How disabled can you be? Any specific rules on pain meds?

How old are you and what sort of shape are you in? Is exercise possible to improve the back and bending issues? PT?

 

Yes. As of Jan 1 2018 NO narcotics on you, in you or inside your cab on the 18 wheeler.

IF you did get prescribed narcotics, you MUST wait 7 times half life of your last dose to get out of your body in terms of many hours. You will be waiting 3 to 5 days of one dose of norco. More than that for oxy etc.

Dropping trailers and hooking them sometimes involves lowering or raising them with the landing gear, you will not do well with that. Pulling the 5th wheel is another challenge sometimes that will hurt you. Bending over already is a problem for you.

You are too limited to be involved in trucking.

IF you stopped pain meds now you need about 6 months to get it out of your hair. A hot positive for narcotics will exclude you from the industry.

You will be flipping your sleep day to night and back to day.

IF you drove a long time and find you cannot walk the half mile to the office at the end of a large industry row of docks with hundreds of trailers then you got a problem. Getting into and out of big rigs is also a problem. Not so much getting in but getting out will need some care.

No one jumps off docks. Not for decades and certainly not when aging its really easy to bust bones and require months off at home in a cast etc doing that stupid stunt.

You have a oppertunity to do alot of bending over inside trailers, if you have to load or unload from the floor even though your company is no touch, there is still a risk for you to touch. And that will pretty much finish you in a short time. You will end up being carted to the ER for big pain shots to get moving again. Then find you cannot drive for days after.

In my state, if you have any narcotics in you while driving a personal vehicle it is treated as DUI, you are arrested, car is impounded (State now owns it, you do not any longer) and fines approach 10,000 dollars and beyond with the courts as such is the war on drugs. Pain meds in particular.

Finally but not least, you become a liability when other people in say Bankhead Atlanta discover you possess 100 pain pills worth 10 to 30 dollars each or more depending on what they are. They will steal it from you. It is a high drug activity crime area. If you are under a contract and are even one pill short against your refill date in a big rig? No, its not happening.

Big rig + Narcotics = no not happening.

IF you want to drive, your first problem is stopping the pain medicine entirely. Not for sleep not for as needed not nothing. As in total full stop no more pills filled. After a period of some months you will be able to drug test clean.

I am a former pain patient who is very aware of the situation vs a big rig and narcotics. We had a converstation last year with my doctor who was adamant. You want trucking? no narcotics period. None. zip. nada, nyet, nien, forgetbaoutit. etc. As of Jan 1 2018. This is federal.

Finally but not last... any DOT doctor or actually ANY doctor examining you for any reason ranging from ER to physicals to eye exam etc. Are REQUIRED to check your state's Pharmacy Monitoring Board for history. When they see that there is a huge record of narcotics history on you you are probably going to be deemed too sick to touch a big rig unless they again can see six months to a year of not filling even a single pill anywhere. A clear history that long will give your doctor a thought that you don't use them anymore.

You are pretty sick. Talking about canes, using hands to get off ground and so on. In a big rig you WILL be getting under that thing often. If you don't and you claim that you did a pretrip and did not, it can land you into prison if you killed someone or hurt them through a undetected defect in your truck that needed repair. Because you hurt too much getting under there.

My advice to you is make a choice. Stop the pain management six months to a year. Then think about trucking. Chances are it will hurt you too much. And back on them you go.

So from where I sit, trucking is not for you. I even understand that trucking is not for me possibly. As I write this I have a active telemetry heart montior calling out several times around the clock recording my symptoms and so on. With a radioactive stress test next tuesday that will decide my future, if I have one. Meaning I may not be alive 6 months from now. Trucking right now is not even a goal on my part. I have too much to work on medically and we are moving forward with that first.

Finally if you did somehow get a bottle of pain pills, a letter from your pain doc saying you can keep them provided you don;t drive a semi truck for 5 days after your dose etc... your company will fire you. That truck needs to make money 24/7 you being sick and popping pills is a liability that most people cannot even imagine, you probably will be rejected anyway. You will never find a pain doctor willing to hand you a pill bottle of narcotics knowing you are going out into trucking the next day. Its not going to happen. Finally more than that, you are required to meet your appointment time for pain doctor monthly or two month time periods. You will find that OTR trucking does not schedule you like that. You are going to miss your appointments and miss your 31st day refill at the specific pharmacy and so forth. You are NOT going to get more than 31 days at a time anyway.

I can go on and on and on working my way through the problems of seeking pain shots at the ER when trucking hurts you too much, eventually you will be placed on a Federal Narcotics list that will ban you from getting that kind of care anywhere in the USA. Unless you display a busted bone sticking through your arm or some acute obvious need for a shot. Otherwise you stand to be arrested. What is your company going to do now that you are in jail, they need to recover the truck and so forth>?

If you got into a accident? you are shipped immediately to drug test. God help you if there is narcotics in your system or inside that tractor trailer cab. You are going to jail most likely. You cannot risk encountering a lawman for inspection being on drugs. Your eyes will give you away first, a simple light test applied to horizonal and then vertical against your eye movement and tracking will yeild up to 6 clues failed showing that you are indeed having narcotics inside your system. You will be put into the back of a police car and taken somewhere to be booked. No ifs buts or maybes. Your pain doctor might face prosecution as well for allowing YOU with pills to be IN a 18 wheeler. Never mind letters or opinions or whatever.

You seem to float through your life thinking DUI does not happen in a car or truck while a pill is inside of you. Sir, that is the most dangerous assumption. I have a driver three weeks of every month on call day and night for whatever. Otherwise one week each month I am off drugs and drive after the 4th day for a few days to give my driver a break. Otherwise she will burn out and say thats enough you are on your own. Meaning Uber, lyft, cabs etc etc etc. Otherwise DUI with your car. When you have medicine inside you and you physically drive, you are committing a felony.

That sir is not a professional driver one would expect to be holding a CDL A with Tier one and a DOT medical card that is valid. One of the things the DOT examiner will find out while you wait for that exam is that you have been actively prescribed narcotics. IF you DO NOT have that original bottle of narcotics to the correct PILL COUNT when demanded by the DOT doctor examining you then you will not be seen period and a entry made into the PMB against you. So that any other DOT doctor you visit tomorrow or that week can be construed as doctor shopping.

This post will only get longer and longer and longer with the negatives related to pain management and trucking. No drugs period. Otherwise forget trucking and find soemthing else in life to do that does not involve driving, flying etc.


Last thought. USUALLY pain patients have a specific diagnosis. They do not get medicine for simply complaining that they have a owie that has no medical foundation or evidence. You did not indicate what that diagnosis is.

 

There is nothing about my last post that does not say one cannot overcome medical disability to get back into trucking. That in your case requires you to stop all narcotics and all pain management for a period of time to prove you have nothing in your urine and hair. Then every day and night as you drive around the USA its going to hurt a little bit.

Nothing wrong with rising above disability and returning to gainful employment in society thats awesome. Not too many people get to consider that path forward. I happen to be one of those who probably can do it again to get back out there. But for right now there are many doctors looking at specific problems inside of me to see if it is a problem for being alive at all. Never mind trucking.

Just your posting indicates that maybe you have more good days than bad. If you are thinking now if you can go 6 months or even 12 months without pain management about your daily life even though you hurt a little bit then by all means give trucking a try. Tractors have gotten very nice with the luxury, airride and so forth. You would be surprised. A full captians chair supports you nicely while the condo in the back allows you to walk around inside.

Being able to RISE ABOVE disability and head back out to active employment without any more narcotics ever, will gain you so much celebration at your former clinic. They will cheer you encourage you and so on. 98% of the patients in there will not consider going back out giving up those drugs. So thats why my position is with reservations. Prove to me that you are clean 6 to 12 months WITHOUT a single pill anything and give trucking a try.

GO for it. But if you think you are going to do this trucking with a bottle in the truck for your sleeping or whatever? No I say don't do it. Don;t be stupid. This is not for you. Thats all there is to it.

 

I tweaked my lower back last week unloading tanker in below freezing temps. Had to stand outside the truck on watch for over 3 hours. The cold, hard concrete did me in. Trucking will add pains to one's body over time.
If the industry interests you, maybe consider dispatching? Just an idea.

 

People start trucking careers with healthy backs and end up with bad backs. You may want to reconsider your career choice.

It's not the driving, it's everything else. Even if you did magically find a job that never required to to unload your trailer. Sliding tandems and pulling a fifth wheel aren't always easy. Not being able to get up on your own is the big deal. What if you need to hammer on frozen brakes, or any number of things to numerous to list here that require bending, stooping, or even crawling under the truck.

Not sure about the pain meds. I was in a car accident and was prescribed Norco. After I was released to regular duty the first thing I had to do was pass a drug test.

 

Yes you can....thought for sure you'd work the horse story in there somewhere.

 

Disabled trucker here with messed up back, knees, neck, shoulder, neuropathy, surgeries, walking stick, physical limitations and etc.

Although I loved being a trucker, it's the last thing I would consider doing if I were in your shoes.
If I was seriously desperate for quick cash and couldn't find other work, then maybe.
I know the misery of a bad back too well and that driving a truck will only increase that misery over time.

I don't care what choice you make, just letting you know that a truck is not a healing environment.

 

When I pulled tanker I got one of those out fabric door chairs that fold up vs standing. Got the cup holder in the chair arm.

 

I wonder what makes people look into this industry when it is hard on the body. Since my accident, I am limited to what I can do and took a few trips in a truck, when it was over, my pain didn't go away for weeks.