Mononucleosis

[HeronNS]

I really am going to go out for a walk in the sun in a minute, but just came across this little piece of information: mononucleosis can be linked to a number of other ailments manifesting later in life, including cancer and autoimmune disorders.

healthline.com/health/epste...

[HeronNS]

I had mono when I was about 19.

[Ansteynomad]

I've had it twice, when I was 17 and when I was 25. It took me out for months, both times, and is believed to have damaged my pituitary and to have been the ultimate cause of my hypothyroidism.The Epstein Barr virus and can be very nasty and its effects can be far-reaching and life-long.

[HeronNS in reply to Ansteynomad]

I didn't know the connection until this morning. Not as sick as you, it seems I had symptoms for a long time, though. I remember having to leave the graduation dance at uni because I felt so horrible. And when a doctor from student health came to see me we had a Christmas tree! So more than six months had gone by with me thinking I just had a really bad cold which kept coming back. I even got married in November of that year. I was 20 by then. I also remember a similar episode about six years later when I was teaching school. I seemed to be sick every weekend and especially when there was a school break, and I figured I kept catching colds from the children. In retrospect, I wonder. I used to get quite sick with these colds. No way to prove anything of course. I wasn't sick enough to seek medical attention, except that Christmas and that's when I got the diagnosis. Ironically I started to get better just about then.

[Megams]

~Thank you Heron for bringing this interesting article to our attention - may fit into our bigger picture when placing the pieces of the puzzle of PMR together for quite a few of us here ~

[Sophiestree]

Is that similar to glandular fever? I had that at 14 and for years every time I got anything like a cold, slight fever etc, it came back in some way. Took until my 40s before it went, although I always get swollen glands every time I get something, and with my LVV diagnosis, I think people were going down the wrong road for quite a while as they were looking at that side of things for quite some time, alongside family history of my father with non-hodgkins

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Sophiestree]

It is glandular fever - mononucleosis is the medical name

[Sophiestree in reply to PMRpro]

Ha! I thought it was, I was just confused by the fact they called it Epstein-Barr but I guess 50 years ago it wasn't given that name! Or maybe it was and I never knew!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Sophiestree]

It was! "The term infectious mononucleosis was first used in the 1920s to describe a group of students with a similar pharyngeal illness and blood laboratory findings of lymphocytosis and atypical mononuclear cells. It was only later that the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was established as the cause of mononucleosis after an exposed healthcare worker developed a positive heterophile test."

I suppose EBV is more exact?????

[Sophiestree in reply to PMRpro]

thanks for that. always learning.my Dad (GP) just called it the kissing disease!

😂

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Sophiestree]

That was a slur on the pastimes indulged in by students on a campus Uni wasn't it? Passed on by saliva - but that can also be from a glass or cutlery!

[Sophiestree in reply to PMRpro]

Yes, and he loved teasing me, when I was only 14 and very very innocent!!A bit like ME, which years ago, my Mother used to call Royal Free Disease...

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Sophiestree]

Never heard that before - yuppy flu was still the term when I had it, The Royal Free episode sounds a bit like the start of infectious PMR! "It's all in your mind ..."

[Sophiestree in reply to PMRpro]

ha! I think it was a nurse who first got it, that she knew about, maybe it was because she trained at the Royal Free that she heard about it, I don't know, but she used to call it that when I was young. It was definitely considered to be all in your mind, but she knew a nurse personally who really suffered, and contrary to how she might have been with her children, was very sympathetic and talked about her a lot.

[Sophiestree in reply to PMRpro]

But I remember being pretty poorly with it... and thereafter

[Oumaof2]

Wow thank you Heron... I had Glandular Fever aged 17... Knocked the stuffing out of me... Energy levels were never the same... Doctor called it "kissing disease"...

[HeronNS in reply to Oumaof2]

I think it could prove very instructive if more patients diagnosed with PMR were asked their medical history from earlier years. I wonder if some true patterns would emerge. For example there are so many people who say a flu shot triggered their PMR. And many more who aren't affected by that same vaccine. Why? What's the difference? Or people like us who have had a significant viral infection in the past. Maybe not "EBV" but something else which could cause the same sort of problems years later, perhaps in either case with the introduction of another factor? It's really complicated and I think if there was funding could be a fascinating study at the very least for a post doc dissertation!

[Oumaof2]

Absolutely agree... I firmly believe the Zoster Shingles jab at 70 kicked started my PMR... I would love to be around as, hopefully, research into the Immune system is more fully understood... A strand by strand task, considering how many different illnesses/ conditions there are!

Hope you enjoyed your walk in the sunshine 🌻

[HeronNS in reply to Oumaof2]

I did, thank you, and I am about to have another one today. This weather is so welcome. Not least because the wind is not so strong as it has been. I was having so much trouble walking in heavy winds it was slowing down recovery from knee injury. Making up for lost time now! 🚶‍♀️

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to HeronNS]

You've sent the wind here - real Foehn storm today!!

[HeronNS in reply to PMRpro]

Haha. Actually it's been mostly wind tunnel effects in our neighbourhood.... But there have been genuinely stormy days. No matter the source, when I was at my worst knee-wise I had so much difficulty, but gamely struggled on as well as I could. It was worth the battle. 🌬

[Oumaof2]

Walking and sunshine are very welcome, after Winter lockdown... It's been the most challenging of the three for many of us! Hope the knee behaves now... 🌻

[HeronNS in reply to Oumaof2]

It is so much better. Now I'm working on regaining all my lost strength. Still walking a bit slower than I'd like, but at least I can walk and it gets better every day. Must not be tempted to overdo it, though - that was my undoing for months last year until I got smarter.

[Oumaof2]

That's good to hear... It's frightening how quickly we lose strength... At least we have the whole Spring, Summer and early Autumn to regain some/most of it back...

I went shopping earlier... Two shops, walking back to the car, that old familiar feeling of "concrete" legs almost brought me to a standstill...

Heyho, at least it's fairly mild and sunny...

Take it slow and steady.... Stay safe🌻

[Logic]

I had mono my early 20s when I was mom of two little ones. Just remember how exhausted I felt. I went down to 97 pounds and my family doctor had me go in for vitamin 12 shots. Now that I think of it, it was the same exhaustion I feel with PMR.

[HeronNS]

Although being the parent of two little ones would have exhausted you somewhat anyway! Did the Vitamin B12 help?

Now that I look back on my life, I remember how I always thought how strong and energetic other people were. I never was. I never even did well with breadmaking when I was in my 30s and 40s because I found it such hard work kneading.... I remember noting how strong my stepmother seemed to be, she had more energy than me, and I was thirty years younger! It's also possible I had sarcoidosis by the time I was in my teens. That could be connected, I suppose, to major exposure to TB when I was around 7, both in the home and at school, and is also considered autoimmune although I'm not sure that's strictly true. Sarcoidosis is actually a sort of biofilm where bacteria have set up housekeeping in your body, so a reaction to it wouldn't strictly be auto-immune would it?

[Conundrum]

Interesting. I had glandular fever around 14 yo. My stamina has never been the same since.

[Hidden]

My son had glandular fever he was 11 at the time it started with flu like symptoms and sleeping all the time, I was keeping him home from school then when I sent him the school would phone me to go and collect him cause he was was sleeping in class and really pale. Back and fore the dr saying he still not well. had blood tests and it was confirmed glandular fever, he ended up with 4 months of school and slept for 3 months of them apart from waking up to get him to drink, I was bathing him like whenhe was a baby he lost just over 5 stone so dropped from 9st to 4st he was so weak he couldn't stand on his own,and the last thing a 11 yr boy wants is for his mum to be giving him a bath but u got to do what is necessary at the time, also notice there was a really awful smell, 2lb more weight loss and he would have been hospitalized, and I think that cause I couldn't stop crying and got really depressed, it took another 6months of hr a day in school then to build up to full days. He 21 now and still has days,weeks where he sleeps constantly and was told until he has 18months of no symptoms he is not clear of it. Then 1 day he just sat up and asked for faggots and peas which he never liked before. It was a hard few months there was still things he couldn't do by himself due to being so weak but soon put weight back on. Thankfully apart from the sleeping it's nothing like when it started, and there is no medication for this we just had to ride it out.