Boys 'grow out of' asthma
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On a medically-themed note; what is the reasoning behind the 'no entry' rule on kidney stones? From what I've read etc, people who have had a history of renal stones are not eligible for service, despite the fact they have the same chance of the stones reoccurring as someone has developing them for the first time.
I understand perhaps for aircrew it's a no-no but ground trades, not so convinced.
I understand perhaps for aircrew it's a no-no but ground trades, not so convinced.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Alex, same rules I guess. If someone has a history they have a proven track record of a problem. If they have no history then they are a better risk.
Consider in a shop. Do you pick the packet off the front of the shelf? Do you pick the one that someone has already opened?
I know nothing of the treatment for kidney stones but I guess it involves some radical medical or surgical intervention. If the probability of it occurring out of area can be reudced then it is only prudent to reduce it was far as practicable. It is just unfortunate for those with a history that the screening may be too crude.
Consider in a shop. Do you pick the packet off the front of the shelf? Do you pick the one that someone has already opened?
I know nothing of the treatment for kidney stones but I guess it involves some radical medical or surgical intervention. If the probability of it occurring out of area can be reudced then it is only prudent to reduce it was far as practicable. It is just unfortunate for those with a history that the screening may be too crude.
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Who are you to "encourage" a doctor to change his diagnosis? You appear to think that it is fine to "encourage" a doctor to change his diagnosis of your child, so that he/she can subsequently dishonestly claim without fear of being found out that he/she did not really suffer from childhood asthma. I don't think that is in the long term interest of your child nor of the services.The remainder of your posting is equally gratuitous, unmeritous and disgraceful.
Don`t be fooled that a "Doctor" won`t change his diagnosis. It`s simply a matter of hawking children around enough quacks until you get the diagnosis you want.
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GreenKnight:
There was a time in this world where, if you or a family member had some affliction that affected only them, you would keep them away from the potential danger and not try to put them back into "normal" society. Not today however... Noooo, now these ignorant people want to be/send their children out there and everyone else has to adjust their way of life to accommodate them. Dare I mention the stupidity of the parents that send their children who have the most extreme reactions into General Education classrooms with hundreds of other kids knowing that if you tell a kid they can't do something that one of them will "push the envelope" and possibly kill their child... Oh, no... That's not PC to say that is it?
What we have here, (as is becoming the norm), is something that affects a very small population and the characteristic knee jerk reaction is disaffecting a very large population. (Ten people died in 10 years out of a population if 13 million in each year, the study is here). The study fails to make the point that the total population is not a mere 13 million but rather, it is 26 million since, logically one 10th of the population age past the 16 year point annually and are replaced by new births. But, let's not forget that the authors are probably hawking their findings for research money... So. a better approximation of the fatalities is 1:2,600,000. For that there are the families of the remaining 2,599,999, that have to jump through hoops to ensure the safety of an individual that isn't proven to exist in the school system in question, (yes, my local school district banned peanut products - but they have no known sufferers in the district).
How long will it be before peanuts are banned worldwide I wonder? What will be the next thing to be banned because 1:3,000,000 might have an adverse reaction? Then what? In the end we won't be able to eat anything.
No, you're right, I don't care. Shock, horror... AA isn't being PC again... There are 6 billion on the planet. I don't have time to care for them all. You go ahead and do it for me and the rest of us who, if they told the truth, really don't give a rats behind either.
You don't have to worry about some of them being "noisy"... they are dead!!
The "noise" is about keeping the rest alive.
But who cares, right? Not you, AA. As long as you are not inconvenienced, the rest can go to h&ll?
The "noise" is about keeping the rest alive.
But who cares, right? Not you, AA. As long as you are not inconvenienced, the rest can go to h&ll?
What we have here, (as is becoming the norm), is something that affects a very small population and the characteristic knee jerk reaction is disaffecting a very large population. (Ten people died in 10 years out of a population if 13 million in each year, the study is here). The study fails to make the point that the total population is not a mere 13 million but rather, it is 26 million since, logically one 10th of the population age past the 16 year point annually and are replaced by new births. But, let's not forget that the authors are probably hawking their findings for research money... So. a better approximation of the fatalities is 1:2,600,000. For that there are the families of the remaining 2,599,999, that have to jump through hoops to ensure the safety of an individual that isn't proven to exist in the school system in question, (yes, my local school district banned peanut products - but they have no known sufferers in the district).
How long will it be before peanuts are banned worldwide I wonder? What will be the next thing to be banned because 1:3,000,000 might have an adverse reaction? Then what? In the end we won't be able to eat anything.
No, you're right, I don't care. Shock, horror... AA isn't being PC again... There are 6 billion on the planet. I don't have time to care for them all. You go ahead and do it for me and the rest of us who, if they told the truth, really don't give a rats behind either.
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Well, as an ex-mil aircrew ex-asthama sufferer here is my two-pennyworth.
As a red-hot keen 16yr old I was dying to fly, and set off down the road af an RAF Flying Scholarship (then pretty much a RAF sponsored PPL). I had had asthma as a small kid - but had grown out of it by age 10 or so, suffered hay-fever to 14 or so and remained sensitive to dust mites in high concentrations (changing bed linen at school - a function of the aeons-old ex-army blankets).
I was perfectly fit and at 16 was not affected by the past allergies. My father insisted that I provide great and in depth detail to the above on the application form (some bollix about "honesty") instead of glossing over it a bit, which I insisted would be the kiss of death on the whole affair, as it proved.
Age 22 I applied to the RN and, being older and wiser,
a) did not involve my father in the application process.
b) Admitted childhood asthma and hay fever on the application, not wishing to lie, but did not make an event of it.
The RN did not even blink at this, but then they tend to be more pragmatic than the crabs. I got in, did all the lung-busting physical stuff at Dartmouth, came out well above average in fitness, had no trouble in the altitude chamber at Seafield Park, and so on. Flew, got Wings, etc. etc. No problems with childhood asthma.
Came to get a Class 1 civvy medical, Oh! Different story!
I sailed through the initial medical until I came to the peak flow test that I had never encountered before, and crashed and burned. Ex military medical history, fitness training and decomp drills had nothing to do with it. The mil had rated me A1 to fly fast jet if required (dream on!)_but the CAA wouldn't give me a medical to fly an unpressurised helicopter at 2000'.
Class 1 Medical? No fukken way!!!
It goes without saying that the LEMON of a "doctor" was ex-crab...
I related this info to my then employer, the late and much loved Bev Snook, who passed me onto a friend of his, a proper aviation-doctor who shall remain nameless but is well known in Percival circles, who showed me how to work the machine.
I returned to CAA House under appeal for another go and blew the PFM off the scale. The doc was suitably impressed, and went to the Chief Medical "Officer" to get him to sign the certificate that I was due.
I sat outside that unmentionable @rsehole's office for fifteen minutes listening to the furious yelling match that went on inside seeing my career going down the pan.
The young doc eventually came out looking very shocked, wiped his brow, and told me he had laid his career on the line for my Class 1. It seems that despite convincingly passing the peak flow test the LEMON would not countenance me having a medical due to past asthma, cleared up a decade previously.
They say old crabs never die, they just stink worse and worse - and here let me apologise to all decent RAF people out there - I have the same respect for you as I have for pongos, even, but even you will admit that there was (I hate to think there still is...) a certain type of crusty old crab that just would not change his stubborn, institutionalised mind for anything, let alone evidence. That bastard stank, believe me - and had it not been for the heroic action of the young (Ex RAF) doctor who fought my side so bravely - and he really did put his career on the line judging from the furious yelling that went on behind the Chief Medical ********'s office door, I would not be here to this day as an airline Captain with no hint of that childhood asthma ever since. Dust mites still give me grief in high concentrations, pollen seldom does.
The moral seems to be that there is life after childhood Asthma, but you may need to fight your corner, and fight hard to achieve it. If it genuinely does not affect you, then fight your corner!
There is (apparently) also considerable disagreement in medical circles about the seriousness of this. My experience was that having gone by pubescence it gave no further problems, but that preconcieved opinions based on apparently not-a-lot but "accepted wisdom" (according to my Percival doctor friend) can be a real sticking-point. Again, if you really are clear of it, fight your corner.
My experience was also that (here, as in so many other situations) the RN is vastly more practical than their light blue cousins, who despite all this have some damned fine doctors. Just avoid the ones named after citrus fruit.
But I wish I remembered the name of that brave fellow who shouted at his boss for fifteen minutes so I could have a career, and came damn near ending his own. I'd like to buy him lunch!
As a red-hot keen 16yr old I was dying to fly, and set off down the road af an RAF Flying Scholarship (then pretty much a RAF sponsored PPL). I had had asthma as a small kid - but had grown out of it by age 10 or so, suffered hay-fever to 14 or so and remained sensitive to dust mites in high concentrations (changing bed linen at school - a function of the aeons-old ex-army blankets).
I was perfectly fit and at 16 was not affected by the past allergies. My father insisted that I provide great and in depth detail to the above on the application form (some bollix about "honesty") instead of glossing over it a bit, which I insisted would be the kiss of death on the whole affair, as it proved.
Age 22 I applied to the RN and, being older and wiser,
a) did not involve my father in the application process.
b) Admitted childhood asthma and hay fever on the application, not wishing to lie, but did not make an event of it.
The RN did not even blink at this, but then they tend to be more pragmatic than the crabs. I got in, did all the lung-busting physical stuff at Dartmouth, came out well above average in fitness, had no trouble in the altitude chamber at Seafield Park, and so on. Flew, got Wings, etc. etc. No problems with childhood asthma.
Came to get a Class 1 civvy medical, Oh! Different story!
I sailed through the initial medical until I came to the peak flow test that I had never encountered before, and crashed and burned. Ex military medical history, fitness training and decomp drills had nothing to do with it. The mil had rated me A1 to fly fast jet if required (dream on!)_but the CAA wouldn't give me a medical to fly an unpressurised helicopter at 2000'.
Class 1 Medical? No fukken way!!!
It goes without saying that the LEMON of a "doctor" was ex-crab...
I related this info to my then employer, the late and much loved Bev Snook, who passed me onto a friend of his, a proper aviation-doctor who shall remain nameless but is well known in Percival circles, who showed me how to work the machine.
I returned to CAA House under appeal for another go and blew the PFM off the scale. The doc was suitably impressed, and went to the Chief Medical "Officer" to get him to sign the certificate that I was due.
I sat outside that unmentionable @rsehole's office for fifteen minutes listening to the furious yelling match that went on inside seeing my career going down the pan.
The young doc eventually came out looking very shocked, wiped his brow, and told me he had laid his career on the line for my Class 1. It seems that despite convincingly passing the peak flow test the LEMON would not countenance me having a medical due to past asthma, cleared up a decade previously.
They say old crabs never die, they just stink worse and worse - and here let me apologise to all decent RAF people out there - I have the same respect for you as I have for pongos, even, but even you will admit that there was (I hate to think there still is...) a certain type of crusty old crab that just would not change his stubborn, institutionalised mind for anything, let alone evidence. That bastard stank, believe me - and had it not been for the heroic action of the young (Ex RAF) doctor who fought my side so bravely - and he really did put his career on the line judging from the furious yelling that went on behind the Chief Medical ********'s office door, I would not be here to this day as an airline Captain with no hint of that childhood asthma ever since. Dust mites still give me grief in high concentrations, pollen seldom does.
The moral seems to be that there is life after childhood Asthma, but you may need to fight your corner, and fight hard to achieve it. If it genuinely does not affect you, then fight your corner!
There is (apparently) also considerable disagreement in medical circles about the seriousness of this. My experience was that having gone by pubescence it gave no further problems, but that preconcieved opinions based on apparently not-a-lot but "accepted wisdom" (according to my Percival doctor friend) can be a real sticking-point. Again, if you really are clear of it, fight your corner.
My experience was also that (here, as in so many other situations) the RN is vastly more practical than their light blue cousins, who despite all this have some damned fine doctors. Just avoid the ones named after citrus fruit.
But I wish I remembered the name of that brave fellow who shouted at his boss for fifteen minutes so I could have a career, and came damn near ending his own. I'd like to buy him lunch!
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 17th Aug 2008 at 16:38.
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I could never be aircrew as I'm colour blind and in any case I don't want to fly, far too dangerous - all those smelly, noisy aeroplanes waking you up at dawn. But I did join the RAF as a Boy Entrant in 1959 and managed to serve for 12 years. I'd had infantile asthma & eczema. but these disappeared with puberty. However the asthma kicked back in very hard just before my 12 years were up. At the time I was attached to the Army and being treated by HMS Drake so I found myself probably the only person in the RAF who was officially "unfit for sea-going duty".
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Since when has selection for anything been inclusive? Oh ok maybe local authority etc. but for a highly prized job like chucking heavy metal around the sky? We have to have a way of cutting through the piles of applications. When I joined up, they wanted competant chaps who would fit in. People Like Us, thankfully the RAF has changed a bit since then.
Me I use very arbitrary criteria when I have to hack through the undergrowth. When you lot are looking for civvy posts, get your spelling and grammar right. Oh and choose a nice business envelope. I chuck out little blue ones
Me I use very arbitrary criteria when I have to hack through the undergrowth. When you lot are looking for civvy posts, get your spelling and grammar right. Oh and choose a nice business envelope. I chuck out little blue ones
Last edited by effortless; 19th Aug 2008 at 06:47.
Psychophysiological entity
I've mentioned this before, but I was excused all sports at school due sudden reactive asthma and no doubt having cats in me bed at night exacerbated the nighttime attacks.
I stayed fit by rowing in a fast flowing backwater...for years, climbing trees and generally making a nuisance of myself like a lot of kids in postwar Britain. The attacks were sudden and 'timed out' in about an hour.
Judo at 18 helped a lot, and running was a bit of a gamble, but warm air was not so bad. Then I wanted to fly.
I can't remember being asked, but I might have been, anyway, by then the asthma was just something that I sent away with a miniature spray.
As an avid anti-smoker I hate to say this, but smoking a pipe and Cuban cigars seemed to make my 'systems' say. "Oh, to hell with it, if he's going to do that, why should we react to a nice bit of cold air, or some honest dust." The problem stopped dead for 40 years.
At thirty I was doing 3 nights a week at judo,and some karate. I started really running for the first time at 31. At 60, I was still lumbering my 200lbs along the beach and running up the 113 steps to a grand finale. Not a squeak. Then I f
ed my back up and the running stopped. It changed my whole life and to add to this I got some symptoms of asthma again!
When I wanted to take a 'retirement job' flying regional turboprops, my GP was a bit hesitant about my medical. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it turned out that some of the anti-inflammatory drugs cause asthma. When finally I took the trouble to read the blurb in the pill box, there it was. Stop taking them, and the asthma stopped.
By the way, IMO Dust mites are a very real issue.
So, to sum up.
Kiddy asthma can go away.
Some drugs can cause asthma...turning it on like a switch.
It seems a heck of a shame for someone to miss 40 years of flying for something that can stop totally.
I stayed fit by rowing in a fast flowing backwater...for years, climbing trees and generally making a nuisance of myself like a lot of kids in postwar Britain. The attacks were sudden and 'timed out' in about an hour.
Judo at 18 helped a lot, and running was a bit of a gamble, but warm air was not so bad. Then I wanted to fly.
I can't remember being asked, but I might have been, anyway, by then the asthma was just something that I sent away with a miniature spray.
As an avid anti-smoker I hate to say this, but smoking a pipe and Cuban cigars seemed to make my 'systems' say. "Oh, to hell with it, if he's going to do that, why should we react to a nice bit of cold air, or some honest dust." The problem stopped dead for 40 years.
At thirty I was doing 3 nights a week at judo,and some karate. I started really running for the first time at 31. At 60, I was still lumbering my 200lbs along the beach and running up the 113 steps to a grand finale. Not a squeak. Then I f
ed my back up and the running stopped. It changed my whole life and to add to this I got some symptoms of asthma again!When I wanted to take a 'retirement job' flying regional turboprops, my GP was a bit hesitant about my medical. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it turned out that some of the anti-inflammatory drugs cause asthma. When finally I took the trouble to read the blurb in the pill box, there it was. Stop taking them, and the asthma stopped.
By the way, IMO Dust mites are a very real issue.
So, to sum up.
Kiddy asthma can go away.
Some drugs can cause asthma...turning it on like a switch.
It seems a heck of a shame for someone to miss 40 years of flying for something that can stop totally.
been there, done that...
Binned from RAF selection board 1998, and couldn't even get a VGS medical so that had to stop, due to being honest about asthma.
Fast forward to 2005 application to NATS says you need a variation of a class 1 medical so I up fronted the £422 and got down to Gatwick.
It turns out I have no problems at all on that front (now I was honest again, but lets be clear that I thought about not being so honest).
A chat with the doc and I was issued with an unrestricted JAA Class 1 FCL. Flying career back ON, now almost there.
The CAA know all about the latest drugs for Asthma and they don't see it as a problem, so neither do I now.
It can be done
Fast forward to 2005 application to NATS says you need a variation of a class 1 medical so I up fronted the £422 and got down to Gatwick.
It turns out I have no problems at all on that front (now I was honest again, but lets be clear that I thought about not being so honest).
A chat with the doc and I was issued with an unrestricted JAA Class 1 FCL. Flying career back ON, now almost there.
The CAA know all about the latest drugs for Asthma and they don't see it as a problem, so neither do I now.
It can be done
