Class III medical, Sport Pilot Medical, Crohn's disease

[[email protected]]

Hello,
I'm looking for some "what would you do if you were in my shoes"
opinions.

I have about 100 hours as a private pilot, but I have not flown since
2000. I would like to get back into private recreational flying, and
I'm trying to decide what to do about my expired class III medical. I
have no aspiraitons of getting a commercial rating, now that I have
little bit of money, I just want to get back into fun flying around the
patch and weekend trips to cool places.

Here's the situation...and yes, some of you may consider it to much
information, my apologies in advance:
in 2002, I ended up in the emergency room with a terribly painful
abscess in the rectal area, after about a year, including 5 surgeries I
was pretty much all better. During this time, I was diagnosed with
Crohn's disease through circumstancial evidence (symptoms, etc.) and
some barium x-rays. (basically, the doctors felt they had to have some
sort of reason for this abscess that wouldn't go away) During that
year, they had me on all sorts of different drugs, which really just
made me sicker. So, in 2003, after switching to a new surgeon and
doctor, I was feeling good and basically told them that I didn't think
I had Crohn's and that I didn't want to take any more drugs. So, I
stopped taking the drugs and have been doing great ever since.
In the last few months I finally had a colonscopy. The doctor took
biopsies and found no signs of Crohn's at all. he was very suprised by
this, as even in patients who's Crohn's disease is dormant, it still
shows up on the biopsies. This was the first time I had a colonscopy,
which by many is considered to be the only definite way to diagnose
Crohn's. I also had more barium xrays, and a capsule endoscopy (you
swallow a little camera pill, and it takes pictures all the way down),
both of these tests also showed no signs of Crohn's disease. For those
not aware, Crohn's disease is a digestive/immune system disease that
can lead to a host of problems in those systems. Having it means an
automatic referral to the FAA for your medical certificate.

So, here's the question...do I go ahead and go in for the Class III
medical exam, which will result in a referral to the FAA and risk a
denial? Or shall I just shoot for flying within the Sport Pilot rules
and regs and use my drivers license as my medical. My understanding is
that this would be legal, becuase As long as I don't currently have a
condition that would preclude me from flying, the dirvers license is
all I need. I'm not worried about the restrictions of the sport pilot
(2 passnegers, restricted aircraft, day flying only, etc.), but If I
could get my class III that would be nice, so that I woudn;t have to
even think about the restrictions.

Any thoughts, opinions, experiences or comments would be welcome!

Thanks

ndrkk

[John T]

Definitely check with AOPA, and do a search on their and the FAA website
while you're waiting for a reply.

You will want copies of all the test results though, if you do go for a
class 3.

John

[Mike 'Flyin'8']

Well, I can speak from experience with the Crohns Disease thing. Was
diagnosed with this 5 years ago. I started learning to fly about 2
years ago and went for my medical... At this time I was uncertain what
would happen. Well, I listed Crohns Disease and the associated
medications: Asacol, Imuran and Remicade. Of course, the medical was
sent to OKC and I was surprised. What happened from there was a
request from OKC to get a letter from my attending physician stating a
prognosis and treatment plan. That is all it took for them to issue
my 3rd Class Medical. On my medical it does say "Not valid for any
other class after 2006." Not exactly sure what that means, but since
I was never denied a medical, I can still switch to sport pilot if I
choose. At least that is the interpretation from a few people I have
spoken with.


As for the Crhons Diagnosis, like you I went through a series of tests
including many of the same you mention.. and then some. All of these
were inconclusive in my opinion, but the attending physician did make
the diagnosis of CD. I was still not believing it.... My sister, also
a CD and UC patient, is a nurse for a IBD clinic and mentioned an easy
accurate blood test for a definite diagnosis. It is a lab located in
San Diego called Promethius Labs. They have a test which is 99.9%
accurate in the determination of CD and UC. If you still question the
diagnosis, it is a worthwhile test and will answer that question with
near 100% certainty.

Here is a link to their website:
http://www.prometheuslabs.com

Good Luck and feel free to contact me if you need further information
or have additional questions.



Mike Alexander
PP-ASEL
Temecula, CA
See my online aerial photo album at
http://flying.4alexanders.com

[ls]

> So, here's the question...do I go ahead and go in for the Class III
> medical exam, which will result in a referral to the FAA and risk a
> denial? Or shall I just shoot for flying within the Sport Pilot rules
> and regs and use my drivers license as my medical. My understanding is
> that this would be legal, becuase As long as I don't currently have a
> condition that would preclude me from flying, the dirvers license is
> all I need. I'm not worried about the restrictions of the sport pilot
> (2 passnegers, restricted aircraft, day flying only, etc.), but If I
> could get my class III that would be nice, so that I woudn;t have to
> even think about the restrictions.
>
> Any thoughts, opinions, experiences or comments would be welcome!
>
> Thanks
>
> ndrkk

This is exactly what I did and it's easy/legal. In Aug. 2000 I came down
with an inner ear problem that was misdiagnosed as a mild form of
something called Meniere's disease (the astronaut Alan Shepard had
this). It has finally turned out that I don't have that, since my
symptomology was all wrong. No one is really sure what the problem was,
but a couple of the specialists I went to think that instead I had
either an infection of some kind or a toxic episode. I'm largely
recovered now with only very slight symptoms remaining.

In any case, the paper trail from all this is 2NM thick, 100NM wide and
1000NM long with all kinds of tests and doctors and everything running
around in it all......

However, I had simply let my medical expire at the time and never went
back to renew it (since I'd grounded myself anyway for about the first
year).

So I'm now legally flying under the Sport Pilot rule with my DL. My
aircraft is an experimental that fits well within the SP LSA limitations
so there isn't any need for the class III.

In my case, all it took was a BFR from a local CFI and I'm good to go
(well I do need a tailwheel endorsement, since my airplane is a Kolb
Firestar II, which is a taildragger. So that's next).

We have a couple locals who are in similar situations and are planning
to the same thing.....

LS
N646F