What is Mono- what does it do to you?!


Question: What is Mono- what does it do to you?
I'm 14 so I should probably know what it is..

but a girl from my school on Facebook said she had it on one of her statuses, and everyone was like, "Oh, I heard it's torture.."

So what exactly is Mono? Thanks! :)

Answers:

Basically it's enlarged white blood cells... well, that's what the doctor told me. I was misdiagnosed about two times, both times with just a normal head/sinus cold - before he sent me for bloodwork. Technically it's a viral infection and causes - most notably - enlargement of the spleen and lymph nodes. It presents clinically as a cold at first, sometimes with a cough, definitely a sore throat, low grade constant fever, constant fatigue, muscle aches, drowsiness, and loss of appetite.

And it was absolutely horrible. I had it in my senior year of high school. I was 17, and it was in December I was diagnosed with it. I could barely even move, I lost 20 pounds (before I was 135 at 5'8"), had to be hospitalized due to dehydration and the fact that I wasn't eating anything. They put me on an IV and fed me straight Ensure because I didn't have the energy to eat anything solid. I was out of school for three months! During then, I would faint even if I tried to exert myself when bringing a gallon of water out of the fridge to pour a drink. :/ I slept all but 4 or 5 hours of the day for most of two months straight.

I can't say it was torture, but I was completely miserable. I know that it's debatable on whether you can have 'outbreaks', but I've never been back to the same as I was before I got it. I feel very bad for your friend. The symptoms - or lack there of - and severity of the disease isn't set in stone. Some people get back to normal in two weeks, while others take longer. The doctor I went to told me it would be about 6 months to a year before I started feeling better. I know two other people in my high school that had it, but they didn't have it nearly as bad as I did. The longer it goes untreated, the worse it gets.



It's a virus. Generally it's like having a bad cold. You have a very bad sore throat, and if you look at someone's throat using a flashlight, you'll see all kinds of white crud growing there. You also get tired and want to sleep a lot, and you'll have a fever. It goes away after a few weeks. The younger you are when you get it, the faster it will go away and the more minimal the symptoms. This means that in babies and children, you may not be able to distinguish it from a regular cold--it goes away after a couple days, before you even have checked on it with a doctor. Teens will likely have worse effects but still not too bad.



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