Being SICK during Med School BLOWS!

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MonkeyNuts!

MonkeyNuts!

Even Kal has bad days...
15+ Year Member
I haven't even had my first midterms yet, and I've caught a cold/strep (find out tomorrow).

My brain hurts too much to study. Med school veterans - what do you do when you're sick? Rest alot and get better fast? Or dope yourself up and hit the library!?!?
 
eternalrage said:
I haven't even had my first midterms yet, and I've caught a cold/strep (find out tomorrow).

My brain hurts too much to study. Med school veterans - what do you do when you're sick? Rest alot and get better fast? Or dope yourself up and hit the library!?!?
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It depended how sick I was and how close to exams. If exams were a bit away I'd go to mandatory stuff and then sleep and rest, with studying interspersed when I could. If exams were close then I would cut out all but the most high yield class sessions (and let profs know if I was missing their class due to illness) so that I could rest and study on my own schedule but push myself to study as much as I could.
 
eternalrage said:
I haven't even had my first midterms yet, and I've caught a cold/strep (find out tomorrow).

My brain hurts too much to study. Med school veterans - what do you do when you're sick? Rest alot and get better fast? Or dope yourself up and hit the library!?!?
Click to expand...

If you can swing it at all, I'd vote for resting. Missing one to two days of studying isn't going to kill you. Then you can productively study instead of wasting your time trying to study when you feel bad.
 
i got strep and tonsilittis early in the semester....i couldnt study properly for 3 weeks!!! I went to lecture took notes and came home and slept. whenever i was awake i'd read my notes...the last 2 wks before exam were super crunch time. needless to say i didnt do as well as i could have.
 
eternalrage said:
I haven't even had my first midterms yet, and I've caught a cold/strep (find out tomorrow).

My brain hurts too much to study. Med school veterans - what do you do when you're sick? Rest alot and get better fast? Or dope yourself up and hit the library!?!?
Click to expand...

Oooooh 🙁

Sorry to hear that. I hope you get better soon!
 
it's worse when you're in the hospital

a runny stuffy nose under a mask is NO fun!! (i'm on anesthesia and so sick)
 
eternalrage said:
I haven't even had my first midterms yet, and I've caught a cold/strep (find out tomorrow).

My brain hurts too much to study. Med school veterans - what do you do when you're sick? Rest alot and get better fast? Or dope yourself up and hit the library!?!?
Click to expand...

Awh feel better! I was sick last week during midterms and it SUCKED! I just kept a constant supply of tylenol, cough drops, and hot liquids with me in the library and did as best I could.
 
It kind of depends on how your school is set up...

We are in cores, and I conveniently got an infection that spread to the bone two days before head and neck started (just doing anatomy right now). I was sick for the first week and a half. Went to lab and lecture and slept the rest of the day. Now, since we are on cores, I basically just said that I will not do very well on one test and then move on with my life. And thats exactly what happened. Don't get stressed about being sick, it'll just take you longer to get better! Just do what you're supposed to when you're sick: rest, drink lots of liquids, wait it out. Good luck!
 
eternalrage said:
I haven't even had my first midterms yet, and I've caught a cold/strep (find out tomorrow).

My brain hurts too much to study. Med school veterans - what do you do when you're sick? Rest alot and get better fast? Or dope yourself up and hit the library!?!?
Click to expand...

Spread your disease to the top students in the class so they're screwed as well!! :laugh:

I was sick the weekend before our first test. I just stayed home, set up a study station around my couch, and tried to get as much done as possible. If I felt like I couldn't focus, I would take a 30 minute nap and get back to the books when I woke up.

If you don't have a test coming up soon, I would recommend just taking a day or two off to rest. Feel better!
 
During GI block I got hit pretty badly with a virus. Words can't really describe what it feels like to be sitting on the toilet, doubled over in pain, reading about the mechanism of diarrhea while said diarrhea is still burning my own anus.
 
Medikit said:
During GI block I got hit pretty badly with a virus. Words can't really describe what it feels like to be sitting on the toilet, doubled over in pain, reading about the mechanism of diarrhea while said diarrhea is still burning my own anus.
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:laugh:
 
First year was really bad for me in the illness dept. It's very stressful, and my immune system felt the stress. About the third week of anatomy, I got a terrible head cold. I was trying to dissect, but every five min I had to blow my nose. I was constantly changing gloves. That was miserable. Second semester I ended up with a GI virus, and failed a quiz that I had actually bothered to study hard for. A couple weeks later I caught a cold which turned into Otitis Media with effusion, and the effusion didn't drain for about 2 months. Do you know how irritating it is to study every single day for two months with a constant ringing in your right ear, as well as being half deaf?

The best way to deal with illness is to just do your best to get through it. Study if you can, sleep if you can't. If you have to give up a couple days to study, it won't matter in the long run. What you DON'T want to do is to try to tough it out, get a very poor quality of study, and then take twice as long to recover.

Besides, few people care about year 1 and 2 grades, unless you fail or are doing something very very competitive...in which case they probably consider them as the least important component. I know grades on a single test seem important, but in the grand scheme, one failed test because of illness doesn't have to mean that you can't get into whatever you want.
 
I got smoked by the chest cold from hell during Neuroscience. Deep breath, sound like the bottom inch of a milkshake, and out. 🙁

Failed the lab practical (by half a percent, no less), but I still HPed the course.

My recommendation is to load up on vitamins, hot peppers and OJ. It always helps me break illnesses.
 
I'm still wrangling my way out of a really bad case of influenza. Last week was a complete write off. After I realized that there was no way I was going to power through this thing and just "study", I gave up on it, and as many have suggested, slept. Went to the mandatory stuff, skipped the extra stuff, and laid in bed for the rest of the time, including the majority of the weekend. Feel very very much better this week, even though it's still nagging me a bit.
 
Yeah, I have some kind of throat infection (yes, bacterial) that I've had a tendency to get in the past (although, not for a few years now but I guess I haven't been this stressed out in a long time). It's *not* a cold (so far my yogurt eating ways seem to be keeping the rhinoviruses away), and last night the pain started spreading to my right ear.

Of course, the really annoying part is where every last MS1 tells me not to take antibiotics because they think it's viral and just a cold. As if I'm some kinda antibiotics abuser who has no clue about my own health. That's what really pisses me off, since I've had enough experience with my own health to know when it's definitely not a rhinovirus (plus the fact that there are NO rhinovirus symptoms whatsoever would make it pretty *****ic to tell me it's a cold when I clearly do not have a cold.)

Anyways, I hope you feel better, my throat still hurts...might have to cave and go see a doctor lol.
 
Cirrus83 said:
Yeah, I have some kind of throat infection (yes, bacterial) that I've had a tendency to get in the past (although, not for a few years now but I guess I haven't been this stressed out in a long time). It's *not* a cold (so far my yogurt eating ways seem to be keeping the rhinoviruses away), and last night the pain started spreading to my right ear.

Of course, the really annoying part is where every last MS1 tells me not to take antibiotics because they think it's viral and just a cold. As if I'm some kinda antibiotics abuser who has no clue about my own health. That's what really pisses me off, since I've had enough experience with my own health to know when it's definitely not a rhinovirus (plus the fact that there are NO rhinovirus symptoms whatsoever would make it pretty *****ic to tell me it's a cold when I clearly do not have a cold.)

Anyways, I hope you feel better, my throat still hurts...might have to cave and go see a doctor lol.
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Interesting. So you've come up with a way to tell between a bacterial URI and a viral URI. Please tell how you know the difference. And I'm also curious as to how yogurt keeps away rhinovirus, and the other viruses that cause the common cold.
 
Blade28 said:
In the OR you can't touch your mask. You just gotta let your nose drip. 🙁
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I had to do that on OB/gyn. I started the rotation, on the gyn service, with a really bad cold that lasted 1.5 weeks -- probably due to not being able to rest much. I walked around with no voice and a whitecoat pocket full of Ricola because my throat hurt so bad too.

M1 and M2 year, I'd sleep when I could, but since I hated missing class, I'd go to school (as long as I didn't have a fever), then go home and study, instead of going to the library.

Hope you feel better, eternalrage.
 
I got a cold right before our first exam, I know it was stress-related. I've been pretty healthy since then (ok not exactly healthy, but I haven't gotten sick since then!). It is pretty hard to be a healthy person in med school, I try but after a bit it peters out. I always try to be healthy again at the beginning of a block (exercise, eat better, get sleep) but then the study load increases and I let all my good habits slide.
 
Can't answer the "in med school" part of the question, except to say that I met an M3 who had mono and strep shortly before Step I. She went to her profs, who helped her finish out the term without any undue showing up, and she passed step I. One of my interviewers (faculty, surgeon) also had mono as an M2, said he had no idea if he "really" passed the exam in question (can't remember, it was immuno or pharm) or if the prof just passed him out of pity.


Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup, for those of you who are like, what?) with a little chili/siracha, and any warm beverage. Hot lemonade is good. Failing that, any fresh, not canned, noodle soup, and after that, any food that sounds good to you. Chocolate is nice and smooth on a sore throat....
 
All of a sudden everyone in my class is getting sick. We are still 2.5 weeks from the (third) exam, but yesterday I noticed a ton of coughing and sneezing in class, and today one of my lab partners went home in the middle of dissection because he felt so sick. The way things travel around in schools we'll probably all have it (whatever IT is) before the end of the week.
 
eternalrage said:
I haven't even had my first midterms yet, and I've caught a cold/strep (find out tomorrow).
Click to expand...

I think I have strep too (hopefully you're over yours by now). I'm just thankful that I didn't get it right before exams.

When I'm sick and have to study, however, I try to sleep more. I usually study at home anyway, so when I'm sick I just alternate between sleeping in my bed and studying in my bed/couch. Come to think of it, it's not all that different from studying when I'm well. 😛
 
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