My Experience with Mononucleosis

Recently, I found out that I have infectious mononucleosis. This was a shock, but mono hasn't been as bad as people have made it seem in the past. In this article, I will describe my experience with mono so that others can know what to expect if they get the disease.

I initially became ill on the first day of a week-long trip to the beach with my friends. I had been feeling well during the day, but as the evening approached, I began to develop a high fever and limped off to bed, hoping that I could arrest the progress of my illness and prevent it from getting worse and ruining the rest of my trip.

This, of course, worked terrifically well and I managed to vomit only five times in the course of three hours that night. I ended up being very tired and very frustrated. In the morning, however, I felt slightly better and took it slow for the next couple of days. As the week went on, I felt pretty much okay, except for having a low-grade fever and being a little more tired than usual. I didn't think much of it and thought that my body was just taking its time recovering.

I went home and felt okay for a day or two, until I developed a sore throat, swollen glands, and a cough. I thought my luck was bad and that maybe I had caught something from one of my friends, as most of them had been sick in one form or another during our trip. I thought that I had gotten sick for a second time, rather than this being a continuation of my first illness.

The sore throat was pretty solidly terrible. For about four or five days, it hurt so much to swallow that I wasn't eating much, and there was a period of about two days when I had to spit constantly because my mouth would fill with phlegm and saliva. It was very disgusting.

I had a doctor's appointment for an unrelated issue, and I was feeling somewhat better by the time I went to it. My sore throat was feeling almost completely better and my cough had mostly gone away.

I mentioned to the doctor that I had had a sore throat. He felt my glands, then ordered a blood test. I asked the nurse what the blood test was for. "Mono," she replied.

I laughed to myself the self-confident laugh of someone unaware that he is about to take a fall. I'm one of the most careful people I know with regard to not sharing food or drinks, so I didn't think that I was at risk for getting mono.

"You have mono," said the doctor a few minutes later. "Agh," I thought.

My throat continued to get better, and within a few days felt completely better. But at the same time, I began to feel more tired and lethargic. The fact that I wouldn't be able to kiss my girlfriend for a while really bothered me and, I feel, caused me to experience this. Before then and since then, I have not felt that tired.

At this point, just a week after my diagnosis, I feel completely better, except that I feel like I am at about 85-90% of my normal energy level. My throat doesn't hurt, my glands are only slightly swollen (likely a residual effect), and my cough is almost completely gone. All in all, the symptoms of mono lasted for only two and a half weeks.

I feel very fortunate to have only suffered the symptoms of mono for about two and a half weeks. I never felt lethargic for any period of time, only slightly tired in the afternoon during our beach trip. I'm glad that I managed to avoid this aspect of mono.

I hope that this article can be of some use to people that are diagnosed with mono. It's not necessarily a sentence of being exhausted for six weeks as some websites and people will have you believe.

One last thought that I would like to share with everyone is this: do not ever discriminate against someone with mono. Don't treat them as if they are terribly contagious, and don't not invite them to things because you think that they'll be too tired. Mono is spread only through saliva. Being around someone with mono alone will not make you sick. Why educated people choose to ignore science and medicine is beyond me, but I hope that in the future, people with mono aren't treated as if they are lepers.

Have you had mono? If so, how did your experience differ from my own? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the form of a comment. Thank you for reading!