We are getting enough grief when flying as it is having to ask for a seat belt extender, having people next to us give us dirty looks because we may extend into their space a little, and sometimes even being forced to buy an extra seat because we are "customers of size".

I'd LOVE to get to the point where it didn't matter to me! Just not there yet, and I guess it really is because of the stigma. This last time we traveled, we had to spend the night in the airport and I was freaked about what I'd need to do. We ended up spending an extra $160 to get one of those airport mini-rooms so I could use my Pap. As for security, as worried as I was, no one made me take it out of the bag this time....but TSA did take my knitting scissors.

I always carry mine as carry-on in its own manufacture's travel bag. I put each piece inside the bag in an appropriately sized zip-lock bag, gallon each for the machine, humidifier, and hose, quart for masks and other accessories. TSA seems to recognize the bag immediately and I've never been asked to take anything out, not even at PDX Occasionally, I'm asked to open the bag and once an agent put a wand shaped device into the opened bag and moved it around the equipment, but that was the most invasive treatment I've experienced. Most of time, it's a non-event, Pre-Check qualified or not. I've got a couple slightly different sized ResMed bags and they have always fit easily under the seat in front of me.