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Overturning medical waiver denial to continue with WOFT selection


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Long story short, I am currently AD military and selected for WOFT. Upon waiting to leave my current branch, my flight physical lapsed. When I re-did my flight physical, I was DQ'd for having spondyolisis. This was the first time I heard of having this and it wasn't an issue on my first physical. After seeing Ortho and having an MRI and Xray done, Ortho gave me the green light and said he didn't see any issues with me flying. I applied for a reconsideration and was denied again. I was told there is likely no chance of getting AERO to overturn the waiver.

Is there anything I can do to overturn this? My flight surgeon called AERO and has been pleading my case but no luck thus far. The same answer is, "He's not a trained asset yet so its a gamble to spend the money on someone with a pre-existing back condition." I checked the waiver guide and I am asymptomatic with no surgeries. Any advice, if there is any, would be greatly appreciated.

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Talk about a kick in the balls. Keep trying but understand that from the Army’s perspective it really isn’t worth the risk. You’re going to sit in a machine that specializes in vibrating good backs until they’re bad and you evidently are already started down that path. Good luck, hopefully you can work it out. 

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8 hours ago, RouterRanger said:

I guess what it comes down to is was there really a spondyolisis indicator there in the first place. Was it a mistake of there's seeing that? Also when you lapsed, did they make you do an Xray again?

I was told it must've been missed on the initial flight physical that was approved. When the physical lapsed and I re-did it, it came back as disqualified-incomplete. My flight surgeon said I needed to be seen and cleared by Chiro. The Chiro doc had me do an MRI and Xray, he said there is a very mild case of spondy there but he doest see it being an issue. My flight surgeon submitted the waiver but it was denied. We submitted a reconsideration based on my physical fitness scores and pleaded the case that I was asymptomatic but that one came back denied as well. 

I didn't have to do back XRays on the first physical I did. I was hoping there was a way I could possibly have the physical denial overturned but haven't had any luck. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

TBH man, I would keep trying. Have you attempted re-doing and submitting a flight phys from scratch from the same place and/or a different clinic to see if you can get it to slip through (and don't even mention that other thing we don't speak of?)

They definitely need pilots. Might as well keep trying.

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15 hours ago, RouterRanger said:

TBH man, I would keep trying. Have you attempted re-doing and submitting a flight phys from scratch from the same place and/or a different clinic to see if you can get it to slip through (and don't even mention that other thing we don't speak of?)

They definitely need pilots. Might as well keep trying.

I'm still trying. Unfortunately it's in AERO so it would be hard to not see by the approving authority. I reached out to my state officials to see if theres anything they can do. It's mainly trying to convince big Army that the money spent on sending me to flight school won't be wasted. Crazy enough, I did a flight physical with my current branch, Navy, and didn't need any waivers for medical. Cleared hot for flight duty form their standards.

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Its just crazy that they accepted you, and then changed their mind. I also got picked up close to a year after my first one and had to re-certify before going to WOCS, and I required an age waiver initially; safe to say I was also stressing, but my second one got through. I'd just keep doing it man. That or just show up as normal with your old one and be like "oops" and maybe they'll do a phys at Rucker? Who knows.

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On 1/11/2022 at 6:27 PM, RouterRanger said:

Its just crazy that they accepted you, and then changed their mind. I also got picked up close to a year after my first one and had to re-certify before going to WOCS, and I required an age waiver initially; safe to say I was also stressing, but my second one got through. I'd just keep doing it man. That or just show up as normal with your old one and be like "oops" and maybe they'll do a phys at Rucker? Who knows.

Thats the worst part about it, I would have rather they denied me before I submitted my package. Now its like they gave me a balloon, let me carry it around for a bit, and then popped it. I'm waiting on a reply back from the flight surgeons as to whether they will do another physical for me now that its been 6 months since my Xrays and MRI. Im hoping they will do one and submit for a reconsideration.

Are you going through flight school now?

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On 1/11/2022 at 9:27 PM, RouterRanger said:

Its just crazy that they accepted you, and then changed their mind. I also got picked up close to a year after my first one and had to re-certify before going to WOCS, and I required an age waiver initially; safe to say I was also stressing, but my second one got through. I'd just keep doing it man. That or just show up as normal with your old one and be like "oops" and maybe they'll do a phys at Rucker? Who knows.


Unfortunately they keep the records of your flight physicals forever. Last time I logged into AERO my first physical (a disqualification for vision) from 2004 was in there. 

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