<p>…or it’s exposure to new kids in dorm living and classes, getting tired, building new immunities…but poor kiddo!</p>
<p>D injured her hip. Encouraged her to go to the student health center, to make sure it wasn’t anything dreadful (“just hold it up to the phone and let me see” doesn’t work well from afar!) and because they are gatekeepers for the PT eval she will need (she’s a dancer). </p>
<p>She got in, got seen, got a diagnosis of a strain, got the PT orders and a prescription for an NSAID, which she filled. </p>
<p>She visited student health on Friday. Generally healthy, except for the injury. Before the weekend was out, she had cold symptoms. On top of that, she ended up with a cruddy stomach flu (and it’s midterms…). </p>
<p>Yikes! Now, I know these kids are all sharing new germs from many, many states. She may not be getting as much sleep as mom would like…but it makes me wonder if the student health service (where the sick students should go to seek treatment) doesn’t need a good steam cleaning!!</p>
<p>Meanwhile, preparing a care package with more hand sanitizer, tissues…</p>
<p>So sorry to hear that… Kids do share germs in their dorms and other places, so I’m not sure if the visit to the health center led to her ilness. Please do not send her hand sanitizers! They are ineffective against many, many nasty bugs and create a false sense of security. Send her a bar of soap, Emergen-C, camomille tea bags, and some chicken soup. :)</p>
<p>She could have gotten the cold at the student health center or any number of other places. There’s no way to know where she was exposed. She went to the health center a few days before she became sick, but she went to many other places a few days before she got sick. </p>
<p>Hand washing goes a long way toward warding off germs, but at the end of the day, if someone sneezes or coughs in your vicinity or rubs their mouth or nose and you touch a surface their contaminated hands touched and proceed to touch YOUR mouth or nose, you are exposed. </p>
<p>I just do the best I can and don’t worry about it. You can only do what you can do.</p>
<p>My son stayed sick for the entire fall semester of freshman year. Seemed like he had cold after cold. I believe it was a combination of communal living, lack of sleep and not eating well. He got sick before his first visit to the student health center but by spring semester he was fine and no colds so far this year (knock on wood). He rarely gets sick so I was surprised and concerned last fall but figured it was probably not unusual for a newly minted college student.</p>
<p>I don’t get sick as easily as someone who lives in a dorm, but I have asthma & every cold goes right into my lungs- until I started taking Yin Chiao as soon as I thought I was sick. Just took it for a few days & I was back to normal.</p>