Clearing the air on CPAP

Whether or not this invalidates the cert or not isn't really one of the issues we have, what is comes down to many doctors are not following the guidelines or even good medical practices, but more importantly ignoring the PCP/treating doctors orders on the treatment of a condition like sleep apnea. I've gone through this a few years back, my sleep apnea is treated with an established 2 year sleep study cycle since I've had it (2001) and I have had to go through hell trying to explain to the examining PA what that means and why a sleep study will not happen every year - the treating doctor who has years of experience with this says no annual study. BUT still I go through this crap every once in a while making it look better to just go work at McDonalds.

Two things can help us that the FMCSA can do ... one is to make the diagnosis of a PCP/treating doctor supersede the examining physician's demand of further testing or different testing for the same problems (in other words they have to accept the PCP/treating doc's decision), and the company's acceptance of any DOT physical from a qualified physician over the company's doc/program - of course within reason like 6 month old physical for a 2 year card.

 

Pre employment physical this morning. 90 day card. After getting my one year card in October of 2014. It's a con game. I was told that it was the guidelines of the clinic that were being followed and not necessarily the federal motor carriers guidelines.

Its ######## !

 

I've been on a c-pap machine since 2006. Got one at home and the newer one on the truck. I have gotten positive results from using it every nite for the past 9 years. Mine is set at the highest setting.

 

My guess is, and I've seen this happen, that if a particular clinic/doctor starts requiring things that are above and beyond the regulations that your company will quickly find another place to get DOT physicals completed. It's hard enough to find good driver, let alone keep them. So if the DOT physical is screen for more than is required by regulations it SHOULD result in finding a new solution.

 

There is way too much grey area for it to be legal that clinics can enforce something that is not regulation with no recourse for drivers.

 

Now, Y'all wanna hear something really crazy? I'm 52. Male. 5'9" and 165 pounds soaking wet in my winter clothes and boots. My BP usually runs 100/mid-60's, heart rate around 70, respers around 12 and temp around 100-101 (normal for me) at all my DOT physicals. I snack on vegies and some carb stuff constantly (love me some popcorn, just salt, not much but GOOD salt - sea salt.), but I only actually eat a "meal" about 4 times a week and it isn't much for quantity, but pretty varied; a meat, three vegies cooked al dente (hate mushy vegies) all of different colors (call it kooky but that's how I do it - by color) a starch and a salad for desert. Yes desert. Again, I'm weird. I Rarely get sick. Once every five years or so I'll catch a tad of whatever the bug of the day is and it'll knock me down for a day w/ a high fever, then in the mifddle of the night it'll break and I'll wake soaked in sweat and feeling VERY relieved. Next day feed and mend. Next day fine again. I had to take all the military vaccines and my Mom was good about getting my kid shots. Prolly haven't had six doses of antibiotics my whole life and those were light "cyllin" class. Cuts, burns and other skin breaks I heal like a lizard. Do have a pretty much constant nose thing going on, though. My ole honker is a heck of a beak, but that means a long, high maintenance filter there. You could put me in a boiler fire and as long as I had water I'd be fine, but I hunt Long Johns at 65. Got to have heat and preferably humidity. Comfortable for me is 80 w/80%. TOTAL coffeeholic. the stronger, the better for flavor. Black and bitter. No ANYTHING in it. That and water. Plain ole water. Tap water, bottled water, stream, hose. Don't matter.

Where am I going w/ this? Sleep! I don't sleep normal AT all either. Six hours is a long sleep for me and it WILL be interrupted at hour 4 by something (the Cat was walking and it's footsteps woke me - get it? ANYTHING will wake me right at hour 4), and I'll be lucky to get another 2 before I'm wide awake and further sleep is a foregone conclusion. Thought it might be the steady coffee. Quit all caffeine for 6 months. Nope. Day one cold turkey and six months later the "screw this" day - same exact sleep pattern. Kinda figured since I been this way my whole life - long before the USCG introduced me to coffee. Even as a kid. Sleep pattern drove my folks NUTS. Eating pattern too. I failed to mention that that "meal" might well be at midnight or noon. Just whenever I'm actually hungry for a real meal.

So; sleep deprivation? Beats me. Trucking seemed to fit my eating and sleeping patterns nicely til the Feds said I had to go to sleep and get up when a little electronic box said I was tired or not. Then they came out w/ all this stuff about sleep and fatigue and our natural patterns and whether we sleep all night or get woke up and such.

But nobody asked me about mine. I think cause looking at me and answering the questions the way they word them - I don't fit the "type" for sleep disorders. Maybe it's cause I'm a walking anomaly and by modern science I shouldn't be walking. Not ONE time, though, has ANY nurse or Dr. (and those have all been MD's cept 1 DO) even asked me about my sleeping at my DOT Physicals. If they'd have asked, I'd have told. If I was concerned about it I woulda taken it up w/ my personal Physician. We joke. He's a great guy. Old Country Doc. ""Good thing I wasn't relying on YOU to send Jenna through College!"

I want to be CRYSTAL clear here: I don't recommend my way of livin' to ANYONE. I just know my body and let it have what it says it wants when it wants it ( have been know to eat an entire head of lettuce at 2AM or nothing but a nice piece of rare beef at 9AM - cause that's what my body craved) and I feel fine. I am wide awake and alert when I'm awake and dead to the world when I'm asleep and God Almighty help whatever manages to wake me during my first two hours of my four. I will be cross as a bear!! Last two or the second two - more like a grumpy cub. But if you wake me up during my first two hours of sleep? I am FURIOUS and quite unreasonable about ANYTHING.

I don't know Folks. It seems to me that if the USDOT was as interested in alertness during driving time; they'd do better to look at actual sleep itself and how individuals, in ALL our varied body types (yes Peeps - I am a bean pole - Duh; but for you Bigun's out there? I took Just as much CRAP in School and elsewhere as you did - maybe that's why the skinny kids hung out with the heavies; we BOTH got the same CRAP and you all know what THAT was) varied years of adaptation and years and years of living with ourselves and getting ourselves to do what is asked of us.

Problem is Guys and Gals; We got to have a "One Size Fits ALL" Rule to cover 1.2 million of our individual needs and body types. Don't that just shuck an oyster? You know why we cant get things more individualized in regulations? Stack all the books up that it would take to cover us all as individuals on just the Sleep Thing alone and you'd have a Stairway To Heaven. At least to the moon. For sure on that. You could walk around the earth a HUNDRED times on a path paved with all the books it's take to cover all of us. Cause we'd EACH need our OWN book.

So the key here is understand: They WILL write a "ONE SIZE FITS ALL" Rule that won't fit all. About EVERYTHING. They will misapply it - cause it doesn't fit everyone and some folks are more honest than others on both ends of the deal. They mean to do good. They intend to do good. Just . . .

Forgive them for they know not what they do.

I REALLY Shouldn't hit post before catching my first four.

But, unfortunately - - - I know I . . . .

 

it's one size fits all because an individualized HOS for every single driver would be too cost prohibitive to legislate or enforce.

 

You'll wind up caring a lot if you get into an accident and the other party decides to sue you and your company, even if you're not at fault. (remember those sleazy ambulance chaser billboards?) if it comes out at all that you lied on your medical exam, then the plaintiff's lawyers will be laughing all the way to the bank, your company winds up paying out the nose, and you'd be SOL. These "truck injury" lawyers live for people who don't care what the regs say or don't say, and as soon as they find out the slightest bit of falsification, they'll be on you like a mountain lion on a fresh kill. You think the DOT is bad? Wait until you have to deal with a PI lawyer.