It’s important to recognise the symptoms of mono at an early stage
A whopping 90 per cent of the world population deals with mono (short for mononucleosis) in their life. It’s an infectious disease that is caused by a virus. Most people are infected with it before they’re twenty, and the infection usually passes unnoticed. Yet it is definitely important to be able to recognise the symptoms at an early stage. The earlier you recognise the disease, the earlier you can recover from it. Pay attention to the following nine signals.
Do you recognise multiple of these signals? Then there’s a chance you’ve got mono.
1. Laryngitis or a swollen throat
When you have a sore throat and your amygdalae or lymph nodes are swollen, you might be dealing with mono. Do you suspect you might have been infected with the virus? You can ask your doctor for a blood test, which can determine whether you’ve indeed got mono or not.
2. Rash
One of the first signs of mononucleosis is developing a rash after you’ve had antibiotics to treat laryngitis. Dr Robert Danoff explains to Reader’s Digest that doctors will prescribe amoxicillin or ampicillin against laryngitis. At that point, the doctor in question doesn’t yet know that the mono is present.
3. Someone you’ve kissed has gotten sick
Another name for mono is the ‘kissing disease’, and it’s named that for a reason: it’s very easy to transfer the disease to someone else. The virus mainly spreads via saliva, but also via blood or sperm. You can also get infected if you drink from a glass that someone else, who is infected, has already drunk from. When you and someone you’ve kissed are showing flu symptoms at the same time, you might want to check whether you’ve been infected with mono.
4. Severe fatigue
Teenagers are known for being tired a lot, but if they are experiencing extreme fatigue for a couple of weeks in a row, they might be dealing with mono. “Often the person says, ‘Doc, I’m sleeping a lot but I’m still tired and don’t feel like I’m doing too much,” doctor Danoff explains.
Go to the next page to read about the other five symptoms!
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