New here, need help with EBV test results

Valtitude

I, too, have recurring EBV. For me, it's the trigger for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Here's what I know about EBV ...

I first got sick as a teenager, with a "mono-like virus" in 1975!! I was bedridden for eight weeks. My mother panicked and made me get out of bed to go to school and work. My lymph nodes were swollen for more than a year.

It took until the late 1990's before I was fully diagnosed and treatment (from various areas such as medicine, nutrition, spiritual wellness etc) began to have a positive effect.

The illness disabled me in 1993.

My doctor said if he'd been in charge of my case when I first got ill, he'd have counseled my mother to allow me to stay inactive until my lymph nodes went down - COMPLETELY!

There one particular lymph node under my chin that swells up when the EBV flares up. I call it my "EBV Indicator".

My EBV flare ups vary in intensity and happen around the clock and around the calendar. EBV is a herpes virus, therefore, it does flareup again for everyone who's ever had it.

In the U.S., 90 to 95 percent of the adult population (over age 21) has been exposed to EBV. Most people do not get ill from it - they think they've caught a cold. The same thing happens when the virus reactivates later on.

For those of us who got ill with EBV, the older you are when you first get sick, the sicker you'll get. For example, as a little kid, you might have symptoms of a bad cold. As a teenager, you have mononucleosis and have to take it easy for several months (or if you're like me a year wasn't long enough!) I know of a grad student, age twenty-four, who was hospitalized for two weeks she got so sick.

Older people can get very ill with EBV, although I can't figure out how they manage to avoid exposure earlier in life. Persons with AIDS can die from EBV.

Like the other person who wrote in on this topic, my doctor (who is a member of the Centers for Disease research group for CFS) used to check my EBV numbers. He even checked the DNA of the virus in my system! MY EBNA titers (the less than <, greater than > numbers) would stay at ZERO for long, extended periods of time - much longer than normal. My numbers haven't been looked at for years ... we pretty well know what's going on with me.

Your numbers seem infinitesimal to what mine were - which is a very good thing! If/ when your EBV flares up again, you'll probably think you've caught a cold ... you're lucky!!

If you have that unrelenting fatigue happen again, as you did for ten months, GET TO THE DOCTOR WHILE YOU'RE SICK!

I played a very dumb game with myself about seeing doctors ... I'd tell myself I was too sick to get out of bed and into the doctor's office. So, I'd wait until I felt better (not well - just better). DUMB, dumb, dumb! Once the doctor's saw how sick - "sick" was for me, they began to take this illness of mine very seriously! Don't do what I did. Drag yourself out of bed and go see your doctor when you are sick!

I don't worry about catching EBV from anyone else ... I have concerns about being around a friend of mine who has AIDS, when my virus is flared up. I've known him for twenty-five years - so it's just me worrying, probably for nothing. My friend was exposed to me, and my EBV, years before he got sick with AIDS.

Hope this helps somewhat. Hopefully you were pretty ill once and that will be the full extent of it! Don't worry about it, or over-think it, either!

Take your friend a bowl of chicken soup and a box of Emergen-C, then go have fun doing whatever you love to do!

Be well and happy! Good luck!