posted
Hey kids, I'm doing the LSAT this Saturday, which more or less defines my upcoming career. There's no backing out now -- the deadline was weeks ago -- and I'm just starting to come down with what looks like a vicious flu.
One of my roommates had this last week, and weathered it after a couple days of bad fever and self-pity. But it'll probably be worse for me -- no idea if I'm weak or just weak-hearted, but though I only get sick two or three times a year, every time I do it's DRAMATIC. I moan and writhe in feverish agony for at least a week every time.
Well, I couldn't sleep last night and woke up this morning feeling ill. The smallest exertion exhausts me, I'm nauseous and light-headed, and my eyes are drooping -- signs, in my experience, of impending disease. I expect to get sick within the next couple days.
The thing is, I CAN'T get sick. I don't care if I get sick after the 26th, but until then, I need to be fully alert, healthy, and relatively undrugged. I also have no health insurance, because job for college grads don't provide it. What can I get, over the counter, that can help me? If necessary, I can also send my girlfriend or someone who DOES have health insurance to pick up a prescription for my symptoms.
Any ideas for how to stave off/cure this disease, at least for a week?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
At this point, there's probably very little you can do to lessen the duration in terms of medicine. Sleep lots, drink lots of fluids, the usual stuff.
If you're still feeling bad just prior to the event, there might be a few things you could do to feel better. Take a steamy shower; eat some sushi with enough wasabi to clear out your nasal passages; you get the idea.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Probably your best option is to get even sicker. Nobody will cut you any slack for the flu, although they should. Take a cold shower, then go running in the rain without drying off properly; when you're delirious from pneumonia, you will surely be allowed to resit the test?
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So to be accurate, yes, either way. But it will be several months, and the missed test will show on all score reports.
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You can cancel your scores for the Sep/Oct test and You'll get your results before the law school application deadlines.
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I imagine a cancellation looks better on your score report than a no-show. And you might do ok.
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quote:Law school reports will reflect that your score was canceled at your request; this advises the law schools that you were exposed to test questions.
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Why, because you were "exposed" to questions? That's how you study for the test, by taking actual LSATs. I don't see why a Law School has to see that you canceled your scores.
Especially in a case such as this one, where you are sick.
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As someone who used to do college admissions, I would want to know that someone took the test but canceled their scores. I would also hope that if there were exceptional circumstances, they would explain them somewhere in their application.
Honestly, I'm not thrilled with the ability to cancel scores in the first place.
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posted
It's getting colder for no reason, and I'm getting more nauseous and dizzy -- yeah, it's going to be a rough couple days. I think Russ is right, my only option at this point is to ride it out on the bed, hoping it'll fix itself by Friday. If not, I'll have to take the test on Dayquil.
Rivka's right, I can't get out of the LSAT this Saturday. I have one pill of antibiotics left over from a previous illness -- no idea if this is a virus or not, but it's worth a shot on Sat morning.
Until then, sleep and water. Should I eat anything, despite not really being in the mood?
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Yeah, that's not a good idea. Training the bacteria you have to be slightly more resistant to something isn't any good. For bacterial infections, antibiotics should only be used when they can entirely wipe the infection out (in cooperation with the immune system). That's why you are instructed to always take the full course even if you feel better. For viral infections, doctors try to prescribe them only when the immune system might have serious problems fighting the virus if occupied with bacteria.
And even an appropriately chosen antibiotic wouldn't do anything day-of.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
A bad fever's kicked in -- really bad -- and I've been mostly passed out since the last post. GF's taking good care of me. Looks like my roommate kicked the illness in 2-3 days, good, since I probably have the same one.
GF wants me to take ibuprofen for the fever, but I think the fever's fixing me and should run its course. She's been using cold towels on my face/neck to keep it down, and it's reduced my fever -- should I continue cooling, or should I let the fever do its thing?
Thanks for the antibiotic warning, seriously. My gf has a full prescription of some antibiotics for an earoer illness, should I take those?
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posted
Fever is a symptom; it doesn't do anything useful. Advil or Tylenol might help.
Taking antibiotics prescribed for someone else is very dumb, potentially dangerous, and in this case (since it's probably viral) almost certainly not going to help.
If you can possibly get to a clinic tomorrow (student health, neighborhood clinic) I would suggest doing so. Sending someone else in your place is useless.
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You should not take any antibiotics unless prescribed to you, and only in the way and for the reason prescribed.
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I've read that fever does do something useful; it helps your body fight infection. However, I have not seen any strong recommendation against using Tylenol or another fever reducer to reduce discomfort. My interpretation is that you should endure fever if you aren't too uncomfortable, because you might get better faster, and feel free to treat it if you are.
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I've read that fever does do something useful; it helps your body fight infection. However, I have not seen any strong recommendation against using Tylenol or another fever reducer to reduce discomfort. My interpretation is that you should endure fever if you aren't too uncomfortable, because you might get better faster, and feel free to treat it if you are.
Our pediatrician has consistently advised against using Tylenol if the fever is low (~101 for our 2 year-old).
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I hope you get better in time Lalo. I'm taking the LSAT this Saturday as well, and I'm dreading the logic section.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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That is debatable. It's certainly part of your body's reaction to disease; it's not clear that the higher temp actually affects the bacteria/viruses much.
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: Our pediatrician has consistently advised against using Tylenol if the fever is low (~101 for our 2 year-old).
My guess is that's a combination of it not doing much on a low-grade fever and the high risk of frequent use of Tylenol in kids. (And kids get sick so much, the risk-benefit ratio favors only using it when the fever is high.)
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I hope you get better in time Lalo. I'm taking the LSAT this Saturday as well, and I'm dreading the logic section.
Thanks man. With the combo of ibuprofen and my girlfriend's utter delight at being able to play nurse, I think I'll be back up on my feet by Thursday. I hope.
Logic games are killing me too, but I've settled for only being able to complete three of the four. If we ace the rest, that's more than good enough. Here's a rundown of law schools and their admissions:
posted
I've been almost perfect in practice tests on the other sections, but my brain just doesn't work fast enough to parse out the info for those logic games. I'm not really sure what I'm aiming for, but I think if I get a 160 I'll be satisfied, though I'd like to score higher. I guess with something like this I'm just aiming for as high a score as I can get.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: At this point, there's probably very little you can do to lessen the duration in terms of medicine.
Tamiflu works to shorten duration and severity of symptoms if taken within the first 48 hrs from when symptoms first appear.
You'd have to go to a clinic yourself, be examined, explain why your situation is unusually desperate, and beg for help. You might catch a sympathetic ear, but there's no guarantee.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I woke up this morning weak, but my fever's disappeared. I've been sleeping all day, but I think the worst of it is over -- I really, really hope.
Thanks so much, everyone! I'll study in a coffee shop the rest of the week, and try not to breathe in when particularly strange New Yorkers start throwing fits. But chances of a relapse from a virus are nil anyway, right?
Seriously, thank you all for the advice. You and my nurse saved me.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I had pig fever. I was probably sick five days total, and only two bad days. The key, for me, was eating solid food, big meals with all of the food groups represented. Second, probably, was making sure that I made sure I got up and got fresh air. I'm usually good about drinking water, and since I don't drink soda, smoke, or coffee, I feel like my body gets the bad stuff out in a timely way.
For all of the hype, it wasn't that bad once I remembered to eat.
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I thought about you this morning when I met my friend to drive to the test. She had a horrible cold. I heard her sneezing, coughing and blowing her nose all through the test. She thought about canceling her score, but decided against it.
I'm not sure how I did. The logic games really, really rocked me. I don't think I did well at all on them, but I felt confident about the logical anaylysis and reading comprehension bits. Hopefully I won't have to take it again.
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Hmm. Logic games were my favorite part. But I did not wind up applying to law school anyway. Strangely (snicker all you like) my weakness was logical inferences. I also came to the test 6 weeks after giving birth and was very sleep deprived. I also answered E for every question in what I determined to be the research section (I was right).
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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The logic games were just too time consuming. Maybe half of the total questions were somewhat easy because it involved relatively fast elimination of possible options, but the other half were extremely time consuming due to the number of possible answers that required me to plug information into certain spots to see what was and wasn't possible. Also, for the types of games that they have to choose from, I had the ones that I'm least good at. I like the ordering and sequencing ones much less than ones where people are sitting around a table and you have to see who sits next to who. Those ones are easy. It's not the difficulty per se, it's the consumption of time. I can do them just fine, it just takes me too long.
Which one are you calling the research section? Was that the reading comprehension, where you have a mini-essay to read and several questions on that essay, or the section where each question has its own mini-premise?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I KILLED it. I wasn't happy with the logic games either, though -- all my practice, and there turned out to be nothing to graph. Was there a SINGLE game that would permit graphing?
Also, I hated the last game. Terrible.
But this test was MUCH easier than the 1990's LSATs I've been practicing with. Unfortunately, that means it was easier for everyone else too. It'll be interesting to see how the bell curve works out on this one.
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Oh yeah, and these are the very few questions I can remember from my test. You had the same ones, right? I had three logical reasonings, so I'm wondering which one was the experimental section.
Reading Comprehension Nigerian computer scientist
Logic games #2 was a group of parents volunteering for babysitting, #3 was airlines, #4 was signing up for three summer school classes from seven
Logical reasoning some dinosaurs had feathers and were warm-blooded
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I have a number in mind that I'm not willing to settle for less than, but I keep going back and forth in my head on how I think I did. Right now I'm nervous...tomorrow I might be feeling better, when I got out of the test I was feeling pretty good with the exception of the logic games. I keep second guessing it.
It's interesting that you think it was easier. My friend was practicing with an LSAT prep book and she said she thought the test was remarkably harder than the prep questions she'd been working with. I thought it was about part for the course, except there weren't any spatial reasoning questions in the logic section, which sucked because I'm best at those.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I don't recall the question about warm blooded dinosaurs, but I had the computer scientist (parallel computing and using nature right?) and the logic games appear to be the same. I had three logical reasoning sections too. I thought they were all pretty much the same difficulty wise, so I don't particularly care which was experimental.
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By the way, I need to thank Hatrack again. Illness could've completely destroyed me on this, but for you kids and your good advice. Thanks guys.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I gotta tell you - Law School has been pretty rough so far, but if you say the word "LSAT" - people will stare daggers at you.
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I'm still hoping to go to grad school for history; law school is my backup. But I DO love the horror stories. Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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