posted
Does anyone know if there is a connection between mononucleosis and Lyme...
My daughter has supposedly had three mono episodes in her life plus several "reactivation" even though one supposedly only gets mono once...
her first supposed oputbreak was two months after her tick bite at age 7.
I thought it was weird for a 7 year old to get mono...
just wondering if anyone knew of some good info...
Elle
Posts: 217 | From New Jersey | Registered: Apr 2007
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Starphoenix
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posted
I was told I had mono in 1985, but now I know it was Lyme. I kept getting flares and thinking my "mono" was recurring. Subsequent tests were negative. I don't know why the initial test was positive. It was a mono spot test. Maybe it appeared positive due to Lyme? Or Babs, which I also have? I don't know. Here I am raising more questions. Sorry!
I've heard before that Lyme was misdiagnosed as mono.
-------------------- Learning to love, and loving to learn. Posts: 1318 | From Shohola, PA | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
My daughter was diagnosed with mono, but we are pretty sure it was the lyme. I've read where other people were diagnosed with mono or chronic fatigue, but it was lyme.
Posts: 41 | From Warfordsburg,PA | Registered: May 2007
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Marz
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Member # 3446
posted
I've wondered about this too.
I recently brought in my lab tests from LLMD to show to new internist for primary care, and he asked me when I'd had mono.
Never that I knew of, but apparently there were three epstein-barr tests that he said were high Igg.
Does it come from the tick, or do you get it because your immune system is low from lyme???
Posts: 1302 | From USA | Registered: Dec 2002
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Vanilla
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posted
In high school I shared a apple with a girl during one of my classes who had just gotten over mono - Hey teenagers are not the brightest.
I ended up with such a bad case of mono they almost had to put me in the hospital. My dad's girl friend was a nurse and his best friend a doctor and I was closely monitored.
My hair became very dry and I looked pale white. I was in bed for some time with a horrible sore throat. At first they thought it was strep but my zillion strep tests I was forced to do by the nurse on a nightly basis all came back negative.
It did not seem like lyme to me but it could have been and I thought for sure I caught it from eating that apple with my friend and getting germs from her salvia.
I also had tick bites as a young child before I ever had mono.
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bettyg
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posted
count me in; that's how my lyme started with a mono dx; learned last year i have 3 types of epstein barr virus .. this in jan. 1970 ... 37 yrs. ago!
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posted
There is definitely a connection between pseudomono and bartonella! When my daughter crashed with a sore throat, lesions in her throat and fatigue, the doctor tested her for mono and fungal infection. Both were negative. I did a little research and found the connection to bart. And in looking back through medical tests, I found a positive bart test, (four months earlier). I don't remember why we didn't treat bart at that time - we just put it on the back burner. However, she started rifampin about two months ago, and began herxing like mad. Bart rashes - never before seen - erupted.
I would suspect bartonella in your son's case! If you want to read about this, just google bartonella and mononucleosis; you will find studies and even a piece here on lymenet by Tincup. It is probably in the 'newbies' section.
Bart is much bigger player in the whole chronic lyme picture than we realized, I think.
Posts: 422 | From Herndon, Virginia | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
There is definitely a connection between pseudomono and bartonella! When my daughter crashed with a sore throat, lesions in her throat and fatigue, the doctor tested her for mono and fungal infection. Both were negative. I did a little research and found the connection to bart. And in looking back through medical tests, I found a positive bart test, (four months earlier). I don't remember why we didn't treat bart at that time - we just put it on the back burner. However, she started rifampin about two months ago, and began herxing like mad. Bart rashes - never before seen - erupted.
I would suspect bartonella in your son's case! If you want to read about this, just google bartonella and mononucleosis; you will find studies and even a piece here on lymenet by Tincup. It is probably in the 'newbies' section.
Bart is much bigger player in the whole chronic lyme picture than we realized, I think.
Posts: 422 | From Herndon, Virginia | Registered: Oct 2005
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cactus
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posted
I had "recurring" mono as a child - started in '82, with a suspected case of mono, which would flare and then subside, then flare again.
During flares I would miss 6 months of school at a time.
LLMD believes that was the beginning of my Lyme experience, too.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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Vanilla
Unregistered
posted
I thought I first received a tick bite with a lyme tick 16 years ago and now it appears it was actually light years ago...
You have to just love those cute little ticks and also all biting insects - NOT!
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posted
My daughter tested positive for mono and lyme last spring. Her symptoms in the beginning were anxiety, tired and feeling just "not right". After being put on antibiotics she had many more symptoms but is now beginning to feel better! Thank you Dr J!!!!!! Karen
Posts: 82 | From east hampton ny | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I too had mono (positive monospot) which was the start of my symptoms. I don't think lyme somehow gives a positive monospot (which it shouldn't - Lyme and EBV are entirely different entities). I actually had a very "light" case of mono. Besides the fatigueand aches, I didn't have any other physical symptoms like swollen glands or tongue.
Most people get Mono or another EBV exposure some time in their life (usually high school or college). So I don't think there's a correlation between the two really, except for the fact that it can act as a "wake up call" when you don't get better from mono as expected.
Posts: 691 | From East coast, USA | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Thanks for all the great responses! My daughter did have positive mono tests, including the heterophile, and each time she supposedly had a "relapse" she was sick for months and months...seems maybe the relapses were actually Bartonella...from what some of you wrote...Not sure if the first episode of supposed mono was really mono ... seems to me that it was her first lyme/or coinfections sx...even her pediatricians at the time seemed to disagree as to whether the first "mono" was really mono...though she did test positive on EBV...
I was concerned because I read in several places that EBV can skew lyme tests...she did get a positive Western Blot in March (12 years after the only tick bite we know of--and 11 yrs 10 months after her first supposed Lyme episode. All Lyme tests before this past March came out negative (they were, I believe, ELISA's)..
New doc, an LLMD is going to test her for co-infections this Thursday...maybe then we'll get the answer.
Ellen
Posts: 217 | From New Jersey | Registered: Apr 2007
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Geneal
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posted
Dear Elle,
I believe the false-positive on Lyme tests due to EBV is geared to the Elisa.
However, it is my humble opinion (having a high EBV and CMV titer now as well).
That the lyme suppressed our immune systems letting these once dormant infections to become active again.
Hugs,
Geneal
Posts: 6250 | From Louisiana | Registered: Oct 2006
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Thanks for your response. That makes so much sense to me.
Maybe it was just a fluke that her first mono episode was right after the tick bite..and yes, it was an ELSIA they ran on her back then. Her ability to fight of infections has been horrendous ever since... Elle
Posts: 217 | From New Jersey | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
I think it is kind of odd and startling that many people here think that every symptom or health concern they have every had in their entire life came from Lyme Disease. Like somehow finding this diagnosis will be the cure all and other things such as EBV do not mean anything. For a few of us attacking Lyme disease by itself will make us healthy.
However, for the overwhelming majority of us, it will take a multi-faceted approach which considers and addresses bacteria, virus, metals, parasites, mycoplasma, among countless other things.
My illness started 7 years ago with an episode of mononucelosis. My imune system was weak and perfect prey for countless other oppurtunistic critters including lyme disease to take hold at that moment. My brother, my dad, and all my friends have walked in the same woods and been bitten by the same ticks as me yet they are not sick. Many people carry Lyme but have no symptoms at all. Why?
Posts: 26 | From Memphis, TN | Registered: Apr 2007
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I never said that every symptom she had was from Lyme Disease...
I asked for clarification of any connection between the EBV and Lyme, with special reference to Lyme tests being skewed one way or another by the EBV.
In my dughter's case...she has had mono with plenty of relapses and has also tested positive on the WB at LabCorp...therefore, she has Lyme disease and Mono..I imagine her chronic symptoms (joint aches, enlarged spleen, swollen glands, headaches, recurring bouts of low platelets, fevers, cognitive dysfunction, and fatigue) are a mix of the recurring EBV and Lyme...never did I say that LD explained it all...in fact, I was looking for any info re any corrlational or empirical data on any relationships between the two diseases.
Posts: 217 | From New Jersey | Registered: Apr 2007
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JRWagner
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posted
Elle...please see my post today on Malaria and EBV connection, from Science Daily.
JRWagner
Posts: 1414 | From Ny, Ny | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
I was tested for mono twice when I was a teenager, which was when I had my rash that I now believe was due to LD. They told me the rash was a fungal infection from a tanning bed, although it was on my abdomen and I never laid on my stomach in the tanning bed. All the creams and medicine they gave me never cleared it up. Then the spots just went away on their own after several months. Weird, huh?
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