My son has mono

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, this has been fun: my son called me from school Friday afternoon a couple of weeks back to ask me to pick him up because he felt awful. He was feverish and I put him to bed right away. His fever lasted 4 or 5 days and the whole thing seemed to be acting like a normal virus. The doctor didn’t seem concerned and we figured it was just one of those passing things … except the high temperature didn’t go away. He had no energy and basically stuck to bed. His appetite was as close to zero as it can get. There weren’t any other big symptoms, just the low fever, no energy, and more weight loss than you would expect even given that he was barely eating. He had a blood test 10 days into it that was wildly unpleasant since he was badly dehydrated (teenage boys don’t always follow their parents’ advice to drink more water than they think they need), but it ruled out a few nasty possibilities. After 12 days, the doctor suggested we bring him to a hospital for testing. With my son out of the room, he said that one possibility would be an internal tumor whose only symptom was a long-lasting fever. Gee, thanks for that, doc.

So off he went to a children’s hospital for two nights, where he was treated with kindness and sympathy and left last Friday with less blood but a teddy bear and new mental trauma from the clown doctors who visit the kids twice a week. shudder They ruled out all manner of scary possibilities, which was a relief, and said it was likely mono, but we’d have to wait for confirmation from the tests.

Which came today. He definitely has mono, and all we can really do is let him rest as much as he needs to until he gets better. He’s missed 13 school days so far (out of 18) and won’t be going back until next week at the earliest, depending on how he feels, and probably won’t be back fulltime for some time after that. I’m relieved as hell, actually – if it hadn’t turned out to be mono, the other illnesses that could be indicated by his symptoms are universally frightening.

tl;dr version: my 15-year-old son has mono. Anyone have any experiences or anecdotes about it? I’m curious about how long this will affect him; I have certainly heard stories over the years about missing over a month of school followed by months of debilitating fatigue, but of course every case is individual.

Oh, the silver lining for him? Because his spleen is enlarged, he’s not permitted to take part in sports or physical education for at least a month, meaning he’ll miss his school’s Field Day in two weeks. Woo-hoo! :slight_smile:

2

Clown doctors? Has someone been probing into my nightmare file again?

I hope he recovers soon.

StG

3

Since you’re looking for advice/anecdotes, I’ll move this to the medical advice/anecdotes forum, IMHO.

Hope he feels better soon – glad it wasn’t anything more serious!

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

4

I had it when I was in college plus working full time. Had to quite work. Could barely walk all the way across campus. It eventually passed after a few months of feeling sucky and flu-like.

5

I don’t think there’s any reliable way to tell how long it’s going to last. I had mono when I was around 24. I first felt the symptoms in early September and finally felt like the fatigue was gone some time in November. I don’t think I missed any days at work, but my schedule back then was pretty flexible (meaning nobody cared when I showed up). I just had no energy for anything whatsoever. It sucks, but it goes away in time.

6

I had the very un-lovely experience of having all 4 of my children get mono last fall. Not all and once and get it over with, but one after the other after the other after the other. It was extremely miserable and lasted for ages!

7

I had it in college. My case must have been mild because I was able to get up and go to all my classes–though I’d go straight back to my room and collapse afterward. I felt tired for 2-3 weeks total. During that experience, I began to get thirsty at night and need to keep a glass of water by my bed… twelve years later that hasn’t changed.

One weird side effect of mono in the recovery phase is that your eyelids may be swollen when you wake up in the morning. There were a couple of mornings I could barely see.

Two important things I remember reading at that time were:

(1) Your liver swells, so no contact sports for a couple months to avoid rupture, and
(2) Overexertion can bring on a relapse, so take it easy for a few months

8

I caught it from my wife (then girlfriend) about ten years ago; I was in my twenties at the time and working full time.

It wasn’t that bad (mostly sore throat + weakness) except for the idiot doctor at the walk-in clinic who told me it was strep throat and prescribed me antibiotics. That caused me to break out in a rash, so another idiot doctor gave me a different antibiotic that made me break out in a truly impressive full body rash! After a five hour wait at the emergency room, a doctor diagnosed me with mono in about a minute. :rolleyes:

9

“I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored.”

10

Yep, me too! And in fact, that’s probably how the ER doc diagnosed you so quickly. I was told that mono plus antibiotics pretty much always yields that very distinctive rash. I used to get strep quite a bit when I was younger, so my doctors assumed it was that and not mono. They gave me amoxicillin, and within a few hours, I had a beautiful bright red rash everywhere, including my eyelids, the palms of my hands and feet, and inside my ears.

That was the worst part, though, and it went away within a couple of days. As for the mono, I don’t remember it being terrible, but I did have it during the summer, so I can’t say exactly how long it lasted. I had to quit my job, but other than that, I just slept a lot and watched a lot of TV. I was back to my old self after a few weeks, certainly. *Lots *of rest, lots of fluids.

11

I had mono, paired with tonsillitis, when I was sixteen (including my 16th birthday). I don’t remember too much about it, other than having trouble breathing because it felt like my throat was going to swell shut (it never did).

I think I was bedridden for 1.5-2 weeks, and by the time I went back to school, I had been out for 3 weeks. I remember that once I was back in school, that first day back was so exhausting. Once it was over, I still had to do the two-mile walk home; a 20-minute slow walk took close to an hour because I had to stop and get my energy back. I still remember that walk vividly, it was that awful.

Make sure you get his school work for when he’s feeling better. Some schools even offer tutoring

12

My daughter had it in childhood. She used to get strep throat from time to time, but that was ruled out by the negative test. Her major symptoms were a horrid sore throat and of course tiredness. The main thing the doctor advised was rest and lots of fluids. The tendency is to not eat or drink because of the sore throat, which can be a setup for a skinny little kid like she was to become dehydrated. So we were in the unusual situation of insisting that she eat ice pops and drink soda. Her main motivation was that she understood the consequence of dehydration could include IV lines, and her tiny veins made needles of any kind a hassle.

13

You betcha. I actually don’t blame the first clinic doctor for assuming it was strep.

Distinctive to everyone except the second clinic doctor who gave me even more antibiotics, apparently…

The neat part was that I had a rash on top of my previous rash, so I had even itchier red bumps on top of my previous itchy red bumps! It was interesting skin texture, to be sure.

14

I had it [called glandular fever here, ‘mono’ would be meaningless] in my forties, having missed out on it in those years when everyone else is out dating and trying to get laid. I felt very hot, headache and unwell, with jaundice, and it didn’t clear up in twenty-fours hours like most viruses. The doctor thought it might be hepatitis, the blood test showed them what it was. By the time they found out what it was, I was starting to feel better. I had 2.5 weeks off work, could have been signed off for longer but got bored. They emphasized how unwise it was to go back to work too soon, not many things they still recommend bed rest for but this is one.

They gave me amoxicillin too, and I came out in a rash.

15

With mono, it’s best to get ut over with as young as possible. If you don’t get it as a child (which most people do, and don’t know it-it’s asymptomatic in the very young) you might get it as an adult, at which point it is life-threatening. So it’s a lucky break for your son really. It still sucks, though.

16

My daughter had mono and hepatitis in fifth grade, so she was quite a bit younger than your son. I kept her pretty quiet, and the nice thing about fifth grade is that all schoolwork can be done in about half an hour (except free reading), so she was able to keep her grades up with no problem. I would go to the school every couple of days, drop off completed assignments, and pick up the new assignments. No PE the rest of the year, even though she was back in the classroom in a month. She slept a lot in the beginning, and I think it was the hepatitis that kept her home a little longer.

It’s important to keep the schoolwork up as much as possible. There will be a lot piling up and I would hate for him to get it all dumped on him the first day back.

17

Thanks for the move, twickster! I should have thought it out better and put this thread in IMHO myself.

Yeah, about the clown doctors – they’re scheduled for Mondays and Thursdays to lighten the children’s stay with their whimsy and cheer. Like sensible people everywhere, we have a severe aversion to clowns. shudder When I read about the clown doctors in the patient information, we had a hearty laugh about it. I stayed with him as long as I could on Thursday before needing to head home to give my daughter lunch, and as I headed out of the ward, they came through the main door and walked right past me. With their bright wigs and garish makeup and RED NOSES. And white coats. I did what any good mother would do when her firstborn is threatened: I walked more briskly, avoided eye contact, and as soon as I was safely out of the building, texted to my boy THE CLOWN DOCTORS ARE COMING. SEE YA, WOULDN’T WANT TO BE YA. When I came back later in the day, he said that they were indeed Whimsical and Cheery, which he took in with about as much delight as you would imagine a teenage boy would feel. He was polite to them, so that’s cool.

I don’t recall ever having mono myself, but I’m convinced that I have; most adults have had it at some point (Mk VII, I’m going to ask you not to remind me that I could be wrong, m’okay?). My husband definitely had it as a kid. We’ll see if our daughter comes down with it in due course, but I’m all for crossing bridges when you come to them and not before.

Another silver lining here is that he’s chafing to go back to school, which is a first for him. He’s been too tired to even be bored, but that’s starting to change. When he was in the hospital, the missing symptom that would have nailed the diagnosis for them in the absense of the test results was a sore throat, which developed the day after he came home. It’s already faded away, and his temperature is creeping down day by day. Maybe this will have turned out to be a less severe case than many.

Oh, and the other day I lay down for a nap, worn out by the uncertainty and worry and the heartache from the pitiful sight of my firstborn in a hospital bed with that IV canal thing in the crook of his elbow, and cracked open my eyes at one point to find his head leaning in close to mine, wearing the red nose the clowns had given him. The little shit.

I think he’s starting to recover. :slight_smile:

18

I guess I was -incredibly- lucky, because I had mono in college and it was no worse for me than the flu. I was bedridden for less than a week, had a HORRENDOUS sore throat (eventually had my tonsils removed) but I did not really experience the lingering fatigue.

I had a friend who also got mono in college and ended up “losing” a semester due to her inability to actually make it to class because she was so exhausted.

19

I had it in grade eight. It took the doctors about a month to figure out, and I had symptoms for a while before that (thought it was a flu or something). By the time a large gland came out on my neck, it was either mono or leukemia.

So I was happy to have the mono.

I am tired and not feeling great and not hungry, but it must have been a milder case since I did go back to school pretty soon after diagnosis.

20

I’ve heard of that, but I never knew it was the same thing as mononucleosis.