Flying with biologics

Elmbow

Hi. I'm flying somewhere on Thursday next week. My etanercept day is usually Friday and I never got round to calling Healthcare at Home to ask for the letter I need to take it through the airport and not have it scanned etc.
I expect I've left it a bit late now. So, would it be okay to just take it on the Thursday morning before I fly? Or any experiences of taking medicine on a flight without a letter?

jennand

I’m on etanercept, during the nurses visit she told me not to inject it any less than 7 days apart. It’s ok to go over, or even miss a week or 2 ( I have in fact just recently missed 3 weeks due to an infection). I had a holiday booked in August and didn’t want to take the syringe with me so for a few weeks I injected every 8 days. It worked out that I had 1 injection on the day I travelled, went away for a week, then had 1 the day I came back. After that I went back to weekly.

Elmbow

Thanks, that's good to know. I'm only going away for a long weekend so maybe I'll just wait until I get back. Now I'm no longer getting any side effects, no reason to keep injection day at the weekend.

BettyMac

Hi Elmbow

I recently had to fly with my injectable meds.

If you can phone H@H tomorrow and ask to speak to the pharmacist, they may be able to help you in time.
They emailed me a letter to show airport security.
It was a bit of a faff to print it off because you have to open the email attachment with a secure programme thingy - but it worked.

They followed it up a week or so later with a snail-mail copy of the "To Whom It May Concern" letter.

I was only taking a domestic flight on that occasion but airport security seemed familiar with people needing to take injectable meds in their hand luggage.
Interestingly - the letter says that our meds should NOT go through the X-ray scanner. That was news to me!
If you explain to the security person on the way in - and hand over your meds with the letter - they'll check it and give you it back at the other end.
Simples 🙂

Hope you have a good flight.

Elmbow

Thanks BettyMac - worth trying!