BMI and medical card

BMI is a scam.

 

Partly yes.

I don't have a desire to get into the minutiae of why it's considered a scam. Whatever body a person might have, if the vitals are normal BP, Pulse ox and so forth and nothing major is a problem then that person is healthy as far as I am concerned. There is no need to have a medical team eff around with all that and screw it up which they will.

All of this started happening post CDL Laws back in the 1991-1994 time period.

If they don't quit trying to weed out unhealthy people with ever increasing restrictions, they are going to turn Trucking into a form of NASA. All perfect human species without flaws anywhere and fit beyond belief. Everyone else would be unhireable nationally.

 

DOT withdraws rule to set sleep apnea screening criteria for truckers

 

That article was written over a year ago,

Sleep apnea is still a gray area and a scam.
Doctors can still deny or give you a 90 day card and tell you to get tested for any reason they want.

 

Blood pressure check, read an eye chart, pay your $85 and don't worry about it for another 5 years.

 

Actually they have a way of discovering fat content by percentage.

That is a whole another process.

 

Two sides to this razor. Weight and neck size is a factor, it is not the only one, just a higher incidence among these conditions. At this time, the medical community has identified 17 different sleep disorders. It is what it is.
Not all can be treated with a A/CPAP.

The FMCSA has dropped actions towards developing any kind of criteria. Mostly because the cost as well as no standards currently exist as to making a true and proper diagnosis. So should you go to a medical exam and the examiner says you need a sleep study, you should ask for full written preliminary diagnosis report, that you then want that forwarded to you primary family doctor for follow up and potential treatment. That will take the incentive out of the examiners referral to the sleep clinic that they are invested in.

If they still want to play, go to a different examiner.
Nothing preventing you from doing that.

The other side of things is, if you do have a problem and it is undiagnosed, you are risking your health. That Is not a good thing. A/CPAP systems help a lot of people. They do work. This needs to be a done with a medical person that you can work with, so your personal/family doctor, not some for high profit quick turm mill.

 

THIS has been the basis of almost every comment I have ever made in here about the FMCSA medical rules. It's not just this sleep apnea boondoggle, it is also pre diabetes or out and out diabetes, heart conditions as well as blood pressure. As an industry these medical problems are killing active drivers as well as now retired drivers everyday. About two weeks ago I attended a fellow vet and active drivers funeral. Came home not feeling well, had some dinner and laid down on his couch and died from a heart attack.

 

I appreciate your post, however as a pain patient if I went to another doctor today, it will be branded by the state as doctor shopping which opens up several avenues of prosecution, none of which is any good. One example will be a simple violation by any doctor with a simple note. Gun owner dependant or addicted to narcotics. That's a mandatory 10 years prison followed by a large fine designed to wreck any possibility of a future.

Because of that, I have stayed with one team of doctors approaching 20 years in many of them. Ive only changed doctors twice in the last 18 months and that was because of a fundenmental failure in treatment and combined with the State itself banning certain ways of prescribing that leads to more problems as I realized there is more problems in the body when you take away the really good medicine. Last night I wrote a note to the doctor and his team thinking I should begin to go to Searcy from now on for certain medicines and bring in even more doctors to ensure a supply of it as a workaround to the state laws passed last year and signed spring of this year.

I am fighting to secure a quality of life. With good medicines I can rest, otherwise it's the same effects as cruxification (Pressure from the joints) and fire from the nerves that never stop. The doctors have been very good. But if the State continues to write new laws into next year to grind me into the pavement and decide that I should to to the liquor store and buy a gallon of whiskey each week.... and have no doctors at all... I'll have to do that.

Isnt it wonderful? Stop a pain patient and turn him or here into a future alcoholic.

 

It's not doctor shopping IF you are honest and tell the new doc your whole medical history. You are always free to see any doctor you desire.