3.24.2009

Don't Study with a Migraine

Now there are probably many reasons while its a bad idea to study when your head is throbbing. For starters the light is too bright, in fact you can see the fluorescent light flickering from across the room, that the sound of the ant crawling on the floor is annoying you and you can smell someone, somewhere cooking something that is making you want to be sick... However, while a perfectly quiet and dark room with A/C would have been nice, somehow I decided to take some drugs and soldier through. After all the pain was somewhat relieved and I should be able to deal with the rest, right? 

A look at my notes the next day suggests differently. I was outlining biochem. Somehow I'd turned the mutagen, nitrous acid into nitric oxide. Now, I have to Wiki this because I swear NO is an important drug, a brochodilator, component of Viagra, etc, etc. So how is it a carcinogen? Well its not, at least not unless you have chronic exposure of it, according to Wiki. So I go back to my real notes and low and behold, the mutagen that Dr. C wanted to teach us about was nitrous acid. (Which I would stay away from btw, that bacon you had for breakfast, just may increase your chance of  colorectal cancer.) So, I'm pretty sure I made a few other such errors. (And considering I took my Histo midterm while in a similar state I guess I should be estactic that I actually passed that exam. Yikes!) So now I have to redo the migraine study lecture and see what fun things I may have created in my semi-lucid state. So the moral of the story, don't study with a migraine.  Or else you may confuse yourself.

In, other developments, Match Day was last Thursday. Congrats to all who matched. In case you don't know the Match is when you find out where you will be doing your residency. It is a big deal for 4th year medical students as it determines where you will be working and living for the next 3, 4 or 5 years and I'll have more to say on this later. But I was a little disappointed that there was no mention of Match Day at SGU. I know we are kind of separated from our 3rd and 4th year classmates as they are in the US and UK doing rotations but I guess I expected the website to be updated with the list, or something. But no, I had to dig around and wait several days before I could even find the link. If you are curious, SGU's match list is here. I'm surprised that out of 400, only 1 was neurology... I don't think its become the new dermatology in the the last year, but only 1/400, odd.  For an interesting read about Match Day, and one of my new favorite blogs (not because she calls herself Dr. Icedlatte, but it doesn't hurt) look here.

That's all I've got. Time to tackle the day, hopefully without the migraine. Until next time...

2 comments:

  1. Remind me one day to blog about when I lived on NoDoz, M&Ms, and trail mix for two weeks while I was studying for boards. I think I had a seizure. Sorry about the migraine! Hope you're all better. Soon enough "NO" will just be a word you use when people ask you for narcotics, and not part of some icky, long-forgotten biochemical pathway. Thanks for the blog compliment!

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  2. I have TMJ Disorder and in addition to the jaw pain I sometimes get headaches. I can't imagine trying to study when the pain is that bad, and I've never even had a real migraine. Hope you're doing better.

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