Misdiagnosis of exercise induced asthma

Melmr

Melmr

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Joined
Dec 17, 2019
Messages
21
My daughter earned a 4 year AROTC scholarship last month. She is a lifelong cheerleader and had issues with coughing during exercise in middle school. Her first diagnosis was exercise induced asthma and she was prescribed and inhaler. She never had trouble breathing just a cough. The inhaler didn’t really help with the cough so we went to a couple other specialists trying to figure out what was going on. Finally the ENT diagnosed her with vocal nodules. Now this diagnosis made sense. She stopped cheering to help her throat heal and took up NROTC instead. It took a long time, maybe a year, but her vocal cords finally healed. We went back to the Pulmonologist last year who declared that given her diagnosis of vocal nodules, it was most likely the irritation to her throat that was causing her cough. He would not come out and say misdiagnosis but he put in her chart that it was unlikely that she ever had asthma. We totally agree with this and are confident that her vocal nodules caused all of her issues. She told the PMS at her college of choice about this and he said that if we feel she never had asthma and it was a misdiagnosis, that we didn’t have to put this on her form. Is this true? She will definitely have to list the inhaler under medications though.
 
Melmr said:
My daughter earned a 4 year AROTC scholarship last month. She is a lifelong cheerleader and had issues with coughing during exercise in middle school. Her first diagnosis was exercise induced asthma and she was prescribed and inhaler. She never had trouble breathing just a cough. The inhaler didn’t really help with the cough so we went to a couple other specialists trying to figure out what was going on. Finally the ENT diagnosed her with vocal nodules. Now this diagnosis made sense. She stopped cheering to help her throat heal and took up NROTC instead. It took a long time, maybe a year, but her vocal cords finally healed. We went back to the Pulmonologist last year who declared that given her diagnosis of vocal nodules, it was most likely the irritation to her throat that was causing her cough. He would not come out and say misdiagnosis but he put in her chart that it was unlikely that she ever had asthma. We totally agree with this and are confident that her vocal nodules caused all of her issues. She told the PMS at her college of choice about this and he said that if we feel she never had asthma and it was a misdiagnosis, that we didn’t have to put this on her form. Is this true? She will definitely have to list the inhaler under medications though.
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Be truthful and honest about everything. That is repeated several times throughout the questionnaire. No one wants the risk of a dishonorable discharge. If she truly never had asthma, there is a process that can address the issues. Congratulations on the scholarship!
 
Thank you! We were thinking the same thing. She’ll get disqualified for just using the inhaler might as well err on the side of too much info.
 
Just answer truthfully.

If she actually had a diagnosis of asthma, then that is the diagnosis she has. It sounds like you have some decent evidence that she does not currently have asthma, and further evidence that she might night ever have had it.

Steer away from the "we totally agree with this and are confident..."-type arguments. Your opinions don't matter to the reviewers and only muddy the water. Stick with names, dates, etc. of the specialists and their specific statements.

The DODMERB folks are reasonable and will likely kick it all back to you asking for further investigation, which it sounds like will clear her.

I've served with several folks with waivered childhood asthma (which used to be a DQ regardless of age), so she'll probably be fine.

Again-- be truthful. Don't list diagnoses you can't support with documentation, and don't hide those for which documentation exists.
 
Truth about all circumstances is the only way to go. Your daughter is NOT restricted by space in answering her medical history.

The PMS was incorrect, if that is what he/she stated.
 
Thank you so much! She filled out the survey tonight and left very long explanations.
 
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