UKC

I've had glandular fever since the end of February and my recovery has been frustratingly slow. Most of the symptoms are gone but I still get hot flushes, and I'm completely drained of energy, even a 20 minute walk wipes me out.

I was wondering if anyone else here has had it, and if they found anything which helped with their recovery?

In reply to Lawrence Dudley:

Eat more.

In reply to Lawrence Dudley:

Hi Lawrence,

I had it about 8 years ago. As far as I remember, recovery was about 2 months. I felt very lethargic during this time, but did start to feel progressively better. Keep hydrated and focus on small steps!

In reply to Lawrence Dudley:
I had it in September, and it sucked. I think it varies a bit from case to case, and I didn't help myself by trying to ignore it as it started. I guess I was bedridden for about 3 weeks, then spent a month doing very little. I lost a lot of weight, so I ate massive amounts of carbs, sugar and fat for a month or so to put the fat back on, and that helped a lot.

After that most of the symptoms disappeared, but I would get tired out very abruptly when doing anything approaching exercise. I would feel fine for a mile or two, then within a hundred meters I'd get tired, nauseous and sweaty, and need to take a nap. The amount of activity I could do gradually increased until I could do a full hill day by about January. That's in keeping with what my doc said: 2 to 6 months to fully recover. At this point it was helpful to exercise regularly but stop well before the fatigue started, and take a rest day if I did get to the fatigue stage.

Finally, it took several months to get back some of the muscle and fitness I'd lost being sedentary. Though I could have done that faster by training properly.

Amusingly the only other symptom that carried on a while, at least according to my gf, was snoring. It seems the swollen/dry/bleeding tonsils left some scarring or something. That tailed off in December or so. Not that it bothered me much!

In reply to Lawrence Dudley:

I had it in my early 20s and it was a good 6 months before my fitness came back.
Take your time and you will get there.

In reply to Lawrence Dudley:

I had glandular fever when I was 19/20 for about a year. I had the type that was a misnomer because my temperature was slightly below normal, which made me feel washed out the whole time - but I continued to climb. I had blood tests about every two weeks. Eventually, it just passed, like many of life's mysteries.

In reply to Lawrence Dudley:
I had it in my mid 20s and it took a good 6 months to fully recover. I feel for you because it's an unpleasant disease and there doesn't (at least didn't) seem to be much that the doctors could do. I just had to let it run it's course and slept a lot. it put an additional strain on my then wife trying to care for our young children.

Good luck.

In reply to Lawrence Dudley:

Thanks for all the replies, it looks like I'll just have to get used to being even lazier than usual!

In reply to zimpara:


I must say this does make me wonder about my own experience of 'the kissing disease' (she was lovely btw) long ago.

They didn't believe it was Glandular Fever because there was no loss of appetite. I tried to explain that you can only diagnose loss of appetite in me at autopsy but they weren't having it.

Eventually, a full colonel medic came from Woolwich mil hosp to see this great mystery illness. He listened (how on earth did he make colonel?) and did a blood test. Glandular Fever. Enforce time off to recover (I spent it working on cars) and back working a couple of weeks later.

The debilitating period of the illness for me lasted FIVE DAYS.

The unusual part was that I stuffed my face with high quality food at every opportunity throughout regardless of whether I had just thrown up. Always helpful if you have a mess steward and a military headquarters mess kitchen on your side.

Food. It has purpose. It is not just for pleasure.