<p>Unfortunately, I have come down with a pretty big cold this week. I am coughing, sneezing, nauseous and feel miserable. This is the first time this has happened away from home.</p>
<p>Could you please share some advice as to what to do when sick in college?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Go to your health center so you can get treatment and an excuse so that you can get an excused absence from class.</p>
<p>Also e-mail your professors and let them know if you’re sick and won’t be able to go to class.</p>
<p>Drink plenty of fluids and try to get rest. This may be obvious, but stay away from liquor and recreational drugs.</p>
<p>In addition, if you’ve made friends in your classes, ask them if you can borrow their notes for any classes you may have to miss. For folks with fever, many find that taking a fever reducer (e.g ibuprofen, tylenol, aspirin) makes them more comfortable. If you have room mates & are on a meal plan, ask if they can bring you food. If you aren’t on a meal plan, ask friends to help get you groceries to tide you over. Chicken noodle soup (even canned) can be helpful. LOTS of fluids is helpful.</p>
<p>Agree with avoiding recreational drugs & liquor. Your body has enough going on.</p>
<p>Someone from health services can communicate with a dean or RA or whomever, and they in turn can e-mail your professors if need be. Check your student handbook. It may be that an e-mail from you, yourself, is not sufficient.</p>
<p>At some schools, lectures may be online.</p>
<p>If classes are heavily discussion-based, you can offer to write a short essay to replace the discussion.</p>
<p>Yes, get notes.</p>
<p>Make sure you haven’t missed any graded assignments, quizzes, tests etc. </p>
<p>At the college level, unlike high school, it is all up to you.</p>
<p>Some kids have chronic illnesses and deal with this all the time. A flu or cold that is short-term will not seriously impact your studies, unless there are complications. Most college students can manage things if they are absent for a week or so.</p>
<p>Take mucinex (very important), sudafed, use Afrin (sparingly), advil or aleve (but only if you are eating), sleep well, and you can speed things up. If you get better, then worse, go to the MD and ask for antibiotics. I"m not a doctor, just a mom.</p>
<p>If your illness is viral, you probably wouldn’t be prescribed for antibiotics, but mucinex is great for a cough. Of course, I am a huge fan of nyquil so you get as much deep sleep as possible at night. Drink plenty of fluids. If you have extra sheets, you should definitely be changing at least your pillow cases every night. But maybe that’s just me.</p>
<p>Academically, try to figure out at least one person in each class for notes and on top of the other stuff mentioned above, make sure to try to speak directly to your professor when you return to class.</p>
<p>Getting better, then worse, with bright yellow sputum or discharge, is a sign of possible bacterial complications, which can follow a virus. Unlikely, but knowing that can avoid an extended illness. When antibiotics are appropriate, they can save weeks of misery.</p>
<p>This is one of my biggest fears when I go to college. I have severe allergies and a very poor immune system. My first quarter is really going to stink as I adjust to living there. I’m going to get an air purifier in my room.</p>
<p>You can work through the college’s disability office. Once you are accepted and say yes to a college, contact that office immediately. Often their deadline for registering is May 1st, and registration requires documentation from doctors before that date.</p>
<p>You could be entitled to a single room (located away from traffic fumes), nor carpeting, dietary accommodations, excused absences for medical appointments, notes for any absences, and so on. You can also make sure there is a new filter for the heating system in your room (or choose a room with hot water heat, like radiators) etc.</p>
<p>Much of this work getting accommodations would be up to you (unlike in high school, where they are required to provide them), and working directly with your professors will be most helpful. The disabilities office will certify with your professors that you qualify, but the details of what you can work out are often between you and the profs.</p>
<p>You might not want to do this, but it can be very helpful if a health problem arises, if it has already been done in advance.</p>
<p>I’m the mom of a D who is very sick with H1N1 in her college 16 hours from home. It is very hard for both of us to be so far apart.</p>
<p>I agree with the earlier posters: go to student health for medical advice and a note, contact professors, arrange for friends to check up on you and bring you food, drink, etc. and rest, rest, rest.</p>
<p>Even as an adult I long for someone to take care of me when I’m sick–we all want our mothers!</p>
<p>Hope you recover soon.</p>
<p>I would suggest … once you are accepted, check out the options/possibilities BEFORE YOU SAY YES. But let’s face it, a lot of kids go through fall semester catching just about everything that comes down the pike. Son has those packets of vitamin C or something that you add to water, but I swear he had a cold from the second week of classes until he came home for winter break. Then I got him all healthy again and sent him back. He caught another cold and now he is at my sisters for J-term break and she is getting him all healthy again to go back for second semester. Mostly, I think his “problem” would be helped if he just got adequate rest, but I think that’s easier said than done when you’re living in a dorm.</p>
<p>Actually BEFORE you accept ANY school, contact the university health center & disabilities office and be SURE you understand their policies, especially how they might deal with a prolonged illness and absence. Even people who were always healthy might have more illness and absence than usual in college–new setting & living in closer proximity to lots of people, keeping irregular hours, different climate & food, etc.</p>
<p>Because my kids had chronic health issues, I did ask the disabilities office of each school we were considering about their policies in case our kids had prolonged absences & got very different responses from each. It caused us to turn down a school that we had been favoring because they said they’d require the student to WITHDRAW & lose all merit funding, leave the dorm, etc. if the student missed 2 or more weeks in a quarter!</p>
<p>It is much better to know policies when you are making your choice about which school your child can thrive at, even if the child happens to get a prolonged illness.</p>
<p>Many schools have that 2 week window for illness before requiring that the student leave, and some of the most apparently warm and fuzzy ones require that the student REAPPLY for the next year! I looked into this and was surprised at which schools were not very accommodating. (Some schools are remarkably accommodating and offer incompletes, easily postponed papers and exams, routine notes for those who are sick, and so on).</p>
<p>Our daughter has chronic illnesses and is at a rigorous school. She did more than 2/3 of the work in her spring semester last year and got sick. She struggled to stay but was told that if she did not take a voluntary leave soon, it could become an involuntary one, and that would go on her record. She wasn’t meeting her own standards for work, anyway, and did leave.</p>
<p>Her classes were full-year, so she was unable to move forward in the sequence of classes, this past fall. But she enjoyed taking distribution requirements, and is now doing the same courses she took last year at this time, all over again.</p>
<p>She is now an official major in a department and they have been more than nice to her. They have allowed her to go ahead and take an additional advanced course, for which she thought she would have to wait a year.</p>
<p>The administration has become increasingly supportive as well, when we almost wrote them off as unkind last year. Our daughter is hard-working and undemanding, and as she progresses, I think they will be more invested in helping her succeed, each year.</p>
<p>None of this applies to the original poster and I do not want to alarm anyone either. But it is good to know what can lie ahead, for anyone reading this. The title “sick at college” may draw many with health issues.</p>
<p>The important message is that choices should be careful. Families and students should indeed research the school culture, in terms of accommodations, and can then decide how much a role that should play in choosing a school. For my own kid, she chose a school based on other criteria, particularly courses offered in her major and location, but she did so with eyes wide open.</p>
<p>And the most important message, which we truly believe, is that there are no disasters in life. The big picture is that things can work out over the long term: there are many options and avenues to follow.</p>
<p>Oh- and get tuition refund insurance!</p>
<p>Today marks the fourth time I have been sick since September, and also the worst. I went to university health services and was diagnosed with “flu-like symptoms.” Oookay. That was a waste of time.</p>
<p>Make sure you communicate with your professors, get lots of rest, and keep studying. Unless you are REALLY sick it is best to keep up with your classwork at home even if you are too ill to go to class. I can do some studying but for the most part I am too tired. And my first exam is next week. :(</p>
<p>At my college ever since the H1N1 scare, if you have a fever above 99 degrees, you get quarantined for influenza like symptoms and are not allowed to leave your room unless you wear a mask. You are excused from your classes and dining services brings you a whole big bag of food once a day. I got quarantined for a week earlier this year and my professors were very understanding. </p>
<p>I really recommend getting checked out. I used to go to school when I was sick and I’d end up getting sicker due to the undue stress. Feel better!</p>
<p>Do most of the things you would do if you were at home and sick. Stay in bed, drink plenty of fluids, take vitamin C or drink vitamin C drinks like orange or cranberry juice, drink tea with honey. Take Day-Quil or Ny-QUil or some other cold medecine/decongestant, especially if your stuffy nose is making it hard to breathe. Stay away from dairy products that will increase mucus. But mostly just stay in bed, stay inside, and rest. </p>
<p>If you have classes where attendance is checked and you’re penalized for not participating, email the prof and let them know that you’re sick and don’t think it’s a good idea to come in and make all the other kids sick. Most profs will be understanding about that, as long as you don’t do it too often in the semester. If you have an assignment due that day, offer to email it in to them. Everyone gets colds sometimes. Check your syllabus and keep up on your reading so that you can get right back to it when you’re feeling better. </p>
<p>Let your friends know you are sick and see if they will make runs to the drugstore to get medecine for you. Also they should know so they can check up on you. If your symptoms persist for multiple days or you have an extremely high fever or trouble breathing (not from congestion, but serious breathing trouble) or anything else that seems unusual, go to your university health center. But if it’s just a cold, I would just stay home and see if it goes away after a few days rest. Otherwise you’ll go there and they’ll tell you to go home and see if it goes away.</p>
<p>Also, despite the fact that a lot of the above posters said to do it, I wouldn’t bother going to get a note from Health Services unless your prof requires it (they should specify in the syllabus or tell you in response to your email). I got colds usually once every time the seasons changed in college and stayed home and never got a note from Health Services for my profs, they all just took me at my word. College isn’t like high school, you don’t need to turn in a note from your parents (or you doctor) vouching for you being sick. </p>
<p>If it only involves you missing one class, then a note isn’t really neccessary unless they say it is. If you end up being really sick with flu and are going to miss a lot of class, then you should get a note. If they say in their syllabus or in response to your email “Thanks but I need a note from the Health Center saying you are too ill to go to class,” then you should get a note. If you’re going to be missing a big exam, they will probably require you to get a note if you want to re-take it at later date. But again, if you’re just going to miss one of their classes, and you just have a standard cold, I wouuld just stay in bed.</p>
<p>It is helpful to have a emergency box of over the counter meds like Sudafed non drowsy, Tylenol and Tylenol PM, Advil, Non drowsy cough medicines-with expectorates, throat lozenges, Zicam, Airborne, Benadryl, Nyquil, (causes drowsiness), Theraflu. Nice to have Ginger ale, Gatorade,Orange juice, Vitamin C, microwaveable soups in the can, crackers,tea bags -basically anything to help lessen the symptoms and help you feel better. It is no fun to be sick at school but sometimes you have to just medicate and continue to do work.</p>
<p>The lack of sleep at college can really get to kids. It’s so much easier to get sick when you’re run down, and lack of sleep can run you down fast. So. My advice is to TAKE NAPS. Any time you have a half hour or an hour you can carve out TAKE NAPS. Set your phone to wake you 15 minutes before you need to be up so you can ease out of the nap. Have a fresh bottle of water on hand for when you wake up and drink it up. A nap a day will help you recover.</p>
<p>Batlo’s idea is a very good one, though you maybe don’t need all of those all at once. Zicam will work wonders if you take it early enough and Theraflu is amazing even if it tastes disgusting. If you live near a Target or similar big box store and have the opportunity to buy these in bulk, do that. Not only will this not be the first time you’re sick in college, once your friends know you have medecine in your dorm, they’ll all want some. </p>
<p>I forgot one other thing you should do: call your parents and get a little “sick sympathy”, it’s nice to have people make a fuss over you when you’re not feeling well, even if they are far away.</p>
<p>The meds mentioned in post #17 were just suggestions. Recommend taking stuff from the family medicine cabinet at home. You will be familiar with the med, how to take it and how your body will react to it. Also good to have comfort foods like packaged oatmeal, jello cups, soups to tide you over and get your appetite back.</p>