Quote:
Originally Posted by herekitty1960
I found my youngest sons baby book and started reading what I had written in it way back then (1987...I was 27).
Would you believe I found this: "I'm having spells of numbness and vision loss especially when I get too hot. Doctor is going to test for gestational diabetes." 
Holy cow!! Have I had MS for 21 years?? I had mono when I was 19. I had chicken pox when I was 25 (horrible experience). Both are EBV I believe. Episodes of numbness and blurry vision when I'd get too hot - this happened frequently. It always went away when I'd cool off so I never thought much about it.
I was dx in 2005 but I think I've had this stuff for many years. This explains why my symptoms now seem so bad to me - I'm thinking "wow, this MS has progressed a lot in 3 years". But it's really over the course of at least 21 years...probably longer. |
EBV, the virus that causes mono, is a form of the Herpes virus. Chicken pox and Shingles are caused by Herpes Zoster. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is another form of Herpes that also causes mononucleosis.
and, yay, lucky for us
they're all latent viruses. Once you get them, they're yours to keep, and will stay latent (hidden) in your body.
I'm not exactly sure when I first started to have MS symptoms. I suspect that I might have had what I think is The Hug as far back as 1993...but I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly.
I do remember having vertigo (thought it was ear infections) AFTER I had mononucleosis. I know I had a few bits of vision weirdness starting probably in 1999. I'd wake up with blurred vision in one eye that would go away after a few hours.
I had numbness in one hand in the tips of the fingers that would usually go away within a day, and I think that started around 2001 or 2002.
I'm pretty sure that I can trace most of my problems back to when I had mononucleosis. I also had Shingles around the same time as having the Mono, and I'm pretty sure I got the mono from a girl that worked at the McDonald's that I used to work at. (get your minds outta the gutter! I know mono is called the "kissing disease", but I didnt get it
that way!)
I'm pretty sure that it was from sharing a cup of pop. Whenever our pop tanks needed to be changed, we had to taste the pop to make sure it was working. I think I got mono when she had me taste some pop from a cup she drank....and I'm pretty sure that my boss got mono at the same time and from the same cup.
My boss ended up developing MS probably around 2001 or so. I think the last time I saw her was when she was on her last day at the department store job she was working. She had optic neuritis and had just been diagnosed with MS a couple of weeks before I last saw her. I keep hoping that I'll see her when I'm out somewhere so I can tell her that I got it too, and that I think we both got it from that one girl. (I'm pretty sure the girl who had the mono got it from this sleazy guy that worked at our McD's...ewww...I see him on the news occasionally in stories about criminal cases)
There were at least several of us who ended up with Mononucleosis at the same time. The girl who brought that pestilence into the store had it first, altho the sleazy guy probably had it first. The girl didnt have that bad of a case of it, since she worked while she was sick with it. (umm...contagious virus?! and working around food!? Ewwwww!!!!)
After her, I think I got sick, the boss got sick, and I think one other guy might have gotten mono too. I know that me and the boss have both ended up with MS. Not sure about that guy tho, havent seen him since I quit. Not sure about the girl who passed the mono onto us. I saw her brother a few months ago, but he doesnt talk to her, so I have no idea how she is.
It's just interesting tho, that both me and my boss ended up with MS after having Mono. It furthers my belief that mono has something to do with MS...and is probably one of the big triggers for it.