medical appeal

[rick1490]

hi, wondering if any one could give me some advice on appealing.

i applied to the army in summer 2009 and failed to get in, basically the history behind this is that when i was a child i had two or three faints (blackouts) and my mother took me to local chrildrens hospital,the doctor never diagnosed me but said it was childhood epilepsy but after my last blackout the doctor was saying then it was along the lines of temproal lobe epilepsy, doc chucks me on loads of anti epilepsy drugs which do bad for me and have plenty of side effects on me and by time i turn 16 hospital discharge me as i havent seen doctor in 6 years and i take myself off the medication which i have been off now for over five years and blackouts, i have not suffered at all since i was a kid and grew out of all the symptons through puberty. my medical notes are a bit all over the place seen as the doc i had was a bit unproffesional and didnt handle me well. when i applied i was refered to a neurologist who said no after 10 minutes, he had no substantial evidence and very few notes, questions didnt go into depth andnever gave me the chance.i have done my own research and my case seems very much to be childhood epilepsy (benign roldanic is acceptable by the army) how can i get this across to the army and what is your advice to me on how to deal with my appeal how to format it and what i could do toadd to the appeal?

all help is greatly appreciated,
thnks

[Tab]

If you have had epilepsy, then with the noise from explosions and the bright muzzle flashes are not the thing for you. Your environment may have given you the good grace to not have had it during this time, but when you are tired and mentally exhausted then it could flare up.

[rick1490]

nobody knows if it was epilepsy, just childhood faints, i understand what you are trying to say but i cant suffer from something i never had, there are other people in my family who had the same childhood faints and served in iraq and northern ireland and never suffered as they had grown out of the childhood faints, ive weighed up all the factors and i would not put myself at risk or others if a blackout was possible, the fact is that i have grown out of the blackouts and this is why i asked for help, i need to know some advice on how to head the appeal and what steps i can take to ad to the appeal, i appreciate what your saying but in my unique case it isnt really applicable, i just would like some constructive advice, any help is greatly appreciated

[Tab]

You asked for advice, and I am sorry I could not be more positive, but the Armed Forces would put them selfs under the spot light if you were badly injured through a return of epilepsy knowing that you had it before. Okay you might get through your enlistment okay but in the front line when one is not only physically tired but mentally shattered no one can say that it will not return under this sort of prussure

[Hyperlithe]

Apologies I cant be more positive, but with record numbers of people applying to join the military, at a time when we're taking a hit on redundancies and having to reduce our numbers, the recruiters can afford to set the bar really high.
You can say that you have grown out of these black-outs, but there is absolutely no way that you or even a medical professional could guarantee that it will never happen again if you were put in the situations we sometimes find ourselves in...

Appeal by all means, but keep your expectations realistic.

[rick1490]

i totally understand and i am not one of these young kids that lie to themselves, i fully know and fully expect to fail in my appeal, but i will never know till i give it a go, and everything you say is true and i fully understand that the odds are stacked up against me, i appreciate that but i already know all that you are saying, i just wanted any tips on how to head my appeal, sorry to bother you.

thanks

[Hyperlithe]

I wish you the best of luck Rick, apparently one in a million chances happen nine times out of ten...

Don't have any experience of appeals though, or know who to point you towards, sorry!

[rick1490]

thank you for your support all comments from you greatly appreciated

all the best x

[Nero]

You've nothing to lose so just appeal.

The opinions of the people on this forum hold no weight

[Hyperlithe]

Apart from being the opinions of current and former serving military personnel obviously...

[Nero]

Apart from being the opinions of current and former serving military personnel obviously...

Woops was on my phone and it sent it without me finishing it!

I meant the opinions on this site hold no weight, obviously they are informed opinions but they will not affect your appeal chances, so the best thing to do is just to appeal anyway!

[Hyperlithe]

None of us have said don't appeal, we just wanted to make sure Rick had a realistic view of the likely outcome. Our opinions are based not only on our own military experience but on several years of moderating these boards and seeing the result of other appeals.
No offence taken mind!

[Nero]

None of us have said don't appeal, we just wanted to make sure Rick had a realistic view of the likely outcome. Our opinions are based not only on our own military experience but on several years of moderating these boards and seeing the result of other appeals.
No offence taken mind!

Fair enough. Just implying that what he has read here may not be the conclusion.

Best of luck mate!

[Tab]

Also it should be remembered that they have a choice these days of the fittest people around