Matthew
Touchdown! Greaser!
Cool - now fly!
3rd Class Medical Exam
- Thread starter Snaggletooth
- Start date
EppyGA
Touchdown! Greaser!
Solo time
Snaggletooth
Line Up and Wait
I can't wait to solo!!
Marfa Gliders
Filing Flight Plan
I'm not suggesting you cheat the system here, only some thoughts (myths?) that might cause you to fail an exam. Here is some "pass the medical" advice from my father, a long-gone airline Captain (he lived to 90!):
Don't drink any coffee or caffeine drinks (Mountain Dew, Red Bull) for a couple of days before the exam. (You shouldn't drink that stuff anyway.) Drink lots of water. You want to keep your urine clear and your blood pressure low, year-round. While having your blood pressure taken, relax, breathe and think about calming scenes, like sitting on a beach, listening to the wind in the palms, watching the clouds. This might give a truer reading, not necessarily a lower reading, but if you are tense and anxious then you may show a higher reading than your normal BP.
On the urine test, the old-school Captains said to never give the first of the flow. Pee into the toilet for several seconds and then give them the "middle" pee sample. Don't know why. No sugar, booze or MSG in your diet for the 24 hours before, no over the counter drugs, and don't eat any breakfast muffins with poppy seeds in them! Rumor is that they come up as a drug indicator. Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz? OK, maybe it is a myth but eating and drinking the right stuff every day of your life is the ideal program, not just before an exam.
Get an independent eye exam even if you think you don't need glasses. I can see well without mine, but to bring one eye up to 20/20 I need slight correction. You might not notice that you need glasses (try reading distant/small street signs at night), but you want to know before you go to your next FAA medical exam. If you are not doing well on the FAA eye exam, you can put on your glasses and finish the test.
Pass the FAA medical, then go to a non-FAA doctor or clinic such as the Cooper Clinic in Dallas to get a thorough physical. These can take 5 hours and you get a baseline of where you are on blood sugar, chloresteral, heart condition / EKG after a stress test on a treadmill, prostate exam. Consider a colonoscopy as it is painless and you are unconscious for it anyway.
Find out what's going wrong early in your life so you can treat it, beat it.
I am not a doctor, nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn recently.
"Zero G and I feel fine." - Mercury Astronaut John Glenn
Don't drink any coffee or caffeine drinks (Mountain Dew, Red Bull) for a couple of days before the exam. (You shouldn't drink that stuff anyway.) Drink lots of water. You want to keep your urine clear and your blood pressure low, year-round. While having your blood pressure taken, relax, breathe and think about calming scenes, like sitting on a beach, listening to the wind in the palms, watching the clouds. This might give a truer reading, not necessarily a lower reading, but if you are tense and anxious then you may show a higher reading than your normal BP.
On the urine test, the old-school Captains said to never give the first of the flow. Pee into the toilet for several seconds and then give them the "middle" pee sample. Don't know why. No sugar, booze or MSG in your diet for the 24 hours before, no over the counter drugs, and don't eat any breakfast muffins with poppy seeds in them! Rumor is that they come up as a drug indicator. Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz? OK, maybe it is a myth but eating and drinking the right stuff every day of your life is the ideal program, not just before an exam.
Get an independent eye exam even if you think you don't need glasses. I can see well without mine, but to bring one eye up to 20/20 I need slight correction. You might not notice that you need glasses (try reading distant/small street signs at night), but you want to know before you go to your next FAA medical exam. If you are not doing well on the FAA eye exam, you can put on your glasses and finish the test.
Pass the FAA medical, then go to a non-FAA doctor or clinic such as the Cooper Clinic in Dallas to get a thorough physical. These can take 5 hours and you get a baseline of where you are on blood sugar, chloresteral, heart condition / EKG after a stress test on a treadmill, prostate exam. Consider a colonoscopy as it is painless and you are unconscious for it anyway.
Find out what's going wrong early in your life so you can treat it, beat it.
I am not a doctor, nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn recently.
"Zero G and I feel fine." - Mercury Astronaut John Glenn
Snaggletooth
Line Up and Wait
Great post!!