Medical Card Question

Take some high blood med a couple days before exam.

 

Your Medical 90 day is a flat warning to RESOLVE your BP or whatever issue IMMEDIATELY without medicines ideally within 90 days. Retest clear with issue resolved to get a 2 year or whatever.

That's one.

Your license under Tier One Interstate, Intrastate will go away when your Medical Card expires. It's hardwired now as of a few years ago to the CDL.

What you need to do is go to your home state DMV (After you KNOW your medical expires really soon) ask for a Tier TWO affidavit document and sign it. It's a prefilled format legalease saying you are NO longer legal for Interstate, intrastate trucking without a Medical card, but still "Grandfathered" or allowed under Tier two to defend your CDL that is pretty precious from downgrading. There are restrictions to tier two, you can still drive a 18 wheeler, if it is farm to market really locally at harvest or running dead bodies in a national war attack of a nuclear kind on a city or state. As explained to me by the DMV in Arkansas when I kept Tier two for decades as a grandfathering privilege allowed by the state.

There are other tiers but tier two is the easiest and most truthful way to defend your CDL A rating from being downgraded after your medical expires.

When you resolve your BP medical issues without medicine and so on, you retest for DOT physical get a valid one year or two year, go back to the DMV, turn that new Cert in and sign a affadavit to reswear back to Tier One inter state and intra state trucking. Back on the big road you go. Easy peasy.

 

I don't know Texas specifically but a few years back in SD I let my physical lapse as I was not trucking at the time. My CDL was downgraded to an Intrastate only CDL. It was upgraded back to Interstate when I got another physical. When doing your BP make sure to ask them to let you lay down and relax for about 10 minutes before they take it. It will give them a truer reading. This is standard practice and they should allow you to do it. Best wishes to you!

 

That’s what they had me do. They had me lay down n relax for 15min cause I was at 142 sure enough I passed 15min later. I asked what would happen if I didn’t pass they said the doc will prescribe me some med and come back a couple days and redo the BP. Good luck

 

Hate to say this but unless you went to your doc, got a treatment plan and meds, you will not be allowed to get another pass on this because you don't deserve it.

GET TO THE DOCTOR.

 

if your BP is that low, the medicine is really cheap to bring down a few points.

mine is $2.30 for a 30 day supply. with ins.

without it is about $10.

no reason to go around with high BP.

 

I don't know about Texas specifically, but my physical expired due to a failed drug test. Well, not exactly, but that's why I let it lapse. When I got the notice I had 20 days to surrender my license I decided maybe it would be best to get one even though I'm not driving. So I got the physical, submitted it and they reinstated it. That, I believe, is federal though the state administers it so should be the same in every state but I can't swear to that.

I'm not sure that physical is valid. They're not allowed to give you an interim medical certificate while you follow up on a problem. Now they are suppose to mark you pending. You didn't fail so you can continue driving on your existing medical certificate, but you didn't pass so when it expires you can't drive. You can get the physical somewhere else, but that doctor will be able to see you have a pending physical and why so they'll likely ask questions. If they feel you need to follow up they'll mark you pending too. Get several of those and no one will pass you until you do the follow up.

I would suggest you contact the DOT hotline to see if that medical certificate is valid. If not it isn't your mistake, you did nothing wrong, you aren't likely to be fined, but if a state trooper determines it's not valid you're not driving anywhere until you get a physical.

 

Just took one Monday. Nurse did BP and hearing, then the doc looked in my ears and filled out the card, haha best one I’ve ever had.