<p>The summer between my freshmen and sophomore year of high school, I was diagnosed with Vocal Cord Dysfunction. It’s pretty much a stress-related “disease” where certain triggers will cause your vocal cords to tighten and close, causing you to not be able to breath easily and creating a wheezing noise. Its a lot like asthma. My trigger is primarily sports. I run track, and have not had a real problem with it on long runs, or really short runs. Its 400-1600 fast meter runs that get me, as well as doing these quickly right after another without time to fully catch my breath. I can usually just let it take its course and do what I can to slow it down, and I’ll be fine at the end, just a bit winded. I know I will have to go through DODMERB for it, as well as my false diagnosis of asthma, but I was wondering how it would effect my life at the Academy. Are there a lot of torturous, fast runs with no time to catch your breath? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>The altitude has a big effect on everybody if you are from an area of lower altitude.</p>
<p>The PFT ends with a 600m run. A lot of training will include those distances (400-1600m). BCT has running every other day, including sprints and distance/time. This sounds like something you will either be able to get waivered and overcome, or be DQ'ed for. I don't know enough about DoDMERB to tell you which it will be. You could try the DoDMERB section at United</a> States of America Service Academy Forums - Powered by vBulletin, because they have a retired DoDMERB guy on that forum.</p>
<p>I can tell you that even if you are waivered and come here, it will be something that will become a major obstacle...not one that you can't overcome or work with, but it will certainly affect certain elements of cadet life, such as taking the PFT or going through freshmen training sessions. A lot of training sessions have sprints, suicides, or hill drills incorporated into them for up at 2 hours on end, and as raimus said, the PFT is notorious for sucking the breath out of you, especially with the 600m spring at the end. I've almost passed out before.</p>