As students return to class, they are likely to bring more than just their eagerness to learn to lecture. The winter months are prime cold and flu season, and a case of the sniffles does not deter most students from attending classes.

“I try to eat healthy and dress warmly, but if I do get sick, it’s not really a question of not going to class,” said Melissa Kosobud, sophomore in engineering. “I need to go to lecture. I need to find out what the assignments are, so in that case, my health comes second. You don’t have a lot of options.”

In order to avoid getting sick this winter season, David Bozarth, director of pharmacy at Schnucks Pharmacy in Champaign, stressed that the most important measure a student can take is to rest.

“Most college students don’t get proper rest,” Bozarth said. “And if your system is run down, you’re more susceptible (to illness).”

Bozarth recommends a balanced diet, taking vitamin supplements and maintaining good hygiene – not only as precautions during the cold and flu season, but year-round as well.

He also said that most college students do not dress properly for the cold weather or wear hats.

“You lose a large percentage of body heat through the head,” Bozarth said.

Yet it is not the cold weather but passing along germs that spreads colds and coughs.

“Cough and shake someone’s hand,” Bozarth said. “Doesn’t get any worse than that.”

Bozarth said a product that helps prevent the spread of such germs is the anti-septic, alcohol-based, instant hand sanitizer gel that can be used at anytime and without water.

Dr. David Lawrance, physician and medical director of McKinley Health Center, had some advice on what to do if a student does get sick.

“We’ll be recommending don’t go to class if you’ve been running a fever,” Lawrance said, realizing that it was strange to promote missing class at the University.

But staying away from class is an important part of containing illnesses that spread quickly on the campus, such as the flu, he said.

“We’ll go through most of the year without seeing anything that looks like the flu, and then one week we’ll see a few cases,” Lawrance said. “And the next, we’ll see more, and then, the next week we’re seeing a bunch of people with it.”

Normally Lawrance would urge people to receive flu vaccines, but he has not been able to because of the flu vaccine shortage.

However, he does recommend a nasal flu vaccine offered at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana as an alternative.

“It doesn’t protect against any colds,” Lawrance said. “Just influenza.”

Flu symptoms include a high fever, headache, sore throat and cough. Lawrance especially encourages students with bad headaches and a high fever to contact McKinley, as these are meningitis symptoms as well. A rash is also associated with meningitis.

“If somebody feels that they should see us, we want to see them too,” Lawrance said.

In the case of the flu, Lawrance recommended taking pain relievers such as Tylenol or ibuprofen and drinking plenty of fluids. Because there is no effective treatment for the common cold, Lawrance suggested decongestives and cough suppressants, which will make students feel more durable and able to get a good night’s rest.

Students should be aware, however, that obtaining cough medicine will no longer be as easy as simply retrieving it from the shelf.

“In the past month there’s been a new Illinois state law, and we have to put a lot of cold medicine behind the counter,” said Zeina Samara, a pharmacy technician at Osco-Drug in Champaign and senior in LAS. “It might be a little bit of an inconvenience, but they (the customers) don’t have a problem.”

Other methods for combating the common cold are herbal remedies, although there is not enough scientific evidence that these treatments actually work.

“Some people will take echinacea to shorten the course of their colds. Some people will suck on their zinc tablets or double up on their vitamin C,” Lawrance said.

He recommends “courtesy sort of things,” such as frequent hand washing and coughing into a tissue as the best methods of illness prevention.

“The simple dumb things like washing hands, being careful about where you sneeze or something like that are actually effective mechanisms,” Lawrance said. “They’re not perfect, but they’re effective.”

For more information:

Visit McKinley’s Web site: www.mckinley.uiuc.edu