Common Medical Mistake Vent Session: Mono aka “The Kissing Disease”

If you've had mono in the past, don't let this present medical mistake affect your future. You've probably heard of mono. It's caused by the Epstein Barr virus. And it's so common that over 90% of people have had it by the age 35. I got mono in high school. Sharing a trumpet with somebody at pep band. I'm so cool. Decades later, Epstein Barr infections can get reactivated. Sure, you'll get viral symptoms. Symptoms that your immune system is out of balance. But there are other symptoms. Anxiety, depression, fatigue, extreme fatigue. But here's something you might not know. And I want to tell you the story so that you don't let it happen to you or anybody that you know. I had a patient come into my office recently, and she had really debilitating fatigue. She had joint pains, body pains. She was depressed. Her doctor had run almost every test under the sun, including autoimmune testing, cancer testing, iron testing. One of the things she was tested for was mono. She'd had it as a teenager, and her doctors were wondering if it was coming up again. But here's the mistake. Her doctors ran a mono spot test, which was negative. So they told her, nope, no mono. They ran the wrong test and therefore got the wrong result. When doing mono testing, you want to look at all of the antibodies. Remember, your symptoms are your body's attempts at showing you what needs healing and how if you're not getting answers, you might be looking in the wrong places.