Bipolar

[Domaiv]

i have most of the symptoms of Bipolar disorder (manic depressive). If this is diagnosed would i still be able to fly as cabin crew?

Thanks in advance
D

[A2QFI]

Domaiv. Good afternoon - please check your PMs

[cavortingcheetah]

:hmm:

If you are on regular medication and have not informed the CAA of that fact you may well find that your Class 1 Medical is void. Quite apart from what ails one, the CAA are very hot on medicines and their side effects. Sometimes this is not a problem at all, simply a change of type of tablet is all that is required.
Your only really sensible option is to follow this advice taken from the CAA medical site.

I have a medical problem which I wish to discuss with a CAA doctor before I take a Class 1 medical examination.

It is best to submit a medical report from either your General Practitioner (GP) or specialist, to the Aeromedical Section for us to evaluate and give you the appropriate advice.

Civil Aviation Authority
Medical Division
Aviation House
Gatwick Airport South
West Sussex RH6 0YR

As you must be aware, some who suffer from bipolar depression can manifest symptoms which one would not really wish to encounter in a cockpit on a dark and stormy night.

If you keep quiet about the business insofar as the CAA and airlines are concerned, they may never find out at all. But if they do, you may well find yourself grounded, jobless and with a reputation in a very small world, so sullied as to be irretrievable.
Advice from the plains of Africa would be to face the demon and get the business sorted out now, one way or the other.:)

[merlinxx]

Beware there is still a shed load of stigma attached to this situ by so many who know not what it is, and more importantly how it can be controlled very successfully. As C.C. said ctc the CAA at the "Belgrano", sorry Aviation House. Good luck.

[andy mccallum]

I'm 11 hours into my PPL, and am struggling sadly with BiPolar Manic Depression. I've been on a variety of medication and the experimentation goes on. One day I can feel like God and the next I want to stay in bed for ever. I'm going to write to the CAA and ask whether my dreams of becoming a pilot are doomed or whether I have a chance. When I get a result I'll post it here.

Cheers,

Andy.

[AMEandPPL]

Don't get your hopes up too much . . . . . . you say that :
I've been on a variety of medication and the experimentation goes on.

This is taken verbatim from the JAR FCL-3 AME Guidance notes :
ALL DRUGS USED FOR PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT MAY AFFECT ALERTNESS AND UPPER BRAIN FUNCTIONS: THEREFORE THEY ARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH FLYING STATUS (my capitals)

As far as the gentlemen of "The Belgrano" are concerned any kind of psychotropic medication is totally and absolutely unacceptable. PERIOD.

[decy]

sorry to hear about the depression ye suffer,,

can i just say i dont agree with ''western medicine'' at all,,,and my reason is this

i have severe stomach problems and for a long time the doc was giving me this and giving me that,,,even went as far as giving me the drug effexor,,which is an anti depressive/anxiety pill,,,

well i got so depserate i eventully decided to try chinese medicine for my stomach and my god how much my life has changed,, no side effects from the tea i take for my stomach,,,i feel great and only get sick every few weeks,,but wen i take my tea wen im sick,,within the hour im perfect

this has also been proven for depression so please guys give it a go,,the chinese doc wont even charge for a consultation

[AMEandPPL]

when I take my tea when I'm sick, within the hour I'm perfect

The NHS could do with obtaining a lorry-load of this stuff ! But, until it does so, the idea of commercial pilots, or ATCO's, on anti-depressants and / or tranquillizers is an absolute and total NON-STARTER ! !

[gingernut]

I'm a little concerned about the availability and use of unlicensed "chinese" medicines.

Not because they don't work, as invariably, idoctrinate enough of the stuff with viagra, prednisolone etc, and you will get the desired effect you're after.

At a cost.

I pump poisons into people for a living, wherever I can, I try not to.




- but at least the crap I use has been tested to some degree.

(And yes I know, the westernised sh1t isn't perfect.)

[Brian Abraham]

But, until it does so, the idea of commercial pilots, or ATCO's, on anti-depressants and / or tranquillizers is an absolute and total NON-STARTER ! !
Australia is very enlightened in this regard. Taking anti-depressants in itself is not a disqualifier to any licence holder, including ATPL. Whether the Department gives an applicant the thumbs up though would depend on the clinical assessment I guess, but they certainly do all they can to keep you in the front seat.

[AMEandPPL]

"Enlightened" ? or foolhardy ?

A reminder of the verbatim quote from JAR FCL-3 AME manual :
ALL DRUGS USED FOR PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT MAY AFFECT ALERTNESS AND UPPER BRAIN FUNCTIONS: THEREFORE THEY ARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH FLYING STATUS
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm damn sure that if a major problem occurs on the Boeing or Airbus in which my family and I are passengers, I sure as hell do NOT want it being dealt with by someone whose alertness and upper brain functions are being impaired by toxic chemicals !

[gingernut]

so how do we treat a depressed pilot?

[Brian Abraham]

"Enlightened" ? or foolhardy ?
Here is a 131 page document published by the Australian Authority. After you have digested, and if you still are of the same view, would be interested in your comments as to where their study is in error.http://www.casa.gov.au/avmed/download/antidepressant.pdf

[AMEandPPL]

so how do we treat a depressed pilot?

We treat a depressed pilot exactly as we do any other member of society, and with psychotropics if that's what is deemed best in that person's case.

But we should NOT, in my view, have that person in charge of a large dangerous machine carrying over three hundred innocent fare paying passengers.

The line has to be drawn somewhere - otherwise why are be bothering trying to determine an individual's "fitness to fly" ?

The pilot who starts having epileptic fits as a result of head injury or brain tumour - it's still only an illness, after all - so does he continue flying ?
Another whose visual acuity deteriorates dramatically as a result of glaucoma, or macular degeneration - some might query why remove a chap's means of making a living just because he gets a medical condition, it seems. After all, it's not his fault, he can't help it.

I think I'll go and cancel those Quantas tickets . . . . . . . . .:confused:

[Brian Abraham]

I think I'll go and cancel those Quantas tickets
When you find an agent that sells tickets on Quantas let us know. :E
I'll write a more fulsome post about real world experiences shortly.

[Brian Abraham]

As promised. I hope it is readable and makes sense.

Towards the end of my career I was involved in an airborne emergency, where for a second or two, the continued existence of myself, copilot and nine passengers were in the hands of God. It was not a situation of our making, but rather a mechanical failure. The adrenalin rush was like nothing I had experienced previously, either skydiving or combat. The day following the incident the family went to a BBQ and the first mouthful of beer didn’t settle well on the stomach, and one mouthful was all I had, the can remained untouched. It was a precursor of what was to come. The following 18 months was a downward spiral, my work mates must have been conscious of the changes, there was no way they could not have been, but no one intervened. I was conscious of some thing not being right and went to the GP on a number of occasions. Their diagnosis was that I had some sort of heart problem and a whole battery of tests followed which all came up negative. It was not until my world had completely collapsed and required hospitalisation that the medics finally decided there was something wrong. The diagnosis in the end was PTSD. Following release from hospital (3 days) rehabilitation then involved attending a GP and a psychiatrist at regular intervals. And this is where things became difficult. A visit to the GP went as follows
GP: How is the family?
Me: OK I guess, all things considered
GP: Taking your meds?
Me: Yes
GP: OK. See you on (date)
A visit to the psychiatrist followed the exact same script and I wondered if the script was issued in med school. I was in and out the door all within 3 to 5 minutes. To me it was obvious that this was a charade that wasn’t going to bear fruit, so I contacted a friend and fellow pilot with whom I had flown combat, knowing that this was a path that he had travelled down many, many years previously. His advice was to contact the Veterans Association and have them put me in contact with some one. That duly happened and I credit their psychologist for getting me out of the woods. I should add that he (friend) continues to this day, well into his 60’s, in full time employment as an ATPL holder and with his Zoloft, and I would put any family member of mine in his care.
To get back into the cockpit the Aviation Medical Authority required an assessment from the original psychiatrist I had been seeing. On presenting myself to obtain same, lo and behold it turned out he was not a psychiatrist, but his boss was. So what qualifications the individual I had been seeing had I don’t know, and didn’t bother to find out, I just wanted that bit of paper. To cut a long story short, they refused to provide an assessment to the Aviation Department, and it was not until the head of the Aviation Medical Branch personally intervened and called, and shall we say bent their arm, that an assessment was forth coming. In total I was out of the cockpit for about 4 months, and went on to retirement age (with Zoloft).
Looking back on the experience, I don’t blame the GPs or psychiatrist for the treatment (or rather lack of) I received at their hands. In the GPs case I think it was merely a reflection of their lack of training and experience in dealing with the condition. With the psychiatrist (who wasn’t really) he was part of a government organisation and as far as I could tell their main source of business was drug addicts. In dealing with the organisation, from the receptionist on up, if you weren’t a raving lunatic when you walked in the door, you were going to be one when you walked out. Good for business I guess.
A fortnight ago I had cause to visit a psychiatrist as part of the process for obtaining veterans benefits. My psychiatric condition he deemed to be “incredibly resilient” to the events to which I’ve been exposed and would not be any help in obtaining benefits (bugger).
There have been two high profile accidents (Egypt Air and Silk Air) which in my estimation were precipitated by the premeditated actions of individuals suffering psychiatric conditions that were not being treated. Japan Airlines also had a DC-8 many years ago crash in Tokyo Bay where an individual was suffering an untreated condition, but without great loss of life if I recall correctly. The only thing that banning antidepressants in my view is that it drives the condition underground. By that I mean we have untreated cases still flying, and treated cases flying, but unknown to the authorities and the employer. I much prefer the Australian stance, where a clinical assessment is made and you either get approval to continue work, or not, as the case may be. Just like any other medical condition, such as heart trouble.
Should anyone have questions etc I would be only too happy to engage in personal correspondence.

[TyreCreep]

While I do understand the risk of driving the matter 'underground', it is quite obvious that many side effects of anti-depressants are not conducive to flying.

As far as I can see, many of them are quite hard to observe in a 5 min consultation (or even a 30 min consultation), and it's hard for the taker of the particular drug to tell that he/she is affected. Difficulties with assessment of fitness-to-fly while being on such drugs should be taken into account and perhaps would be better to play on the safe side?

Obviously the best thing would be for stigma attached to psychological/psychiatric condition to be removed and also to have suitable loss of medical cover be arranged in advance so as not to have the 'pressure not to tell'. I guess that would be the ideal world and the world isn't so ideal.

[Lancastrian]

Since Emil Kraepelin first coined the the term "Manic-depressive psychosis" in the 19th century,there has been a steady move within society to neutralise or attenuate such stark descriptions. Hence,we now have bipolar affective mood disorder. However, one must bear in mind that within psychiatry, hardly anything is written in tablets of stone. Certain symptoms,signs etc can be elicited in many other conditions ie, mania can be seen in transient alcoholic excitement...(mania a potue), certainly encountered in drug addiction. All such conditions can be pegged on a gradient from minimal to severe and all can be treated with some form of neuroleptic. However,thats about the level we have reached for surety of replies to a patient...."what causes it, can I be cured,how long will it last......." those answers have yet to be found. Several things however,dont change if the right diagnosis and treatments are to be applied. This condition is based on a persons reported experiences as well as observed states and behaviour. It is paramount that time,and an experienced listening ear is afforded. Sadly,......many practitioners for reasons best stated by them, do not have such time to give.As Kraepelin found, within the extreme manic state symptoms of delusions and or hallucinations can be elicited. I believe that at this point in todays world, the DVLA would be looking to suspend a qualified drivers licence. Only my humble opinion but I believe that anyone who,s professional role,judgement,skill and application bears the weight and safety of the general public, must be of sound mind and unclouded to the greatest degree of any substance blunting such ability.The hard part comes for those who have the task to assess such ability to allow a person under treatment to continue within a responsible career no matter the duration.