LOS ANGELES -- The Texas woman who said airport security forced her to remove her nipple rings has won a change in Transportation Security Administration policy.

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Mandi Hamlin, 37, demanded an apology from the TSA and a change of policy for the Feb. 24 incident. On Friday, she got both, according to her Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred.

"TSA has reviewed the procedures themselves and agrees that they need to be changed," the statement said. "In the future, TSA will inform passengers that they have the option to resolve the alarm through a visual inspection of the article in lieu of removing the item in question."

The episode began when Hamlin said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas. A female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin's chest.

Hamlin said she told the woman that she was wearing nipple piercings. The female agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the body piercings, Hamlin claimed.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked if she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was removed, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped nipple piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

"Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her," said Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA's Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. Allred is a well-known Los Angeles lawyer who often represents high-profile claims.

Hamlin showed reporters at a Thursday news conference how she took off the second ring by applying pliers to the torso of a mannequin that had a peach-colored bra with the rings on it.

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Hamlin said. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

Allred had said Thursday she might consider legal action if the TSA does not apologize.

Hamlin was publicly humiliated and has "undergone an enormous amount of physical pain to have the nipple rings reinserted" because of scar tissue, Allred said.