BMI and medical card

Avoid all companies that want their own physical.
It’s a scam to sell you a crazy expensive cpap

 

This is a major issue with me. All the whatever you choose to call them, say take charge of your health, take charge of your care. Make informed and knowledgeable decisions concerning your health care. Shop around, get the best deal on services you need or want.

Ever try that?

 

In my case I get my healthcare through the VA. I am retired with several chronic medical problems. I have epilepsy, CAD along with osteoarthritis and being an insulin dependent diabetic. So I guess I have tried that at some point!

 

God numbers our days. As the story is told, the man was not feeling well. There are many degrees of not feeling well. I likely as not would not be feeling well and go lie down as well to rest. But the problem inside my body is trying to and is successful at killing me.

I counter with this thought. Most people are not medically inclined to understand anatomy. I actually like to think I understand my body pretty well and can get close to what the problem is describing it to a doctor who knows way more than I do. If I am not feeling well in a particular way, I have several portable instruments (BP, Pulse Oc, Blood Sugar, Heart Rate and basic heart timing examination for say Tachycardia) in a few minutes these battery driven devices will give me a rough idea of what the body is doing vitals wise. Some of my bad days was traced to higher than normal blood pressure situation which I really keep a eye on.

At the same time, I can only fix what I see coming. IF something is killing me as I type this and I am dead 10 minutes from now then you wont see too much of a fuss from me. I would be very sad and sorry to be dead, but everything is arranged and there is nothing left not taken care of. So there is that.

 

Osteo Arthritis is one of my conditions developed rapidly from wear and tear of trucking. A bone survey 20 years ago of about roughly 30 Xray pictures back then revealed bones that were amazing. (Which I am very happy for.. my family has tried to eat and drink good food to hopefully have a good chassis on the body) Fast forward to today. There is a developing problem as revealed by the Xray last month that several bones is either bone cancer, bone failure (Like a big truck frame cracking because it's too rusted and cannot carry the trailer anymore) and a form of constant rusting into the joints making any movement increasingly difficult.

I have kept a good morale over time and at some point the bone will fail and break. Where it breaks (Say hipjoint near the top...) is really important to life and death. I refuse to live in fear of a breakage. I did have to give up certain activies that I found very enjoyable in life because of falls and risk of. When in Krav Maga and 300 pounds of motivated mad mad wants to punch a little #### like me into the floor, its' going to hurt dealing with that weight moving with power. Akido becomes a real possibility.

 

That's not necessarily true. It is true that you can get a medical card from a different doctor, but some carriers insist on you getting it at a certain provider, and these providers tend to be the worst at pushing the sleep studies through a specific lab. So you can't go somewhere else if you want to work for that company.

 

In my opinion the most important thing is to get the medical recertification. If you know you won’t pass at your Trucking company’s sanctioned health care provider then it’s best to move on to another company that will take your DOT medical card from any provider.

 

I think you must go deeper with this analysis. Lets not forget at one point in the recent past the FMCSA did have these requirements as a part of their medical rule making. If my memory serves this was in conjunction with the new rules that tied CDLs to physicals, and created the examiner registry. This is a very important point to remember. As a direct result of these new rules a lot of sleep labs were opened up. The CPAP machine business grew up almost over night. Carriers were attempting to streamline this process and make it easier for a driver to stay in compliance with these new rules. CPAP machines are expensive. These sleep studies are expensive. After a good bit of screaming Congress got involved and slapped the FMCSA and they dropped these so call standards. Then this left a lot of medical examiners with these expensive sleep labs and carriers with a CPAP infrastructure.

If I were still an active driver and Dr Sagar was still working at the Hampton Virginia VA hospital she would be the ONLY doctor doing my physicals. A carrier don't like that I will move on. I do NOT like what has happened in the wake of the FMCSA withdrawing these BMI standards. I have said this many times in these forums and will do so again. There are currently NO FMCSA guidelines. DO NOT fall for that crap from a medical examiner.

The thing is however I am more concerned about a drivers health overall. Listen I have a prescription of Nitroglycerin. Pop one of these babies under your tongue and for about 2 maybe 3 minutes your blood pressure WILL come way down. You can go buy an old cheap blood sugar meter and a box of test strips and fast to hide diabetes. There are a ton of other tricks to hide medical conditions. You can answer those health questions dishonestly. Doing most of the above with some truck stop examiner in most every circumstance get you a medical. What good is doing that when all you are doing is hiding medical conditions that DO KILL people every day!

Every Truck driver out there is going to come to a point as they age when they simply will be forced to walk away. I faced that in 2 stages. Losing my CDL as well as my regular license was painful. There are still days when I almost start crying. Don't hide these medical conditions. face them and make whatever lifestyle changes you have to make. My friend I spoke of in an earlier post hid his! Then he died. Just saying ----