sickness going arround championship
 

half of our students are ill. symptoms including vomiting disentary headaches and feaver. i heard other teams have similar troubble. for many it only lasted 12 hours.

I was told that at the Michigan State championships, there was a member of a team there with the early stages of chicken pox.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Gee, thanks, I read that and now I'm starting to itch.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Something of that length seems like it might be a food poisoning issue of some sort.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Must have been those corndogs.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

It's almost as if they were targeting someone...

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

When you said "sickness" I honestly thought this was going to be about "FIRST Fever". Boy, do I feel dumb.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Can confirm 254 has eaten prodigious quantities of corn dogs with no ill effects.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

It definitely isn't Jared from the Cheezy Poofs...

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

we all ate difrent stuff

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Wash. Your. Hands.

Often.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

My friend and I both felt really ill yesterday for about 24 hours- sounds like what you're describing. We think it was either a ham and cheese sandwich from the Diner in the Lumiere, or the water from the tap in the Lumiere. These were the two things we ingested in common, and that our roommates did not (they felt fine).

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

http://m.clickondetroit.com/health/s...ition/25652756

Here's what was announced today on the Detroit area news

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

It may also be related to this http://www.reddit.com/r/FRC/comments...championships/

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

that's cause all of you have IRON stomachs!!

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I was at the VEX World Championship and noticed an unusually high amount of sick people all weekend (including myself after Day 1). For some it seemed to last only a day, for others like myself, we're still just getting over it.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I'm surprised the box lunches didn't make me ill. I wonder how long they had been unrefrigerated or how long the food was left out. They apparently redistributed unclaimed lunches the day after too.


The solution is simple: INDIANAPOLIS.

Ok. Maybe I just want food trucks.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Food trucks! Food trucks EVERYWHERE!

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

This.

This again.

This yet again.

Seriously, wash your hands before every meal at these events.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

One of our team members had a stomach ache and was vomiting. I'm not sure how long it lasted. Last year at championships a member on our team had the same symptoms.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

And this. 90% of the time sicknesses like this that run through large groups are not related to food, but are viruses. (Similar to what happens on cruise ships).

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Here's my two cents, and it comes from years of competitions and working in a school.

I think there may have been some bugs going around, but I think that's more a result of having people from all over the country and world interacting in the same place. Your body is exposed to germs and viruses that it may never have been exposed to, and as such it can react poorly.

Also, the long days don't help. One of the best ways to fight off illness is to rest, and I guarantee most of our students were getting very little this weekend. I know there were many nights where I was excited if I got 5 hours of sleep. Your body may be more susceptible to new bugs if it doesn't get adequate levels of rest.

As has been said - wash your hands early and often. At your events, make sure to put a bottle of hand sanitizer (if you can) in your pit. Encourage students to stay hydrated and get plenty of rest. They may not listen (I know I didn't at that age, and still don't), but prevention is the best way to stop illness.

Post-event? Catch up on rest that you may not have gotten in St. Louis. Have a glass of Orange Juice, a nice salad, or whatever you usually consume to get your daily dose of vitamins. Take some time to stand out in the sunlight (I know a foreign concept for us techies). Give your body the time it needs to heal.

-Tom

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Do this.
Don't go out of your way to do this. Unless you're actually vitamin-deficient or going hungry (which you probably aren't), it won't have any special benefits.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I got a head splitting headache after eating at the stadium. Had it not been for the first aid station having pain relievers I might have lost all my marbles.

I originally thought it was dehydration, but the pain continued to get worse even after the indicators showed that I was not.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Do you know if you have a sensitivity to MSG, Splenda/Sucralose, etc.? A terrible headache is actually a pretty common reaction to either of them if consumed in a high enough concentration.

Otherwise, a headache like no other headache you have ever had in your life is a symptom of a stroke. ;-)

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I have no such sensitivity that I am aware of.

The medical history of my family might suggest that I could one day develop such a sensitivity though. I think it may have been more correlative to a low blood sugar event that is very common in my family.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Two of our mentors ate food at the stand near the entrance to the convention center (glass doors/carpeted walkway near Section 138?). Both were very ill later that evening.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

This picture of some of the under-cooked (raw) food was posted on reddit.com/r/frc.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

A student on our team purchased a 6 oz. cup of grapes full of mold for $5.99. I'd avoid the stadium food if at all possible.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

If this ever happens again feel free to walk up to the counter and ask to speak with the manager from Levy. Thy are the same food service who provides the food at the place where I work and they generally pride themselves on quality. They will do everything they can within reason to make it better.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

One of our students developed strep throat while we were there. After a 14 hour long bus ride, many other students and mentors are now suffering from the same thing.
I remember at the Virginia Regional a few years back, a 24 hour flu swept through the teams. The result was a lot of sick kids laying everywhere and a really disgusting stadium.
I see how it's really easy for something to get transmitted when so many people are in the same area, shaking hands, hugging, not washing hands before eating food, etc.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

On this note, I've always been a bit grossed out by doing the whole handshake thing before finals, and especially high-fiving the judges for awards, especially if you have one of the last awards. I'm not sure what you would do to replace that though.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I seem to have contracted a cold towards the end of Championships, but it's clearing up now. Not much worse than a sore throat and some coughing.

I did not eat any of the stadium food, because it's horrendously overpriced and disgusting.

Thank you for actually knowing what you're talking about. The whole "vitamin C for stopping illness" business is depressingly divorced from reality.

On the other hand, there does appear to be reasonably good experimental evidence for zinc reducing cold duration, though they've got no idea what the mechanism of action is.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

We had at least 3 students sick and out of school on Tuesday.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I believe one of our off-season projects will be installing a large bottle of hand sanitizer on the robot cart to make a member of our drive team a little more comfortable in that situation. :)

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I've seen some pictures floating around on the /r/frc of raw chicken that some of the vendors were selling at the venue. That could be a culprit, but more likely it's just because of the concentration of students from around the world. Different people who've been exposed to different illnesses all hanging around very close for 5 days will get people sick.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I was on a planning committee this year for a District Event, and we ended up in the high five line with the judges. While I love the concept, and for the kids it's worth it and I'd do it anytime, I still was a little grossed out by the amount of hands we high fived. Luckily our Judge Assistant was AMAZING, and came down the line a few times throughout ceremonies with a big bottle of hand sanatizer.

Moral of the story, make sure to be washing your hands constantly, and have hand sanatizer, especially on Friday and Saturday night.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Join Team HAZMAT next year. Apply within.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Without medication it takes about 7 days to get over a cold. With medication it takes about a week :D

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

When it comes to most viruses hand sanitizer does little more than move them around your hands.

The only thing that effectively gets rid of them is simple soap and water.

It's always a good rule around large groups in a confined space to always keep your hands away from your face as much as you can and never put anything in your mouth unless you wash your hands first.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I had the fish.

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And? Did you get sick?

Do we need to find someone to pilot the plane who didn't have fish? :D

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Fish has runny nose too?

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I fully own that hand sanitizer is not doing anything other than making me feel cleaner (but I always wonder why they have dispensers in hospital rooms and doctor's offices these days).

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

It's a little more nuanced than that, because there are different kinds of hand sanitizer. Presumably the medical professionals have chosen one that works against the pathogens they're trying to avoid.


The most common kinds have some sort of alcohol in them (ethanol, isopropanol, etc.). In sufficient concentration (like 60%), it kills bacteria reliably and will destroy common respiratory viruses (because these alcohols dissolve the lipid coatings of those viruses).

Unfortunately, you can apparently label a product with 2% ethanol as hand sanitizer.¹ Chemically, that's a lot like diluting a glass of light beer with water, and then washing with it. One might imagine that this isn't especially effective.

Here's some further reading on the topic, including the recommendation to use ethanol or isopropanol hand sanitizers with a concentration of at least 60%.


Stuff like norovirus is a little more resistant, but might respond to some of the other active chemicals—like benzalkonium chloride or iodine—in other formulations of hand sanitizer. (Alternatively, you can destroy norovirus with the hypochlorite in chlorine bleach, diluted in water.)

¹ IFI, you need to dump your branded hand sanitizer vendor.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

One of the things I loved that VC of Inland Empire did was create little bottles of hand sanitizers that had a thank you sticker on it! There were so many bottles in the judging room and after each days high five lines, there would be at least 10 bottles being passed between all the judges. Last closing statement said/lights go out.... hand sanitizer bottles get brought out!

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

We had no issues with illness. Even survived the whole handshake thing (twice!) without casualties.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

I would agree that many people over emphasize the value of vitamins or endow them with unrealistic healing properties. Yes, most vitamin supplements are a waste, and some can even be dangerous taken in excess. But, I do not think that fact renders this posters advice invalid.

I have seen what the average high school student eats normally. At a venue like this, and under the stress of competition, it is even harder to eat healthy. If there ever was a demographic that might be well served by advice to seek out an extra serving of fruit, vegetables, or another source of vitamins I think it might be students at a competition like this. In this case I doubt encouraging them to seek out a glass of orange juice or other source of vitamins is a waste. It might end up being the only healthy thing they consume all week.

By the way, one vitamin that some people might not be getting enough of without knowing it is Vitamin D. I now take a vitamin D supplement about 4 months out of the year under my doctor's recommendation. My blood tests showed me as being low on D which completely surprised me since I was going out of my way to eat a healthy diet. But, my doctor told me that is not at all uncommon during the winter in our region of the country, the Pacific Northwest.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

That's why Tom said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Biosynthesis

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

If only it was in KOP or through PDV!

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Well, as it turns out, whatever I caught at championships sure is taking its sweet time to go away. The sore throat is gone, but I've had a pretty lousy cough all week long.

Re: sickness going arround championship
 

Well, here in Michigan a couple of us have had a cough and runny noses since CMP. (though, I think going from snow to spring/summer weather and associated pollen might be part of it : and then back to snow)