ptomblin's Journal: Grounded, part II

I was looking at the AOPA web site to see if there were any drugs I could take for my chronic pain that wouldn't disqualify me from flying, when I saw the following little bit of bad news.

Of the seven doctors at the FAA's Aeromedical branch who review special issuance medicals (like mine), three of them are reservists who were activated for the Iraq war. So the current backlog is causing them to take 12-14 weeks to get around to review applications. So even if they don't decide they need more information or further tests, I'm grounded until almost Christmas. Dammit.