$79 Easy DOT Physical Exam Grand Junction Colorado

Reducing Stress While Driving

Reducing stress while driving is important for truck drivers to work on. However, it can be hard to manage stress while being behind the wheel for many hours and dealing with the pressures off delivery schedules.

There are two types of stress: Acute and Chronic. Chronic stress is the worst and can lead to serious health problems such as heart disease, obesity, depression, and high blood pressure. There are ways to detect stress though. For more information on stress read this article.

Signs of Stress (emotionally or physically):

  • Unable to focus
  • Worried
  • Angry
  • Depressed
  • back pain
  • headaches
  • tense muscles
  • weight gain or loss
  • sleeping problems

There are also ways for truck drivers to deal with stress in a healthy manner to prevent serious health conditions from arising.

Reducing stress while driving
Reducing stress while driving

 

Tip #1: Quality Sleep – Truck drivers should be getting good quality sleep in order to for the body to be rested and strengthen the immune system. Drivers should aim to get 6 to 8 hours of restful sleep each night.

Tip #2: Physical Activity – Physical activity provides many positive health benefits for our bodies. It also releases endorphins which can energize you and give you a happy feeling. Drivers should strive to get between 15-30 minutes each day by simply just walking around the truck stop and getting the heart  rate up.

Tip #3: Healthy Diet – Healthy foods can help your physical health as well as your brain health. Drivers should try to include a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits. Doing this will limit the need and want for unhealthy foods such as hamburgers and french fries. Also, drivers should try to consume more water and avoid soft drinks to reduce the risk of serious health problems.

Tip#4: Route Planning – Planning your trip ahead of time can help reduce stress. Drivers should have a GPS, smartphone or trucker’s road atlas to ensure you get accurate directions and can allow yourself to take a break at appropriate times without being stressed out that you will miss appointments for deliveries or pick-ups.

For a few other tips on reducing your stressing while on the road check out this article.

We know you’re busy and when you need a DOT physical we’re here to help.  If you’re able to pay online and register this saves you $10 and a bunch of time when you arrive to your exam. Reducing stress while driving is important and we wish to help by providing an easy process for your DOT physical in Grand Junction.

Reducing Stress While Driving plus Schedule Your DOT Physical Exam in Grand Junction

Here is how the process works:

  1. Register and pay for your exam by clicking here
  2. Arrive ready to complete minimal paperwork
  3. We’ll do a thorough examination and determine your certification length
  4. You have the option of having us recommend wellness strategies that’ll improve your health

To make your life easier you can register and pay for your DOT Physical in Grand Junction, Colorado at www.dotgj.com plus save $

 

 

How Sugar Affects Your DOT Exam

How sugar affects your DOT exam and your certification length is important to know.  More importantly, how Insulin affects your DOT exam is critical if you are an Insulin dependent diabetic.  Urine Screen

When commercial drivers present for the DOT physical they are required to provide a urine sample.  The sample always is testing for medical conditions.  The specific things the medical urine sample tests for are: blood, protein, sugar and specific gravity (a measurement of how concentrated the sample is).  In some circumstances your employer may have you do a toxicology urine test, otherwise known as a ‘drug test’, but the toxicology urine sample is not required for your medical certificate.

Urine stick with sugar/glucose and a normal stick
Urine stick with sugar/glucose and a normal stick

The presence of sugar in your urine indicates there is a problem.  It does not automatically give you the diagnosis of diabetes nor automatically require you to take insulin.  The urine portion is considered a screening evaluation.  It is not diagnostic, meaning it cannot say for certain you have a named medical condition.

Your examiner will require:

  1. further questioning regarding your food and fluids intake to see if that explains why there is sugar in your urine
  2. a more detailed family history regarding diabetes
  3. more specific diagnostic tests to make sure you’re healthy and do not have a sugar handling disease

After the examiner is certain you’re safe to operate vehicles on motorways they’ll determine your certification length.  If you have the diagnosis of diabetes that may impact the length of your certification, but more than anything what medications you take influences your certification length.

Oral medications may reduce the card length your examiner give you.  If you’d like to see what the FMCSA says about earning a two year card you can click here.

Insulin is another story.  The FMSCA has specific requirements for people dependent on Insulin.  Please click here for more information on the Insulin waiver program.

How Sugar Affects Your DOT Exam – We’ve put together some great tips on Diabetes Prevention and welcome you to visit that post.

We know you’re busy and when you need a DOT physical we’re here to help.  If you’re able to pay online and register this saves you $10 and a bunch of time when you arrive to your exam.

Here is how the process works:

Learn How Sugar Affects Your DOT Exam plus Schedule Your DOT Physical Exam in Grand Junction

Here is how the process works:

  1. Register and pay for your exam by clicking here
  2. Arrive ready to complete minimal paperwork
  3. We’ll do a thorough examination and determine your certification length
  4. You have the option of having us recommend wellness strategies that’ll improve your health

To make your life easier you can register and pay for your DOT Physical in Grand Junction, Colorado at www.dotgj.com plus save $

Diabetes Prevention

Diabetes Prevention
Diabetes Prevention

Diabetes prevention is a big priority especially if you have an increased risk of diabetes based on family history or being overweight. If you start your prevention now it will not only help reduce your likelihood of developing diabetes but it will also help you avoid serious health complications later on and make for an easy, stress free DOT physical.

Prevention Tip #1: Increase your intake of fiber – this will help improve your blood sugar control, promote weight loss, and reduce your risk of heart disease

Prevention Tip #2: Eat whole grains – this will help maintain your blood sugar levels.  Look for “whole” on the packaging to ensure you are getting the right grains and also aim to make half of your grains whole grains

Prevention Tip #3: Increase your physical activity – doing this will help you lower your blood sugar, lose weight, and boost your sensitivity to insulin (insulin helps keep your blood sugar in a normal range)

Prevention Tip #4: Lose weight – exercising regularly will not only help you lose the extra weight but it will also do what was mentioned in tip #3.

Prevention Tip #5: Forgo those fad diets – fad diets will help you lose weight but it will not help you maintain that weight so skip the diets and start adding a healthy variety in your eating choices and consider portion control.

Diabetes Prevention
Diabetes Prevention

Diabetes prevention has been shown to work. In this article from the New York Times, it was stated that of the adults at risk for Type 2 diabetes in this clinical trial from 2002, there was a reduced incidence of diabetes by 58% just by being involved in a lifestyle modification program and the weight loss from the program. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention is hoping on board and in 2012 they started a National Diabetes Prevention Program.

For more information on the long term benefits of diabetes prevention from lifestyle modifications check out this article.

We know you’re busy and when you need a DOT physical we’re here to help.  If you’re able to pay online and register this saves you $10 and a bunch of time when you arrive to your exam. Reducing stress while driving is important and we wish to help by providing an easy process for your DOT physical in Grand Junction.

Diabetes Prevention plus Schedule Your DOT Physical Exam in Grand Junction

Here is how the process works:

  1. Register and pay for your exam by clicking here
  2. Arrive ready to complete minimal paperwork
  3. We’ll do a thorough examination and determine your certification length
  4. You have the option of having us recommend wellness strategies that’ll improve your health

To make your life easier you can register and pay for your DOT Physical in Grand Junction, Colorado at www.dotgj.com plus save $

Sleep Apnea Prevention

Sleep apnea is a restriction of the airway in the back of the throat either partly or completely restricted. When this happens you may observe some sleepiness, snoring, and obesity which could prevent you from getting a two year certificate at you DOT physical. However, there are some sleep apnea prevention tips to ensure that sleep apnea is not an issue.Sleep Apnea Prevention

Lifestyle Modifications –

  1. Weight Loss
  2. Reduce alcohol consumption
  3. Avoid medicines that make you tired
  4. Quit smoking
  5. Reducing blood pressure
  6. Sleep on your side instead of your back in order to help keep your throat open – Read more at Sleep Health Foundation
Sleep Apnea Prevention
Sleep Apnea Prevention

Making lifestyle modifications will help prevent sleep apnea and reduce the likelihood of needing a CPAP, mouth pieces, or surgery but should be discussed with your doctor in order to make sure you have the correct diagnosis. To understand more about how sleep apnea is treated read this article from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

If your doctor suggests you have Obstructive Sleep Apnea they’ll require you to have a sleep study to measure the quality of sleep.  If you’re currently using a CPAP at night because you have a diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea you will want to print off your you can read this forum to see if there are any good suggestions or call your medical device company.  They’ll know how to print if off for you.

We know you’re busy and when you need a DOT physical we’re here to help.  If you’re able to pay online and register this saves you $10 and a bunch of time when you arrive to your exam. Reducing stress while driving is important and we wish to help by providing an easy process for your DOT physical in Grand Junction.

Learn Sleep Apnea Prevention plus Schedule Your DOT Physical Exam in Grand Junction

Here is how the process works:

  1. Register and pay for your exam by clicking here
  2. Arrive ready to complete minimal paperwork
  3. We’ll do a thorough examination and determine your certification length
  4. You have the option of having us recommend wellness strategies that’ll improve your health

To make your life easier you can register and pay for your DOT Physical in Grand Junction, Colorado at www.dotgj.com plus save $

 

Honesty at your DOT Physical

Honesty at Your DOT Physical

Were you aware that your honesty at your DOT physical is a life or death matter?  Most vehicles used by commercial drivers are significantly larger than family transportation vehicles and when driven by an unhealthy driver can become a deadly vehicle.

Please watch this CBS story for examples of how dishonest drivers have caused significant harm and death to other motorists.

It mentions how in 4 states there are close to 100 accidents per year caused by medical problems.  This is far too many and our whether you like it or not the federal government and medical providers are paying attention to these statistics.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea is one of the biggest concerns for the FMCSA and certified medical examiners.  This is a condition that causes pauses in breathing at night or shallow breathing.  This leads to poor sleep quality and sleepy drivers who have a hard time staying awake at the wheel.

The physical characteristics that your medical examiner will pay attention to are:

  1. Your weight & your height.  The shorter and rounder you are the more likely there will a physical obstruction in your airway.
  2. Your blood pressure.  An elevated blood pressure alone doesn’t mean someone has sleep apnea but when combined with other characteristics it usually suggests a diagnosis.
  3. Large neck girth.  A large bulking neck is usually an outward physical sign of an airway that is too constricted to allow for quality oxygen exchange.
Honesty at your DOT Physical
Honesty at your DOT Physical

If your doctor suggests you have Obstructive Sleep Apnea they’ll require you to have a sleep study to measure the quality of sleep.  If you’re currently using a CPAP at night because you have a diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea you will want to print off your you can read this forum to see if there are any good suggestions or call your medical device company.  They’ll know how to print if off for you.

We’re here to help you with you DOT physical in Grand Junction Colorado.  We want to see people healthy and working.  We do our best to make your DOT physical a stress free event every two years.  Please stay tuned for ways to help your Obstructive Sleep Apnea naturally.

Schedule Your DOT Physical Exam in Grand Junction

Here is how the process works:

  1. Register and pay for your exam by clicking here
  2. Arrive ready to complete minimal paperwork
  3. We’ll do a thorough examination and determine your certification length
  4. You have the option of having us recommend wellness strategies that’ll improve your health

To make your life easier you can register and pay for your DOT Physical in Grand Junction, Colorado at www.dotgj.com plus save $

Company Info

First Aid Occupational Health
2140 N 12th
Grand Junction, CO 81501

tel. (970) 712-8193

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