Campus Flu Kit

Swine Flu (H1N1) has now been declared an official emergency by President Obama. If you're living on your own, whether it's in off-campus housing or a dorm room, you need to prepare to take care of yourself. One of the first things to do is create a flu kit now, because if you have flu, you're not going to feel like doing anything, not even picking up the basics you'll need to take care of yourself. With any sort of flu, you pretty much have to take care of the symptoms and do what you can to help your body fight off the virus. You need to be prepared for dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea and sweating, for feeling too weak to prepare food, and you need to prevent high fever from damaging your brain. A prolonged high fever ( around 105 degrees Farenheit, or 40.5 degrees Celcius) is dangerous.

First and best piece of advice:

Almost every school requires all students to pay some sort of basic health fee, which entitles you to Student Health. Don't forget about it—use the campus health services; if nothing else, they can refer you elsewhere, they have nurses and physcians on staff, and often their own and much more affordable pharmacy.

I'm cribbing from two articles on Making Light by EMT Jim Macdonald; Flu Pre-Pack (which used this super post from misia), and Flu Redux.

• Pain and fever reducer. Aspirin or Ibuprofen are the most likely options. There are people with allergies to these, so choose the one you can take. It doesn't hurt to have both, just don't mix them. That would be very bad. Also, don't swallow them dry. Water.
• Pseudoephedrine-based decongestant. Be prepared to show state photographic ID when you buy this.
• An antihistamine, in case the fever and general immune system disturbances cause hives or other allergy symptoms. A generic version of Bendadryl is fine.
• Cough supressant, and a cough expectorant
• Juices, and clear soups that will keep for a few months. Gatorade, if you can tolerate it, can help prevent electrolyte problems.
• Bottled drinking water. Don't buy the large gallons; when you're sick it's too hard to use them. Stick to one liter or smaller sized bottles.
• Easily-digestible, easily-prepared, long-keeping staple foods that can be prepared in the dorm, if you live in one, that don't require much more than heating. Consider a jar of boullion that doesn't need to be refrigerated until it's opened (Better than Bouillion or the like). All you need is the boullion, a spoon, and hot water. Many people can eat ordinary soda crackers/saltines when nothing else will stay down.
• Table salt and table sugar (to mix with water to help keep your electrolytes up; fifty or so packets of each should be enough).
• Extra boxes of tissues and rolls of toilet paper
• A thermometer that you know how to use and read; look for inexpensive digital thermometers
• Backup/reserve supplies of any medications you take on a regular basis, in case you're too ill to refill them
• Nausea preventives: Pepto-Bismol, peppermint or ginger tea, candied ginger, peppermint candies or lozenges; ginger ale.
• Consider an anti-diarrhea medication; Pepto-Bismol, or some other over-the-counter rmedy, to be used with caution, according to the instructions and your doctor.
• Rubbing alcohol and gauze pads or cotton balls (for disinfecting the thermometer and reducing fevers)
• Cleaning materials for infectious messes you need to clean up; including vomit. You need bleach, a few sponges, some small plastic bin liners, two rolls of paper towels, a small bucket, and disposable gloves.
• Surgical masks (to reduce the likelihood of spreading the virus)
• Hand soap or purifier.

Don't rely on raiding the household staples for these items; obtain them specifically for your flu kit, and put them all inside of the bucket, or as much as you can.

Finally, if you're sick or think you might be getting sick, stay home. Don't make other people sick. Nobody likes a vector.