Wondering.

I have read that Mono (Epstein Barr Virus) is thought to be a trigger for what later becomes MS, essentially immune system kicks into overdrive and stays that way attacking CNS.

So last year when I had tests run, I was told I had mono and Transverse Myelitis (since this was my first episode)... only symptom of Mono was fatigue.. no fever, sore throat etc., whole host of neurological symptoms though.

So I'm wondering if the chicken or the egg came first.

Apparently MS patients have significantly higher antibodies to EBV. So did the Doc see antibodies because I had Mono or because they were high anyway?

Anybody know what the latest/greatest research is?

Hi and welcome to NeuroTalk Massy..

The jury is still out on all causes and triggers for MS but Mono is deffinately in the running, along with a lot of other Herpes 6 Illness.

Many causes and many different kinds of MS. I think that's where we are now, but they're working on it..

Again, welcome and I hope you stick around.

There was an article at the NMSS site discussing this.
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/new...x.aspx?nid=999

I've mentioned this several times but I am ABSOLUTELY convinced that the mono I had at age 38 triggered the MS a year plus later. It was a bad case--lasted for 9+ months. Had a few months of feeling decent again and then Wham....the MS hit. I read the NMSS link with great interest.

I had mono in late 95, early 96. Flat on my back for about a month. Took me close to a year to recover. I just dont think I ever got back to feeling what I felt like before the mono tho.

I think the first symptom that I can remember was vertigo. Always thought that was an ear infection. The vertigo started to hit me every few months probably in the summer of 97.

The big crap (optic neuritis) didnt hit me till summer of 2006, and that was the first time I ever even had any idea that it could have been MS. I had numbness in my thigh earlier in 2006, but a craptastic PA at my doctor's office told me that the numbness was a sprain and to put heat on it. (that PA was/is an total moron. I cant stand her...she's also the person who told me my MRI was clear, when it wasnt really clear)

I was at an MS research symposium a little over a year ago, and there was a doc there studying the EBV/MS linkage. What he said was that in the general population, a certain percentage of people have EBV antibodies detectable in their blood (I believe it was around 80%). In the population of people with MS, the EBV antibody detection rate was much higher (something like 96%). So his belief was that EBV plays some enabling role in MS, but may not be a "cause". His "best guess" was that EBV triggers the immune response that causes an MS flare.

Thanks for posting, Steve. Saw this in my "news alert" the other day.

I'm sure many of us have EBV stories to share and I am no exception. Just want to add that in my case, my lymph gland on the right side of my neck NEVER got completely un-swollen. There is always a tiny little "knob" that's there and when I'm under the weather, it gets a little larger.

In the past I would occasionally ask a doctor about it and they said it was nothing to worry about. Well, I'm not worried but I'm also not convinced that there's not more to it! Just MHO and also just speaking to my own situation, as I don't believe we all got here the same way.

I have that too...whenever I get a really bad cold, the lymph glands in my neck on both sides swell up to ginormous proportions. Which for me is really bad, since my tonsils are hugenormous and any more swelling in my neck and throat is really bad for me. (my tonsils are naturally hugenormous. Been like that since I was a baby.)