1st Class, Should I Go to Wingman Med?

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kylerb

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kylerb
Hello everyone, another 1st Class Medical Question. Currently 17 years old and wanting to become a commercial pilot. I am friends with a commercial pilot Right now and he has been tons of help with ame, medicals, and FAA Questions. He recommended I call an AME to ask questions about where to go from here, or Wingman Med, however, I'm considering just paying the $1800 Wingman Med Fee and having them help me. I had a past with anxiety/depression and took medicine but have not in a year or so and have been super stable, and had/have..??? supraventricular tachycardia. I had 2 ablations because the first one was not successful. I passed out a while ago once but I swear that it was from getting up too fast. Besides that, I have never had any symptoms the only reason I even found out I had it was from my Apple Wach. I know the FAA doesn't care what I think it was from I'm just mentioning it. I am a very active and happy person is this something I could show/prove? Or do I have no chance of getting a 1st class? I know people recommend talking to @bbchien so there's the @ if you can help if anyone needs any more information to help decide I would be happy to provide it. Thank you, everyone!
 
Some others on PoA ****ed bbchien off, so he may not respond for a while.
Google Dr Bruce Chien, Aeromedical

You need to be straight, up front, don't ever hide any medications you have taken or any health or mental/depression related events.
You have some issues that need to be resolved, it will not be a cheap and easy task.

Good luck to you
 
There's some missing information (if you're comfortable sharing) that could be helpful for others here:

(1) What was your actual diagnosis re: anxiety + depression? If you don't have it handy, you can usually find it in the prescribing physician's report / your medical records, which you can request. That will help us understand how complex this piece is (i.e., Major Depressive Disorder is a harder problem to solve than Generalized Anxiety Disorder.)

(2) Do you see a psychiatrist, therapist, or other medical professional who can attest to your mood/stability? That will be important to try and obtain, as they will value that much, much more than self-reporting.

(3) What was the medication prescribed? Was your stoppage documented with the prescribing physician?

Re: Advocacy groups: Personally, I am a fan of some of the aviation medical consulting groups, but in some cases, they can be overkill for some people where a Senior AME on a consultation-only basis would be significantly cheaper and more helpful. That said, I do think you have a complex (but potentially workable) case — one that may benefit from keeping one of the advocacy groups on retainer.

My preference (on advocacy groups specifically) is AMAS in Colorado Springs because I used them before, but I also looked at Left Seat in Oklahoma City and they seemed good too. I would talk to both and see if they have experience in similar cases. I think LeftSeat offers a free consult (don't quote me on that), and I know AMAS offers an email/phone consult for $50. Both could be good entry points.

A consult-only with a really good Senior AME could be good too. Dr. Chien is very knowledgable, but folks like @lbfjrmd could be helpful as well.

All this being said, you should prepare for a long road ahead. This process will likely be lengthy and involve significant documentation, testing, and potentially additional evaluations (e.g., HIMS AME review, FAA cardiology panel review.) Nonetheless, I would work towards your medical before you work towards your license (my two cents... just so you don't invest in flight training before you're certain you can get a medical issued.)
 
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start cheaper.....contact and AME and schedule a CONSULTATION. That will give you the details you need to determine the next step before you start spending lots of money. If the AME will not do a consult, find another AME.
 
From the cheap seats:

Anxiety and/or Depression w/medicated treatement
Complex cardiology (tachycardia, syncope)

Before I engaged an advocate, I’d interview several Senior AMEs to see what experience they have navigating someone with this kind of history thru the process. Then I’d follow up with a consult from one or two of them to see what they would recommend you do before you submit a MedXpress application (or even submit one at all).

The cardiology will likely need a CVE; requirements here


The FAA’s decision matrix for syncope is here:



Your PCM can help you better understand what diagnoses exist in your record, but a cardiologist is going to have to do the CVE and possibly other tests to the FAA’s satisfaction.

Depending on the health insurance you have, these tests may or may not be covered.
 
Look up Anthony Ison, people who I work with owe their jobs to him, read his reviews and go from there. He personally helped me and I can’t praise him enough.
 
MVM19 said:
There's some missing information (if you're comfortable sharing) that could be helpful for others here:

(1) What was your actual diagnosis re: anxiety + depression? If you don't have it handy, you can usually find it in the prescribing physician's report / your medical records, which you can request. That will help us understand how complex this piece is (i.e., Major Depressive Disorder is a harder problem to solve than Generalized Anxiety Disorder.)

(2) Do you see a psychiatrist, therapist, or other medical professional who can attest to your mood/stability? That will be important to try and obtain, as they will value that much, much more than self-reporting.

(3) What was the medication prescribed? Was your stoppage documented with the prescribing physician?

Re: Advocacy groups: Personally, I am a fan of some of the aviation medical consulting groups, but in some cases, they can be overkill for some people where a Senior AME on a consultation-only basis would be significantly cheaper and more helpful. That said, I do think you have a complex (but potentially workable) case — one that may benefit from keeping one of the advocacy groups on retainer.

My preference (on advocacy groups specifically) is AMAS in Colorado Springs because I used them before, but I also looked at Left Seat in Oklahoma City and they seemed good too. I would talk to both and see if they have experience in similar cases. I think LeftSeat offers a free consult (don't quote me on that), and I know AMAS offers an email/phone consult for $50. Both could be good entry points.

A consult-only with a really good Senior AME could be good too. Dr. Chien is very knowledgable, but folks like @lbfjrmd could be helpful as well.

All this being said, you should prepare for a long road ahead. This process will likely be lengthy and involve significant documentation, testing, and potentially additional evaluations (e.g., HIMS AME review, FAA cardiology panel review.) Nonetheless, I would work towards your medical before you work towards your license (my two cents... just so you don't invest in flight training before you're certain you can get a medical issued.)
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Wow thank you very much, I don't know if I have a medical report of my diagnosis since it was only a private therapist that didn't work with the hospital, I ran through all of my charts and didn't see anything however, I will continue to work on it. My last time seeing them was around a year ago however, would you recommend going back to get a checkup so she could attest to my mood? Or would it look bad going back to one since they may have concerns about me "needing one"? I had 2 medicines prescribed A low dosage daily use of Sertaline, and Metaprolol for the heart. I stopped taking the metoprolol after the first surgery until my implanted loop heart recorder showed that it came back, I had no idea it came back (The SVT) due to me never having a symptom as I said earlier, So I got the surgery again. I stopped taking the sertraline before I stopped seeing the therapist, that was documented.
 
AchillesLastStand said:
Can’t speak for the other ones, but AMAS is awesome. Most of the airlines use them via their unions.
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So AMAS is just a phone consultation service that recommends what to do? How does the process usually work with them?
 
kylerb said:
Wow thank you very much, I don't know if I have a medical report of my diagnosis since it was only a private therapist that didn't work with the hospital, I ran through all of my charts and didn't see anything however, I will continue to work on it. My last time seeing them was around a year ago however, would you recommend going back to get a checkup so she could attest to my mood? Or would it look bad going back to one since they may have concerns about me "needing one"? I had 2 medicines prescribed A low dosage daily use of Sertaline, and Metaprolol for the heart. I stopped taking the metoprolol after the first surgery until my implanted loop heart recorder showed that it came back, I had no idea it came back (The SVT) due to me never having a symptom as I said earlier, So I got the surgery again. I stopped taking the sertraline before I stopped seeing the therapist, that was documented.
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It's hard for me to say for sure on the definitive path forward, and I am wary of giving incorrect advice that causes more complications in your medical. I would recommend talking to an AME or advocacy group as they're the foremost experts. The good news is that Sertaline/Zoloft is one of the allowed medications in the eyes of the FAA, and even though you're not taking it anymore, I personally think that's helpful in your case.

That said, I view it as low-risk to:

(1) Call the prescribing physician and see what their diagnosis was. Unless your therapist was a psychiatrist (not a psychologist), they couldn't prescribe you the medication — so I'd backtrack and figure out who prescribed you the meds (check the bottle) and request the diagnosis from that person.
(2) Call or email the therapist and ask for their diagnosis. Even though they're a private therapist, they may have filed a diagnosis. If you used insurance, they almost certainly filed a diagnosis for reimbursement. If you paid with cash, it's possible they did not diagnose you. It just depends. But they can clarify this for sure.

Neither of these should be viewed negatively in the eyes of the FAA, in my opinion. You're just gathering information about your past visits.

On AMAS: I would check out their website. They have both the retained services portion of their work (similar to Wingman Med) — where they guide you and act as your advocate to the FAA during the entire process — and also a phone/email consultation like I mentioned earlier, which is where you lay out your case and ask questions and they have a 2-day window where you can go back and forth on questions. The former is more expensive and like I said, it is sometimes overkill for certain cases where the case is simple and an AME could help.

While I've focused on the anxiety/depression piece of your case (since it's the piece I personally know more about), it's worth noting that I do think your cardiac history will be the more uphill battle. I still think there's a chance, but it will be a long road to work through.

Re: next steps — I really think an AME on a consultation-only basis (do not open an application with MedXpress) or advocacy group will be your best chance to make sure you don't misstep on this.
 
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