Lowered Immune System

Question 1) Can you have EBV and test negative for it a month and a half after getting sick?

Question 2) After a a viral infection that has lasted 8.5 months, is your resistance lowered and leave you vulnerable to colds, sinus infections, sore throats, etc?

Question3) Is the damage permanent to your immune system after it could not fend off a viral infection?

i came down hard with what my Dr. said was (CMV). At the time i was drinking, smoking, not sleeping hardly, working two jobs, plus i suffer from depression. I came down with what the Emergency room thought was acute Bronchitis or walking pneumonia.... both wrong i guess. I am just now getting over it, but i still have the cough, although it is not as persistent. I get frequent sinus infections or colds... like two in three weeks, brain fog (short term memory loss), and i get tired so easily. If i sleep 8 hours or 10 hours.. i will wake up and feel ok for like an hour and then after that i am sooo exhausted i am ready for bed again.

I was tested for everything, such as HIV, autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis, etc.. and had numerous cbc's done. Everything comes back normal. I am gaining weight.. i went from 142 to 146.8.... and i take several vitamin supplement and eat right... so any suggestions or ideas?

Post Edited (AronMica) : 5/18/2007 5:17:04 PM (GMT-6)

Hi Aron.  My understanding is that the answer to your first question can be "Yes".  My understanding is that if they are just doing the monospot test, it won't tell you a whole lot.  Also if they tested for EBV too early, it might not show up.  One of our members, Orion, suffered for almost a year and they initially ran all the mono and ebv tests which showed negative, but when re-tested it showed he did have EBV in the past.  Here's a pretty good online article I found about it:  http://https://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/common/standard/transform.jsp?requestURI=/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/epstein-barr_virus_test.jsp

Question number 2 I think can also be true - at least it was for me.  THe first one to two years after I had mono I got strep throat all the time (I'd never had it before in my life) and seemed to get sick constantly.

Question number 3 I can't answer because I really don't know and haven't read anything about it.

I really hope your doctor will run the labs to check for past ebv.

Let me know if there are other questions you have.  Take care