Veteran driver Michael Suson came home one day and told his wife that a colleague had shot himself dead. The driver had suffered from depression. Suson, who had been driving for over 25 years knew about truckers and their high incidence of depression – he also suffered its effects – but until about four years ago, he wasn't willing to discuss it. Like many drivers, he believed that it was unmanly to "give in" to depression. He also believed, mistakenly, that any drugs that might help him, might invalidate his CDL. Truck drivers are in the top eight occupations likely to commit suicide, ac [...]

Imagine visiting the dentist for what you think is a quick pain fix and ending up in a hospital emergency room?

Dr. Thomas Roemer, the dentist at the Iowa 80 Truckstop, has seen it too many times. His practice is 95% emergency, drop-in care, but too often it’s beyond any dental intervention.

“My biggest advice to truck drivers is to keep themselves out of a medical emergency by making sure a dental problem doesn’t turn into a medical problem…I’m not here to say to , ‘Hey, you need to get your teeth cleaned and examined.’ We’re beyond that. It’s a situation where they have to get some kind of care to try to stay out the medical emergency room. I know I keep saying ‘medical, but [...]

World Heart Day is Sept. 29 and the World Heart Federation, which is made up of members such as the American Heart Association, is busting five common myths about heart disease. 1. “Heart disease only affects older people.” FALSE. Heart disease is not limited to one particular age group. The World Heart Federation cites data from the Global Burden of Disease Study in 2016, which found that 22 percent of all Disability-Adjusted Life Years (or years of healthy life lost) in people 15-49 years old are due to cardiovascular disease. 2. “If I had high blood pressure I would have obvious symptoms.  FALSE. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, often does not present with obvious symptoms. It can occasionally develop symptoms like heada [...]

“It sort of resets me,” says Echols, who has been driving for 21 years, some of it over the road. “I find breathing meditation to be the simplest and most effective. I think there are benefits physically to it as well. If you concentrate on your breathing, you can’t focus on anything else.”

Echols doesn’t know any other drivers who mediate, and he suggests that the majority of truckers think meditation is “wacky, kooky stuff.” He adds that for the many drivers, meditation comes across as weakness or worse, for some, as an anti-Christian or Eastern-based religion in opposition to their own religious beliefs. “Mediation is just sitting still. If you tell people to sit still for a [...]

Truck drivers have a higher-than-average risk for diabetes, which affects over 30 million Americans. That’s largely because the sedentary nature of truck driving contributes to obesity and lack of physical activity, which increases the risk for Type 2 diabetes.

DIABETES TYPES. Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, occurs when the body develops insulin resistance and is unable to use insulin properly. This causes an inability to regulate blood glucose levels properly, causing levels of blood glucose, or sugar, to rise too high.

Only about 5 percent of people who have diabetes have Type 1 diabetes, which is not as straightforward as Type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabete [...]