hah! vindicated!

[freckles_and_doubt]

Blood tests apparently show that I've had glandular fever. Not, note, that I currently have glandular fever, but that sometime in the past I've had it - probably pinpointable to about a month ago, when I had that odd weekend during which my glands exploded. This damned recurring sinus infection has thus been opportunistically piggybacking on the general debility caused by rampaging Epstein Barr, which is why it Refuses To Die. Pshaw.

I cannot sufficiently stress how much better this knowledge is making me feel. I don't actually feel much physically better, still tired and icky, but the moral superiority inherent in the ability to say "I've had glandular fever" is IMMENSE. The last six months have not only had me feeling truly horrible, they've had me feeling like a pale, limp, useless, malingering thing who has no real reason to feel so horrible. Now I have a reason. Eat that, Calvinistic universe!

I have to add, though, that I'd feel even better about the whole damned thing if I'd recently been anywhere near the sort of passionate embrace which is usually necessary to contract glandular fever in the first place. This is apparently randomly floating or spontaneously generating version, capable of striking despite a demonstrable lack of love-life over more years than I care to enumerate. There's no justice.

Comments

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

yay! i am so glad you now at least know what's going on. the same thing happened to me, at the end of my Ll.B intermediate year. i got diagnosed just in time to start final year, and of course the fact that i had written my exams in a state of fuzzheadedness didn't help.

i recall 2 things i was prescribed during convalescence - a multivitamin called gericomplex (yes, it's meant to be for elderly folks :) ) and a brain stimulant or similar called ?nutropil. the latter really really helped the fuzziness to disperse.

and ditto absence of passionate embraces.

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

No passionate embraces? What am I, chopped liver!

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

erm i was referring to when i contracted the disease under discussion... circa 1989.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for the tip, I'll hunt those up. I'm very aware this is going to be an issue for a while - I was feeling better for the last few days, but I'm exhausted again today, for no reason. I think wistfully of not being fuzzy. It would be so nice not to be fuzzy...

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Eep! Now that it has been identified, hope it all gets nuked by modern medicine.

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

nope, it's one of the things that modern medicine simply can't do. the only thing is to treat the various symptoms, build up the immune system by whatever means, and get lots of rest. my term for it was "achy and shaky". if i overdid it, that was my life... for MONTHS. even going shopping with me was a nightmare, i would suddenly have an energy crash and get all whimpery and need to sit down.

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

That is the problem with GF, it can not be nuked.

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

Hey there, it does feel better to know you are not just being parnoid.

I had glandular fever in the final year of high school, twice. I also think I had more bouts in the following years.

I really can not offer any advice besides letting people know and that there is no shame in the afternoon nap. I suspect that even after 15 years after my first bout I still need to nap because my body has never really recovered.

I know know that is the last thing you will want to hear is that may haunt you for a while. But take it easy, don't push yourself, your body is a temple, one that requires rest and general chilling and no one should deny you of that. Have a doctors sick note to brandish and look after you. Healthy eating, lots of rest and low stress.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

The literature all says it's not supposed to recur, but a lot of people have anecdotal experience of recurrence, so I'm not sanguine. But very happy to have lots of people validating a certain amount of lazing around :>. I don't mind it haunting me for a while if I have an identification, and a strategy.

And all this moral support/sharing of experience is really helping. You witterers rock.

Oh, you have mono!

[bend-gules.livejournal.com]

I had to wiki, to find out what glandular fever was. I know it as mono.

Hadn't realized that Epstein-Barr was the fancy pants name for the virus that causes mono.

Geez, no wonder you feel like crap.

I know that 'oh, thank god I have a disease' feeling, to confirm that no, you're not imagining it, there's a really good reason for feeling so rotten. Huge relief.

Intriguingly, wiki suggests that most of the developing world catches Epstein-barr as infants, and develop immunity (or die, presumeably).

It's just us in the 'developed' world, with our carefully nurtured and vaccinated immune systems, who catch it late in life (with those passionate embraces) and for whom it is so damaging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epstein_Barr

What are the traditional Zimb. remedies for lingering ailments?

Re: Oh, you have mono!

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Drinking beer from your own well-worn veldtskoen (leather shoe)

Re: Oh, you have mono!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hey! much with the stereotypes?

At current showing, traditional Zim techniques would be to divert all possible cures to the hands of the corrupt elite and sell it on the black market for profit in US dollars, apart from the small fraction of remedies doled out to party supporters.

Not that I'm cynical, or anything.

Re: Oh, you have mono!

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

In Australia it is commonly called the Kissing Disease.
It is common caught during the final years of high school, I suspect because for many of us it is the first time we are under lots of stress and start, kissing. It was well known for spreading through places like MacDonalds. Due to the practice of the whole crew drinking from the same cup during a shift. (ewww)

Is it really perverse to say I feel jealous?

[(Anonymous)]

Not of the actual sickness, obv, but of the Name and Reason to it all. I've spent the past few weeks feeling horribly crappy, stressy, exhausted etc and there really doesn't seem to be any reason for it all. 'Snotfair.

Not that I actually want glandular fever (even in the past tense), no.

scroob

Re: Is it really perverse to say I feel jealous?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Good lord, no - given the immense relief a label has given me, not perverse at all. We're horribly trained into believing that our subjective experiences are valid only if we can actually put an external, preferably scientific label on them. Darned technological civilisation.

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

mmm i'm glad to be of some help... but really all i can say is get rest, rest and more rest. whenever you start to feel shaky, sit down if you can. and lay off any strenuous exercise. if you feel worse after exercising, you might want to put gymming on hold for a few months. i think at your gym you have the option to do that? and watch your blood sugar levels too. try to take afternoon naps like mortie said. but oh, the fuzziness. i found myself unable to speak in full sentences sometimes as words evaded me, do you have that?