I am currently on a 30 day dosage of buPROPion which my doctor prescribed to help me with an incredible amount of stress(short staffed IT department in a hospital during covid coupled with losing my father 6 months ago). I am curious how this will effect my medical certification. In my searches on google I am getting a lot of mixed results. This is not something I am planning on refilling when the 30 days is done as I am going to be leaving my current employer in the near future. Hopefully to start at ATP. I actually have my medical scheduled for April 9th and I scheduled it before I started the medication. Should I just cancel and wait until I am off the meds?
It is not as simple as just going off the meds. The thing is that you were prescribed them for a reason, for some underlying condition that you were not able to handle without the meds. You will need to disclose this to the FAA and they will have questions about it. This is not to say that you will not eventually get approved, but it will be tougher. You have to remember that pilots also deal with extremely stressful situations, sometimes with life and death hanging in the balance. A pilot needs to be able to handle those situations without medicines, so the FAA will be asking about your situation.
Your best bet (and the only proper path) is to report the medicine use and the underlying condition to your medical examiner and work with them to get this resolved. My suspicions that your medical will initially be deferred pending a review and further questions from the FAA, but this does not mean that it will be out right denied.
Thanks for the quick reply Chris. I believe I am perfectly capable of handling the stress that comes my way and I feel like I don’t NEED to take this medication. I am only taking it because my doctor recommended it. I will discuss this all with my FAA doctor when the time comes. Thanks again for replying so quickly.
Please reread what Chris said. If in fact you didn’t need it why did you even speak to a Dr about it? They clearly thought you did and you did enough to take it. It’s now a matter for the FAA and your AME.
I do not think you fully grasped what I was saying. For whatever reasons, you sought out a doctor about your stress. The Doctor diagnosed you with something and then prescribed an anti-depressant, which you then took. Whether you now think you need it or not, the diagnosis has been made and the FAA will have questions about it.
Again, not saying this is the end, just that you will have to go through the FAA’s process.