DOT physical card and CPAP compliance

its not a law, it is a regulation and regulations are created, not passed.

 

The 30 minute rest break.. Thank AAA for that as well.


You can thank AAA for all of this. If you stop and think about it, what does AAA stand for? AAA is against the trucking industry. The next time you get something in the mail from AAA. You will remember what they did to the trucking industry.

 

If your med card shows it at all u will have to keep compliant. It does take some time to get used to but my gf is so glad she was made to do the sleep test and get the cpap. Just take the time and get used to it.

 

Once I had 30 day's worth of readings from my machine I got a letter of compliance from my ENT/sleep disorder doctor, and recently went for my physical, and got a 1 year card (I had 90 days of usage which helped). Even then I will have to keep using it through the year, and then go for another consultation with the doctor again once my one year of treatment has passed. It's an ongoing thing once you get diagnosed and go through treatment. The thing I never like it that the Feds jumped on this sleep apnea bandwagon as if CPAP treatment was going to be the cure for all of the safety ills in this industry, yet ignored the fact that the 4wheelers were still the cause of a lot of wrecks, and has still done nothing about the pathetic excuse for training of new drivers.

 

Keep in mind, everything that the FMCSA does, is to get more money out of the truck driver. It's never been about people in the regular automobiles. In my state, they passed a law about giving trucks enough space instead of following too close or cutting them off. Of course, that law or DOT got too lazy enforcing it. You noticed the truck driver gets the blame for someone else's mishap. It's not going to be long until I let my CDL go. I'm sick and tired of the deregulation of the industry. If we all quit at once; who are they going to get to haul their freight. If everyone quits at once it's not an act of terrorism. If you strike, now that's a different story in their eyes. Although, I don't agree with it, but you know how that goes.

 

Not jus AAA, but also these greedy, scumbag PI law firms that constantly advertise "HURT IN A TRUCK WRECK?? CALL SUE EM & SCREWEM!!". Those vultures love the truck wrecks and they use them to pin the blame on us evil truckers even if the accident is the 4wheeler's fault.

 

I've been driving 34years without any accidents and now worried they are going to stick me on CPAP. How can one machine fix all drivers that have so called sleep apnea? There is no one fix for the majority of illnesses how the hell can this machine be the only thing that they deem the cure be for everyone? And what happens if you just can't wear the mask? You lose your job! How in the sam hill can they do this? It's insane to think the drivers are never going to get drossy again just because they are forced to have this machine blowing air up their nose. The cost of sleep tests and CPAP machines are hurting many drivers families but that doesn't seem to matter. Many OTR drivers forced to wear this CPAP are getting sick from bacteria because it's almost impossible for them to keep this thing properly cleaned. Just another unintended consequence from having law makers intrude into our lives. Maybe one day we can all tell this over regulated profession to go to hell. For now I think every driver needs to send his or her senator and representative a letter telling them to back off CPAP regulations. This is just a money making regulation getting them very rich.

 

Sorry, life isn't fair.

 

I been using a cpap over a year and i feel worse then ever, now i wake up tired exhausted and a severe headache takes me 2 hours to get going instead of 15 mins, the absolute worse thing in the world

 

It supposed to make you feel better. Do you know what your AHI/Events number is ? It should be less then 5 hopefully it 2 or 1 or even less like 0.8 or 0.3

You might also have trouble pushing the air out because the CPAP is pushing air in. You can breathe in but not out. That would make for a crappy sleep. Their is a setting on most cpap that lower the pressure when someone breathing out.
Their is also a CPAP machine called Bipap it's the next level up cpap. Bipap have 2 pressure settings one to breath in then it drops the pressure to breath out.

You need to know you AHI to see how good you cpap is helping or not. Then you look to see if you cpap need more pressure. You can turn up the cpap pressure if you airway is no open. You turn up the pressure and your AHI numbers can go down. If you getting to much air pressure you lower the pressure and you AHI can also go down.

Their is a program called sleepyhead that can Read the SD card and you can see your own sleep data. You can see yourself sleeping and look to see were the problem is vs just turning up the pressure yourself.

Do have the humidifier going, that can help. Having the heated air hose helps I think in truck because temp change in the truck can get cold in winter.