<\/p>\n
My AME said the easiest thing to do was issue me a new medical. He\u2019s awesome and was able to call OKC with my data and get a Special Issuance within a day. The FAA is a lot more accepting of sleep apnea as long as it\u2019s treated. It\u2019s the waiting for all the appointments that seemed to take forever.<\/p>\n
Because flying is my livelihood, I was pretty pushy with the sleep study folks on the rapidness of the appointments. If I had to do it over again, I\u2019d be even more aggressive. Since I knew I had apnea I should have scheduled my Titration Study (the second overnight visit) when I scheduled the first overnight study. That would have saved me about a week. I also would have pushed them harder to order my CPAP machine as fast as possible during the first visit. Another week saved.<\/p>\n
There are some AME\u2019s who think you need this torture test called the MWT (Maintenance of Wakefulness Test) after you show compliance with your device. You don\u2019t need this test and it hasn\u2019t been done by my sleep clinic in more than 10 years. If your AME says you need the test after you show compliance, what you do at that point is up to you, but I asked him to call OKC and they said no. Look up the MWT on the Internet…you don\u2019t want to go there.<\/p>\n
I hate my CPAP machine. I have to carry it in my bag, and find a place to plug it in on every overnight. But I know it\u2019s saving my life in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal Air Surgeon notified Aviation Medical Examiners (AMEs) that pilots with a Body Mass Index (BMI) above 40 or a neck circumference of greater than 17 inches that are seeking a medical certificate will require evaluation by a sleep specialist for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). This FAA-mandated test for OSA is projected to affect nearly 125,000 airmen identified as obese by the FAA.<\/p>\n
We interviewed a pilot who went through an evaluation by a sleep specialist and obtained his medical certificate to shed some light on the process that pilots can expect. Here is his story.<\/p>\n
A couple of years ago I really started to notice dark circles under my eyes and general tiredness, even when I woke up. I thought, \u201cWho wouldn\u2019t be tired? I change time zones and day\/night sleep cycles faster than anybody I know.\u201d My wife would often comment about how I stopped breathing many times through the night. I had sleep apnea. I knew it, but I didn \u2019t want to do anything about it because I knew it would be a giant pain jumping through the hoops to get my medical back.<\/p>\n
When my dad was diagnosed with heart disease due to high BMI and sleep apnea, it was a slap in the face. I\u2019m like most pilots out there with regards to BMI: a little thick in the middle but I can still keep up with my kids. I spent about a million hours on the Internet researching the process and how I thought I could short-cut the system without getting my AME involved. The truth is…you can\u2019t. If you disclose to your AME that you\u2019ve got sleep apnea (or even think you\u2019ve got it) you\u2019re grounded until you go through the whole process.<\/p>\n
Here are the steps I had to follow, and they seem to be universal. I had to get my regular doctor to prescribe a sleep study. It\u2019s all about insurance. I\u2019m lucky, my insurance covered everything. You might not be. I told the sleep study folks that I\u2019m sure I had sleep apnea and could we just skip the test and go to the device…sorry, it doesn\u2019t work that way. You have to do the overnight sleep study, then you have to wait for the results that show you have apnea. Next, you have to schedule another sleep test where you wear the CPAP machine overnight and the techs adjust the pressure. After that, you wait again for the CPAP people to deliver your device. Remember, you\u2019re grounded here so the clock is ticking the whole time. What the FAA wanted to see with me was compliance on the device.<\/p>\n
All of the newer devices have an SD card that records your use. I had to show 2 weeks of data. I sent the SD card to the Sleep Clinic, then they put the data in the program and sent me the results as a PDF. I took everything I had to my AME: Initial Overnight Sleep Study with apnea diagnosis, Overnight Titration Results (the part where the techs adjust the settings on the device), and my Compliance Results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[72,73,74,75,76,77,78],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-admin","tag-cabin-attendants","tag-flight-attendants","tag-flight-controllers","tag-mechanics","tag-osha-training-for-pilots","tag-schedulers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}