In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Dr. Jill Grimes, a family physician, award-winning author, and media medical expert. They discuss medical issues that college students face while they’re away from home. The conversation includes practical tips that college students actually want to hear about, prevention and coping with anxiety and other mental health issues at the collegiate level, and alcohol consumption and marijuana addiction myths and misconceptions.
Links Mentioned In the Show:
- Book: Ultimate College Student Health Handbook
- Student Defense: studentdefense.kjk.com
Show Notes:
- The experiences that snowballed Dr. Grimes’ prowess in the medical field, namely for college students (0:36)
- The essential components of a practical first aid kit for a college student (2:03)
- How to encourage college students to practice safe oral sex (04:08)
- Oral herpes and the means it can be spread, among other sexually transmitted infections (05:34)
- Why Dr. Grimes wrote a book to spread awareness of sexually transmitted diseases (06:45)
- The distinction between traditional therapy and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) (09:06)
- Pragmatic alternatives to alleviating mental health concerns in spite of limited access to campus health centers (12:29)
- How this non-addictive drug can help manage anxiety in college students (14:08)
- Collegiate study skills courses as a means of decreasing test anxiety altogether(16:54)
- Breaking the stigma that only students who are struggling academically need tutoring (18:17)
- A first-hand tip from college professors that every parent can easily do to help their child succeed (19:01)
- An ace tip to creating an efficient study group (19:45)
- Addiction and medicinal marijuana use to cope with anxiety (21:15)
- The potentially harmful contents of marijuana (21:54)
- A dangerous misconception of marijuana use and coping with mental health issues (23:13)
- What parents and students need to know about blackout drinking and the role it plays in sexual harassment (26:55)
- The “proper” alcohol consumption method as advised by a licensed physician to prevent blackout drinking (29:14)
- Additional medical issues students faced at the onset of COVID (31:21)
- Future topics to be included in the Ultimate College Student Health Handbook; from how to create a safe environment in the event of a seizure, diabetes, and navigating the healthcare system in college (32:11)
Transcript:
Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Supler. We’re full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to real life with real candid conversations.
Susan Stone: Today’s topic is medical issues that college students face while they’re away from home. We’re pleased to be joined by Dr. Jill Grimes, author of the Ultimate College Student Health Handbook. Your guide to everything from hangovers to homesickness.
Kristina Supler: Dr. Grimes is a board-certified family physician with a passion for practical evidence-based advice for students of all ages. After spending over 20 years in private practice in Austin, Texas, Dr. Grimes transitioned to a campus health center, and through her work with college students on a daily basis, she’s really come to understand the most common medical issues that college students experience. And this experience has in part contributed to. Dr. Grimes writing over six books.
Kristina Supler: Dr. Grimes, we’re so pleased to have you with us today. Welcome.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Thanks so much for having me. I’m delighted to be here.
Susan Stone: I have to tell you, I devoured your book in a day. And I think we were chatting Kristina while we were working on the sound and all this administrative stuff. And I was saying it made me re-go go back to my daughter and say, Do you wipe from front to back?
Kristina Supler: The dreaded UTI problem.
Kristina Supler: Also was so great about this book. Cause I was reading it is, I mean, to your point, Susan, The book contained really practical health advice, not just for students, but people that, you know, just never hurts to brush up on
Susan Stone: don’t puke in a sink.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Uh,
Susan Stone: but if you have to get sick and you can’t make the toilet go for a wastepaper basket, right. Doctor Grimes?
Dr. Jill Grimes: Absolutely. Or here’s a thought as you’re making that first aid kit that you’re going to put together for your college students to send them off, you know the doggy poop bags that come in a roll, hello, easy solution. Put those in the first aid kit that way, you know, if they’re feeling queasy, they’ve got it by them side, you can throw up in that, throw it away.
Dr. Jill Grimes: I mean, this, this is the kind of practical information I like to dish out. Because, you know, I was saying that the beginning of each semester, the fall semester, every college campus has a plumbing problem and people, this is a big part of it.
Kristina Supler: I can’t imagine. Well, it’s also interesting because Susan and I were talking and, you know, Susan was reflecting on, her gifts that she gives to high school graduates heading off to college, or just preparing care packages for good luck, best wishes.
Kristina Supler: And this book is a great guide for the first aid kit and everything else. I’m totally envisioning Susan putting together a really nice, cute, gift.
Susan Stone: I know that. I’m going to cut to the chase. All right. Gotta talk to you about a topic. Okay.
Kristina Supler: Hard hitting topics.
Susan Stone: I’m starting with the big one. You talk through your book about the use of flavored condoms.
Susan Stone: Even during oral sex. Let’s cut to the chase, Dr. Grimes kids every day about sex and what we’re seeing a rise of plan B and students not even using condom during intercourse. Do you really think anyone’s going to use a flavored barrier protection during oral sex?
Dr. Jill Grimes: Well, that’s the hope and that’s why we talk about it.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And I’ll tell you what, I’m just saying. Those two words together: flavored condoms. I talk to young people all the time and I will tell you what gets through. That’s something that really gets their attention because. Say when we switch them or, uh, you know, we kind of do risky business. We talk about drugs, sex, alcohol, whatever.
Susan Stone: The fun stuff, right?
Dr. Jill Grimes: Yeah, exactly. When I’m talking with them, you know, I’ll say, why do you think that there are flavored condoms? Because people say, well, not people don’t really you don’t, why would you use condoms with oral sex? Nobody does that. And then I say, well, why do you think there’s flavored condoms?
Dr. Jill Grimes: And it’s like this little light bulb bumps on over their head. They’re like, oh! Also not to be crass, but, I have yet to hear about any male that refused oral sex. If someone, uh, if, you know, if asked to wear a condom to use a condom. It’s, it’s not a turn under.
Kristina Supler: Wow. That’s a good tip. No pun intended.
Susan Stone: Oh my gosh.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And this is how we’re starting the podcast, ladies.
Susan Stone: We’re getting into it.
Kristina Supler: Um, you know, it, wasn’t a really great practice pointer though, for us as well, because similar to you, Susan and I speak with college students about their sex lives and really personal, intimate details every day, given the nature of our law practice. And I have to say, this is flavored condoms.
Kristina Supler: I don’t recall ever talking about that with the student. And so, and we tried to in a very nonjudgmental way, provide some real world right. life advice about how to more safely engage in sex and consent and STIs and all of that. So this is certainly something good for us to keep in mind
Dr. Jill Grimes: and for the listeners, I want to clarify that people are like, but again, why, why do you want to do that?
Dr. Jill Grimes: The reason is that sexually transmitted infections can and are transmitted with oral sex. If someone has a cold sore, Cold sore fever, blister, whatever you want to call it. That is oral herpes. And they may not have gotten it sexually. Most people do not get their oral herpes sexually. Most people get it from sharing a drink or, you know, kissing within a family or whatever.
Dr. Jill Grimes: It’s, you know, if somebody in your family has cold sores, usually a lot of people in the family have it because it’s really, really common. So not a big deal, but let’s call it what it is. Oral herpes is oral herpes, right? These cold sores fever, blisters. Whether or not someone has a fever blister today if they put their mouth on someone else’s genitals with no barriers, they can pass that on and give that person genital herpes.
Dr. Jill Grimes: If that person themselves doesn’t already have oral herpes, if that makes sense.
Susan Stone: And no sharing of lipstick. No lipstick sharing.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Lipsticks, please. Don’t don’t share mascara. That’s equally gross. That has nothing to do with STIs. You know, you don’t want to be sharing bacteria from your mascara. Anyway, so yeah, so that’s, that’s why. And honestly, the whole reason I wrote my very first book was called Seductive Delusions: How Everyday People Catch STDs. Uh, cause you know, who doesn’t want to write a book about STDs. Right, people?
Dr. Jill Grimes: But point is the whole reason I started thinking about sharing stories, which is what that book does with accurate information is because so many of my patients in my private practice, which was a very, you know, well-to-do area, people are, will educated well off.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And they were shocked when they came in with what they thought was, um, spider bites. Bug bites. Yeah, almost everyone thinks it’s some kind of bite when they get genital herpes and it’s not actually on their genitals, but it’s near it. It’s on their upper thigh or on their rear end. And they have no idea what it is, but it’s this little cluster of red listers and it’s, it’s genital herpes and that’s what it comes from.
Dr. Jill Grimes: So anyway, so I’ve like, I’ve got to find a better way to talk about this subject so that we can not have this happen. Because let me tell you, you guys know you take a young person who is confident and excited and pumped about their future, and they suddenly have genital warts or genital herpes, they don’t feel good about themselves anymore.
Susan Stone: Speaking about self-esteem.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Yeah, so let’s,
Kristina Supler: let’s, let’s take a left turn. Uh, may is mental health awareness month. And Susan and I write a lot about this topic through our legal work with students who have debilitating depression and anxiety. And it seems a running theme in your book is really advocating for CBT or cognitive behavior therapy.
Kristina Supler: You know, you write about how it’s a really good treatment modality for homesickness, test anxiety, even the dreaded bathroom anxiety. So can you describe for us this,
Kristina Supler: this tells us more about this.
Susan Stone: I just want to interject. I just, Kristina did you get that article I forwarded to yesterday, from the New York times.
Kristina Supler: Yeah.
Susan Stone: Did you see that article that hundreds of suicidal teens are now sleeping in emergency rooms every night, because there’s not enough places for them and facility. So we really do have to focus on mental health and we’re curious what you need, what you can now offer.
Dr. Jill Grimes: All right. So, um, so let’s, let’s talk about cognitive behavioral therapy.
Dr. Jill Grimes: So we say CBT, which is not to be confused with CBD CBD oil. We’re saying CBT. So cognitive behavioral therapy. And how I describe it is like, this is because people you get the immediate eye roll. You know, you say. Look, some say someone’s having terrible anxiety and sits test anxiety. And one of the things we talk about is is this type of therapy and, you know, get the eye roll.
Dr. Jill Grimes: I’m like, no, no, no. This is not lay down on the couch. And talk about all your mother’s failures. This is, this is short, very goal directed therapy, sometimes just one or two sessions. And it’s all about identifying errant thinking. So basically how we react to something is much more about our, our kind of our gut reaction, if you will, than an intellectual process.
Dr. Jill Grimes: So for example, let’s talk about flying on a plane. I have fear of flying. A lot of people, 40% of the population has fear of flying. And so I hit a bump of turbulence and I go immediately to from, you know, oh, you know, it’s choppy air waves to, oh my gosh, the plane’s going to crash them to orphan my children.
Dr. Jill Grimes: They’re never going to get over this and they’re not going to a life. Yeah. Like I just go zero to 180 and that is not logical. And I can tell you it’s not logical. But I’m having to stop that process is different. And so there’s a lot of things that we can do to stop that process.
Dr. Jill Grimes: In the college setting, what we mostly see this with, or the best example I think is test anxiety. So somebody bombs a quiz. Now let me just say, this happens all the time. Especially to freshmen. They may have breezed through high school, or maybe they worked super hard through high school, but now they’re in a new setting. They take their first, it’s always general gen chem, general chemistry.
Dr. Jill Grimes: The pre-meds who are so intent and terrified of making a B, and they don’t even make a, B, maybe they make a C. And now they’re terrified. And that was the quiz, but they go from, oh my gosh, I’m going to, I’m going to flunk the test. I’m gonna flunk the course. I’m gonna lose my scholarship. I will never get into medical school. And, you know, substitute grad school, law school, whatever, and whatever course.
Dr. Jill Grimes: But this, this kind of thinking it’s catastrophic thinking. And so one of the things that CBT does a really good job of doing it’s identifying catastrophic thinking for what it is and stopping it. And instead putting other things in your brain, like, well, okay. In my high school, calculus class, you know what I, I made a B on a test and a quiz in that, and I survived that and I got through it.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And so like thinking through concrete examples, that, that prove you are getting into a catastrophic thinking rather than something that’s accurate,
Kristina Supler: Helps with the reframe. Reframe your thoughts before you, before you go over the edge.
Susan Stone: Well, I love that Dr. Grimes. Every day we hear from college students saying they can’t get into their campus health center.
Susan Stone: I mean, it’s hard enough to get any appointment, much less someone who has the training and CBT. What are we going to do about this on campus?
Dr. Jill Grimes: So there’s several things. One, I will say there is a huge movement within college campuses. There are everyone recognizes that this is a huge problem.
Dr. Jill Grimes: They are trying to funnel more money into mental health. But right now, you know, football, mental health, where do you think the money’s going? Right. And football generates money for colleges. I’m not picking on football.. I love football. But I’m just saying, we have to keep we as a nation, have to, to be prioritizing it more.
Dr. Jill Grimes: But a practical moment for an individual who is in college and can’t get in. There’s a couple of things. One they should be able to get in to see their primary care physician, either on or off campus.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And there are other things that we can do specifically for anxiety. One of the things we can do is we can prescribe a low dose beta blocker, which is actually a blood pressure medicine. But we use it in tiny doses, not to lower the person’s blood pressure, but to actually slow their heart rate down. Because it turns out just like our bodies, our brains feed off our body’s response of if your heart is racing, your, your brain starts going, oh my gosh, I’m panicking.
Dr. Jill Grimes: The reverse is true if we are anxious, but our heart rate is staying slow our brain kind of. It takes a step back and sort of processes that maybe we’re not that anxious
Kristina Supler: A beta blocker, would that be habit forming at all? I mean, a lot of families are very sensitive about no. Okay, good for parents to know.
Dr. Jill Grimes: There’s no buzz. It’s not addictive in any way, shape or form
Susan Stone: no street value. It’s not like, no. Oh no. Like a benzodiazepine. Oh
Dr. Jill Grimes: No, it’s it’s again, not addictive. You don’t combine it with other stuff to make it addictive. There’s there’s, it’s, it’s a very boring drug. It literally, it just slows your heart rate down and in the doses that we use, it doesn’t even really affect your blood pressure.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And I’ll tell you what happens when I prescribed this, I typically will prescribe 10 pills and I will ask them cause you don’t take it every day. It’s not like a blood pressure medicine uses a blood pressure medicine that you have to take every day. This is an as needed. I’ve got a quiz today. I’m going to give a talk in my, history class.
Dr. Jill Grimes: I’m giving a presentation and I’m anxious. I have stage fright. This is use it then. Okay. So, and so they take it and it slows their heart rate down. And what I had found with so many students one they comeback and like, I, you know, I get to be a hero for the day. They’re like, you have just changed my entire course of college because now I’m now I was able to give this presentation or I was able to take this test and not blank out my brain didn’t freeze.
Dr. Jill Grimes: So one, they love it. Two they’ll use it two or three times, and then it’s in your backpack kind of thing. They got it. They know that if they need it. It’s there and frequently they don’t.
Kristina Supler: Well, let me ask you this. Let’s talk about other prescriptions. I mean, Susan, you particularly with your special education work, deal a lot with students with executive functioning difficulties.
Kristina Supler: And there’s always that struggle with medication. I mean,
Susan Stone: you know what your chapter on test anxiety really sang to me, because the darling of our practices, our special education practice, which is for younger kids, obviously for IEP plans and 5 0 4 plans. And I love that you focused on executive function skills.
Susan Stone: Because I feel like every college should have a mandatory study skill course for all incoming freshmen and a lot of testing anxiety could be reduced with better habits that while they should’ve been addressed in high school, not many schools actually have that on the curriculum. Right. Do you feel, I’m going to ask you a really controversial question that if the study skills were better, And more nailed in how to approach learning that we would have a lot less anxiety and the less need for medication?
Dr. Jill Grimes: I absolutely believe that on so many different levels. I have full disclosure, our older daughter, who I’m extremely proud of is about to get her doctorate in occupational therapy, focusing on pediatric autism. So, um,
Susan Stone: so we’re all in the same sphere.
Dr. Jill Grimes: We’re on the same team. I promise you. Yes. I think it’s really important and you know, more and more colleges are having that freshmen study skills course. I think some of them are a lot more effective than others. Many of them, really just are not connecting with the students and they, they make fun of them and they, they joke about it. Oh my God, did you go to whatever, you know, study skills, blah, blah, blah.
Dr. Jill Grimes: But the reality is. There are there’s, there’s so many skills that I talk about brain dumps as an example that a brain dump, um, for our listeners is that you sit down to take a test and say, it’s like a physics test with a whole bunch of formulas or a history test with a whole lot of dates.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And basically the second that the test begins, you do a brain dump. You write down all those formulas. Cause usually it’s like five formulas, right? Or five key dates. Um, you write them down on your test, you know, off to the side and then it’s dumped out of your brain. And then you’re not spending that part of your brain in a loop in the back of your brain the whole time while you’re doing it thinking, I gotta remember this. I gotta remember this.
Dr. Jill Grimes: So that’s the study technique. And there are so many little study tips like that. Um, I wish that get every college in the United States to give us their top tip, you know, and then we can post those and get those across to people.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Because students, when they hear that they should go to, tutoring, the smart students. It’s interesting. The students with the highest grades in, in most schools across the board, all go to tutoring. So.
Susan Stone: The more highly selected the college, the more they go to tutoring. And back sometimes they get an academic trouble from going to tutoring and do Bronxville court.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Exactly. And I, but I try and get that across to everybody because there’s this perception that only the kids who are struggling need it. And you’re not even on an even playing field. In my opinion, if you’re not going to tutoring of some sort. And a lot of times it’s just a matter of learning different techniques to study.
Dr. Jill Grimes: I have a ton of friends who are professors and my dad was a professor. So, um, I have interest in this. I always ask them, you know, what, what’s your favorite tip to give incoming freshmen or a new student to your class. And, you know, the first step of course is go meet the professors, go to their office hours.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Just meet them, say hello. I had a conversation just a couple of weeks ago with a professor and she said that. I realized after you asked me that when students come and meet me she’s like it’s subconscious, but I think I have subconscious bias and I want to help them more because I know they’ve come to help me.
Dr. Jill Grimes: She’s like, I, I just, you know, she’s been a professor for 30 years. It’s just like, I never thought about it from that angle. But so one go to the professor, but, and go to the review sessions. But also when you study get a partner and as you go through the PowerPoint, which is what most people, most professors use now, right.
Dr. Jill Grimes: As you’re going through that in your study group of two or three people take turns asking each other, what do you think Dr. Rushing would ask on the test off this slide? And then ask it and then have the other one answer. And then, you know, then you’ve got this back and forth and it’s much more interactive and it’s better learning.
Kristina Supler: Let me ask you this Dr. Grimes. Cause I know Susan and I, we do a lot of work in the field of academic misconduct. So students, for whatever reason who have been accused of something, perhaps rightly or wrongly, we hear from students sometimes that they have such test anxiety and trouble focusing marijuana really helps.
Susan Stone: Oh, that’s right. You know, you got it’s it’s. You can’t even argue with them and it’s not our job but we do.
Kristina Supler: Now in your book, you talk about you explore dependency on marijuana and I know Susan and I really appreciate that because in our experience from our, talking to college kids on a daily basis, marijuana has been completely, totally normalized. It’s like taking a cough drop.
Susan Stone: And they don’t believe you can get addicted.
Kristina Supler: That’s right. It seems like perhaps you disagree with that and you know, you have a different view. What, what would that, can I say?
Dr. Jill Grimes: Can I get on my soapbox and give you like four points about this?
Susan Stone: Yeah, we want marijuana. How about three? Because people remember things in three. Okay.
Dr. Jill Grimes: On the addiction side of it, there is conflicting evidence about addiction, but we do know that at the teenage brain about one in six will get addicted if they try marijuana. So the problem is for the college student, five out of six of their friends that they know never got addicted and that the they’re right.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Cause five out of six don’t or maybe 10 out of 10 of their friends didn’t because the odds are still with you that you’re not going to get addicted. But let me just say it is. We see students all the time at the end of college. And I saw patients in my private practice who thought they were just going to smoke during college, who really couldn’t give it up. So that’s one.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Number two, one of the things that I always say, because I like to use humor to get points across. As I say, if you didn’t grow it, you don’t know what’s in it. And I am not encouraging everybody to go out and start their own pot farm. What I mean by that is that if you are buying your pot where it’s not in a state where it’s not legal, which the state I’m in, it is not legal. So a hundred percent of pot in Texas is being, you know, is the illegally being distributed. Right. They sell pot by weight. And so one there’s things. To add weight, which could be like sand or even crushed glass particles.
Dr. Jill Grimes: You don’t want to be inhaling that into your lungs, obviously. But worse than that is that frequently there’s what we call wet weed, which means that they laced it with something else to make it seem stronger because of course their incentive is to sell more pot. So they want to have a reputation of having very powerful pot.
Dr. Jill Grimes: So they think.
Dr. Jill Grimes: I think I heard
Kristina Supler: formldahyde.
Dr. Jill Grimes: That’s fine, right? Yeah, exactly. Formaldehyde, which we used to pickle dead bodies. Right. You know, like think of the freshmen biology, your frog, but, we don’t want that going into your brain. But LSD is the other thing, acid. So, if you think you’re just smoking marijuana, but you’re having a really bad trip, there could be acid in there.
Dr. Jill Grimes: But the other thing is, so the third, you only gave me three. So here’s my last one that so many college students will say, I’m just, you know, I just use it to relax, to calm down my brain, to go to sleep at night, to calm my anxiety. But what we see is that people who are using pot in this manner, actually have more anxiety and, you know, the kind of increased paranoia.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And I will just tell you, college mental health departments hate pot. And this is why they hate it because it actually makes things worse not better. In the short term, just like alcohol pot or alcohol is going to make you a little bit sleepy and relaxed. It doesn’t improve your quality of sleep, however, and you need good restorative sleep to help with anxiety, et cetera, et cetera.
Kristina Supler: It’s sort of a cascading effect. It seems. Um, and actually it’s interesting that you talked about what we weed and if you didn’t grow it, you don’t know what’s in it because Susan and I have spent a lot of time on the topic lately and we’ve explored in a prior episode of Real Talk, the dangers of fentanyl and that being in, in street drugs pills, so on and so forth.
Susan Stone: Yeah. That Kristina just, two days ago, a really good friend of mine called me. And her son who’s in college in Arizona had a very, very dear friend at Ohio state.
Kristina Supler: I don’t know if it hit the national news, but at Ohio State university tragic story about a roommate coming home and, and others in the house were dead.
Susan Stone: Really good, wonderful kids. And, uh, our condolences go out to those families now and for families in the future. Cause this is something that we have to, to deal with. I want to get out of there and I, gosh, we could talk to you forever, but we really have to talk about sexual assault because
Kristina Supler: that’s another thing we deal with day in and day out.
Susan Stone: We’re trying to hit all sex and drugs. We defend both men and women involved in title nine cases. Around the country. We have a national practice and you know, it’s become, it’s evening out. How many women versus how many men that we actually serve as student advisors.
Kristina Supler: I know that sometimes we see a difference in the treatment of men and women in these cases on college campuses.
Kristina Supler: Um, I mean, I w would you,
Susan Stone: well, I just want to point out on your, we loved your chapter on sexual assault. But it seemed very focused for females and how to prevent it. We’d like to know if you had to write the book again, or you want to add today, what would you say to the other half of our country going to college?
Dr. Jill Grimes: Well, there’s definitely, it is not gender unique. Both the perpetrator and the victim can be male or female, for sure. I will say in my personal clinical experience, still very heavy on female. And I have to go back and read that chapter now. Because I tried not to have it completely one-sided.
Dr. Jill Grimes: I mean, I do have a bias that I see more of that, but I see it both ways and I’ve, I have treated, you know, a good number of male victims as well. And, and some
Susan Stone: They are growing.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Right, right. And some of their partners are female and some of their partners are male. Definitely that the thing that I would like to emphasize that might be a little, well, I’m sure it overlaps with what you guys talk about, but is the whole issue of blackout drinking.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Yes and consent. So blackout drinking does not mean passing out. Okay. Passing out is being unconscious. Blackout means that you have a memory gap. And that happens when the blood alcohol content rises too quickly. What causes that? Doing shots. Okay. And so when it rises really quickly, it shuts off the message system in your brain has to do with the hippocampus.
Dr. Jill Grimes: But the bottom line, what you need to know is that you’re not creating memories. So the next day, your best friend’s normal. No, no, for sure.
Susan Stone: You could be blacking out but like to everyone else in the room, you look fine.
Dr. Jill Grimes: That’s right. You may not have slurred speech. ’cause you’re it’s it’s it’s has to do with how quickly that blood alcohol level is rising.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And you may have slurred speech in 30 minutes, but you may not, when you were giving enthusiastic, ongoing verbal consent. Right. But the next day, no matter if someone was with you the whole time, and they’re reminding you and say, but don’t you remember this? Don’t you remember that? And trying to prod your memory.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Well, guess what? That doesn’t work with this because you weren’t making memories. So that person is never going to remember giving consent, if they gave it and they’re not gonna remember not, you know, they’re not gonna remember either way. They’re, they’re gonna know they may have physical evidence that they were physically intimate with somebody, but they don’t know if they consented or not.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And you can see the problems that, that creates. Brown out by the way, or some people say gray out, but the south is war refers to, as brown out is having fuzzy spotty memory loss. Um, so similar process, but just, there were a little bit of breakthrough memories in there. But you cannot tell, I want to re-emphasize exactly what you said.
Dr. Jill Grimes: You can’t tell by looking if somebody is going to have been blackout drunk and not had memories of the next day.
Kristina Supler: I’m glad to hear you talk about that. And I think it’s great for parents out there to hear you discuss that. Because Susan and I deal with this issue on a regular basis. Cases where a person was blacked out, that there was an issue was consent properly given obtained, and, and it’s just, they’re they’re challenging, challenging cases.
Susan Stone: Um, no fast shots.
Kristina Supler: Nothing good comes from that.
Susan Stone: Right? Flavored condoms, no fast shot.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Just, you know, drink beer, wine. It’s really hard. You know, you, you have to be really aggressive with beer. I mean, think back to the eighties beer bong. Your guys are too young, but
Dr. Jill Grimes: I’m just saying, um, you have to work at it to get Too much alcohol too fast from other things. But shots they’re tiny. They’re small people chug them and then worse if you’re on ADD meds. So you’re on a stimulant med medication you’re not, you don’t even feel the first shots that you do, which makes it so much riskier.
Dr. Jill Grimes: And that’s part, I firmly believe that’s a big part of the culture of blackout drinking is that there’s no feedback from the body telling them what’s going on because the shots are coming in too fast. And then if you add in the ADD medication, you you’ve got that further delay. So it’s just very risky.
Kristina Supler: Dr. Grimes, your book is so comprehensive and we really, it’s interesting to read all the chapters and all the topics you cover. And of course now with the updates you had to add,
Susan Stone: And I just want to add to the readers were picking apart to talk about the chapters that we think lend themselves for discussion.
Susan Stone: There’s a lot of great chapters on there about, you know, just headaches and neck aches and how to deal with sore throats.
Dr. Jill Grimes: When to get an x-ray
Susan Stone: when to get an x-ray? Yeah. It’s just we, for purposes of like fun thought or didn’t focus on those, but parents, it’s just a great how to manual.
Kristina Supler: That’s right. And I mean, the, the most recent update with COVID, uh, it, it’s just sort of crazy to think about now that you had to add a chapter on COVID.
Kristina Supler: Yeah. How students, need to be mindful and safe of that. If you let’s fast forward and you have to do another updates, a book is wildly successful and your publisher came back and said, “Add more, add more.” If you read, if you added content today, what would you add now to stay current or what’s the most pressing new issue that sort of snuck up, um, in your experience, dealing with students on campus.
Susan Stone: Great question.
Dr. Jill Grimes: It is a great question. I will tell you that I started off with a hundred topics and it was a matter of, they made me cut it down to 50 for the first book. And then my book came out May, 2020. So it was finished being written in just right before COVID. Wow. Timing. Yeah, it was bummer to say the least.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Um, but at any rate, So that was a big obvious, like we have to talk about, and I want you to talk about zoom fatigue and what, you know, practical things that you could do to help with your eyes and neck pain and all of that stuff, because it just magnified all the computer issues aside from COVID. But anyway, so that was a big obvious that came in, but I’ll tell you, I have a list of 50 more topics that I’m, you know, If we do a new edition every few years, which we may do, I’ve already got such good seizures.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Like seizures is not in the book. And seizures are actually really common and you may not have one, but your roommate, but your roommate might have one. And it’s, you know, the biggest thing was seizures, just in a nutshell, since I brought it up is you’re just, you’re not, don’t stick anything in their mouth.
Dr. Jill Grimes: That’s old school. We don’t put things on them to keep them biting their tongue. All that does is choke them. You just trying to create a safe environment for them to finish having their seizures. So, if their head is near something that’s going to hit and cause a problem, you might stick a pillow to, prevent that.
Dr. Jill Grimes: But anyway, but seizures definitely needs to be in there. We see so much diabetes. the kids who come into college with type one diabetes. Most of them have pumps. They know more about diabetes than most physicians about their personal diabetes, you know?
Dr. Jill Grimes: But I definitely think there needs to be a chapter on that, both for type one and type two diabetes. Cause we’re just seeing so much of that. Those are the first two that immediately jumped to my mind.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Can I have a suggestion to certainly, sorry, I just have to check Dr. Stone. No, I’m not. But I do think there needs to be talking about, um, cutting.
Kristina Supler: Oh, self-harm.
Susan Stone: Self-harm
Susan Stone: that’s actually yes. And mental, um, discussion.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Right?
Susan Stone: Can it get infected? Do you know. Why it’s not a good coping mechanism, maybe just a thought.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Well, it’s hard like that with eating disorders. I mean, that kind of goes to me, those go hand in hand. The problem, it’s such a complex topic, that there were some things that I chose not to put in there. That was one, but it’s a good point.
Dr. Jill Grimes: Appreciate it. The other chapter that really should be in there that’s not is something that I talk about, all the time. And I talk about it so much. Like I didn’t think it necessarily to be in the book, but for someone who hasn’t heard me talk about how to prepare your kid to navigate the healthcare system before they go to college.
Susan Stone: Oh my God.
Kristina Supler: I owe you the phone calls we get from angry parents. Why won’t the school will talk to me. There’s FERPA release. There’s HIPAA releases. Your child’s 18. The doctor. It’s not just gonna tell you everything going on. Oh, the yes. Yes.
Susan Stone: You know what? Dr. Grimes, I’m going to be 56. Yes. The centers. And I can’t navigate the healthcare system anymore.
Susan Stone: So I think. We just have to, uh, maybe put that three books from now, but you heard it to those listeners. We, Dr. Grimes has given you a little supplement in our podcast, but to all our parent listeners, who’ve had students heading off to college. Again, I can’t give what a cute gift it would be to put a box with everything in the last chapter that you suggest that kids have in their box.
Susan Stone: And I wish you could see that she’s showing us through the screen, along with the book and, uh, where you’re going to have to be a guest again.
Dr. Jill Grimes: I would love to come back. I was thinking we have so much we could talk about.
Kristina Supler: We could go on and on and on, but Dr. Grimes, thank you for joining us today and to our listeners.
Kristina Supler: Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so that you never miss an episode and leave us a review so that other people can find the content we share here as well. You can also follow us on Instagram, just search our handle at stone Supler. And for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.kjk.com.
Kristina Supler: Thank you so much for being a part of our real talk community and we’ll see you next time.