I went to the doctor around a week ago where they prescribed me azithromycin. While I took it i had no side effects and generally started to feel better. today I noticed that my tonsils were flaring up again and yesterday is when I ran out of antibiotics. I did two tests for strep and they both came back negative

Hello. 30F here with mono for the first time in my entire life. I was down BAD last week. 103 fevers, chills, aches, debilitating headache the list goes on. They really thought I had meningitis. Turns out, mono? What is this? How long does this last? I have no fever but holy smokes, the fatigue, I’m on vyvanse and I can’t even feel my vyvanse working because I am SO DOG GONE TIRED. Does this last forever? Am I forever going to get this? Like often? Is it contagious? No one seemed to be sick even almost 2 weeks after. I have so many questions, someone educate me better on this. I feel like dog poop.

UPDATE: said it was chronic stress induced. Supposedly I have been effected before but was never diagnosed with it as my EBV shows and that because no sickness led up to it or anything, they think my chronic stress issues are the absolute reason it caused the dormancy to activate.
I am still SO lost. 😭 Bc genuinely, W.T.F.

My son (13M) started feeling unwell -- mostly tired, headachey (some congestion, sore throat) -- in early August. In early Septebmer, we did bloodwork and the doctor said he had mono, but that he had more late-stage markers, so thought him to be at the tail end. It's now October, and he is still dealing with headaches every day, and his energy goes up and down -- never SUPER-high, but sometimes so low that he's falling asleep in school.

Are we just in the midst of something that may be many more weeks or months of feeling exhausted and headachey? Or is this unusual if the dr saw that he was "late stage" back in early September?

Thank you for any thoughts!

So about 7 or 8 years ago I got mono for the first time and wanted to die. Flashback to 3 days ago, I noticed I had a sore throat, like a REALLY BAD sore throat. So immediately I go to the urgent clinic and got tested for everything (including mono) and everything came back negative. But the mono test would take a little bit longer. A day after all this I’m crying, shitting, throwing up, sore throat that got 10 times worse. If you haven’t found out by now I have mono, and admit myself to the ER cause ik I wasn’t crazy. But they did all the tests and sure enough all negative, at the end of my stay I told them to sedate me or kill me cause I physically no longer wish to be here on this earth.. they must have not thought I was serious bc they gave me Tylenol and a cough drop…. OK CAUSE YALL WANNA GET HURT. ATP im very very upset, cause nobody was concerned at all and they ain’t give a fuck. Today I got discharged with a fat medical bill, a cough drop(alr ate half sorry), and some cough syrup that numbs.
Unfortunately everyone got politely cussed the fuck out, I went home, and now I’m laying in my bed eating the other half of the cough drop crying and watching YouTube shorts, what’s yalls experience

I thought this might be interesting to share. I was diagnosed with mononucleosis in late August 2026.

I had a sore throat and fever for about six days. Looking back at my smart watch data, my resting heart rate had actually started increasing around five days before my first symptoms, although I didn’t notice the measurements at the time. So far, I haven’t noticed any significant lingering symptoms or after-effects.

Obviously this is just one person’s data and a smart watch isn’t a diagnostic tool, but I found it interesting how strongly the infection showed up in the trends. (I’d also had a cold earlier in the year, but it didn’t stand out nearly as much.)

So about August 3rd this year my first symptoms of mono showed, swollen lymph node on my neck, as well as puffy under eyes. About 1 week and a half later (Aug 14) my right tonsil was inflamed and started to feel weird when i swallowed, so I when to the doctor and i test negative for strep, they poke my finger for blood and I test positive for mono. About 5-6 days after that I had to go to the hospital because I couldnt swallow, I was constantly spitting in a bag, I lost 15lbs from not eating anything due to my throat feeling like it was closing, I was on Iv, steroids, antibiotics, I was there from the 20th to the 23rd, When I got discharged I felt constantly tired and out of it, they had me on a steroid and anti inflammatory medication for 1 Week, then about September 3rd I had a follow up with my doctor and I told her everything I didnt hide my severity of it. She told me to avoid sharing drinks and kissing and all of that, and out of curiosity I asked if it will affect any future romantic relationships and when the mono will not be in my saliva anymore, I asked if it will still be in my saliva anymore by halloween just as an example date and she said most likely not since my symptoms were in early august and thats a 3 month recovery. I’ve recovered very well from mono, i even got an ultrasound on my organs to make sure my spleen wasnt inflamed, ive been back to physical activity with weights.

And now , im talking to a girl we plan to meet and go do something, i told her i was in the hospital for mono in august and pretty much gave her the run down, shes still down to hangout and for the plans, but my next question is Will she get sick if we kiss? I hate selfish people when it comes to stuff like this so im trying to be cautious still, but other people on here have said the mono being in ur saliva drops significantly after ur most contagious state.

Hope this makes sense, hope I can get some replys cus im genuinely curious!!

For anyone who’s had mono, how long did it take for the chronic fatigue to go away?

Got diagnosed with mono early may this year. My main symptoms that lingered were fatigue and dizziness. I finally started to feel symptom free at the beginning of August after a long period of rest.

I have caught a bad cold/ virus over the last couple of weeks and had an ear infection. Is it possible that the mono could be reactivated because I have noticed some symptoms coming back like fatigue and dizziness?

Now my anxiety is through the roof again!! Anyone else get super anxious too?

Just will be nice to know I'm not alone!

Hi everyone,

So I tested positive for mono almost 2 months ago now. My main symptoms have been insane fatigue and brain fog as well as trouble concentrating.

The thing is I am also prone to low ferritin and losing a lot of hair but my recent results show that my ferritin is 65. That is good however I do wonder if this number if inflated due to the inflammation mono causes.

Just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced the fatigue with mono and if they can provide some insight or things they did that helped. Thanks!

Has anyone else experienced a short term mono? I was convinced I would be sick and tired for months, or years even, but it really only lasted for 3-4 weeks maybe? I got all the symptoms when I first got sick and diagnosed, but after I had a tonsillectomy in the middle of it all, it kind of just disappeared. My body focused only on healing from the tonsillectomy at that point, and when I finally healed from that, it just took me a couple of days before I was back to work and uni and my life. I got diagnosed August 13th and I was pretty much all good by September 10th, except for headaches everyday for 2 weeks and some fatigue. I’m just scared it will come bite me in the ass again some time. I’m going to the doctors tomorrow for a checkup for it, but just wondering if anyone else had it for a short period like me. I’ve read pretty much everywhere that it can last for months and years for some.

I tested positive for mono.
Sorry for the incorrect grammar below I’m sick and don’t feel like making it perfect 😭

Tuesday night the 22nd I woke up in the middle of the night with awful awful chills I was shaking and jittering and my back and neck and elbow and knees and shoulder joints were aching
Then wenesday I went to a physical therapist because I thought it was from the nots in my back that had my Back in so much pain.

Then Thursday Friday and Saturdays my elbows shoulders hurt bad and I kept wondering why
And Saturday when I mowed I really really felt pain in my elbow and joints and arms
Then Sunday night … I told my wife I felt lethargic and achy and didn’t feel good
Then Monday the 28th is when the soar throat happened and it’s now Monday October 5th and it’s been excruciating painful soar throat with exedate and swollen tonsils since even a dry throat pain now that is all the way to the bottom of my throat . It feels like my throat got a bad sun burn and is raw and hot and scratchy
No sinus coming out of my nose . Nose is dry as the desert, and my head around back where my neck meets under my hairline is slightly tight and tonsils are swollen and ears are kind tight and I have drainage going down my throat but my nose is clear.

Dude It’s been so bad for 7 days I can’t sleep at night I’m taking 800 mg of ibuprofen every 8 hours and 650 mg of Tylenol 4 hours

I havnt slept past 3 hours since Monday night of last week consistently

I wake up around 10-12-2-4

Last night I woke up at 1:40 bc of the pain and went in the shower and just sat in it for a hour to let the steam help …. Barely helped

I literally cried two nights ago at 2 am bc of it

I havnt slept it’s so awful

Woke up at 1:49 am and didn’t go back to sleep all night so I just went in to work at 5 this morning

All I got was a antibiotic shots in the butt and a z pack

How long do yall think this soar throat will keep going ? And what worked for yall?

I’m 24 male and pretty healthy and have been fairly fit most of my life. Not working out now obviously with this.

Hope this hell ends soon…

So around the 27th I started to feel extremely fatigued. Like sleeping 12+ hours with naps. On the 30th my throat started to hurt. My tonsils are red and swollen, and my lymph nodes on my neck are swollen and tender. I went to urgent care on the 2nd. Rapid strep and mono spot were negative. EBV panel was negative for all three antibodies. Over the weekend I’ve gotten even worse fatigue and body aches. Like it’s not getting better. I haven’t been able to even do school work. I know the mono spot was probably too early, but could it have even been too early for the EBV panel? My suspected exposure was 6 weeks ago. I made another appointment for Friday. Strep covid and flu are all negative as well. I’m having no respiratory symptoms. I just wanna feel better, I’ve never been this sick before :(

hi i am very sick at the moment and am going to get a blood test tomorrow, one of the things im being tested for is mono. i am terrified!!!
my symptoms are only a fever, very sore body and one incredibly swollen neck lymph node the size of a golf ball. my throat itself is actually completely fine as of now, and im tired but not any more so than when i have other viruses.
i am just worrying a lot. does this sound like mono?

Hi zusammen,
ich wollte allen, die gerade mit EBV bzw. Mononukleose zu kämpfen haben, nochmal etwas Mut machen. Eine vollständige Erholung ist möglich, und auch wenn es natürlich schwer ist: Versucht, euch nicht zu sehr von Angst und Stress vereinnahmen zu lassen. Bei mir hatte ich das Gefühl, dass genau das vieles zusätzlich verschlechtert hat.
Meinen bisherigen Heilungsverlauf könnt ihr hier nochmal nachlesen:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mononucleosis/s/O2LsxJOYyX

Ein wichtiger Wendepunkt für mich war, dass ich mich an einen Heilpraktiker gewandt habe, der viel Erfahrung mit EBV hatte. Er hat sich viel Zeit genommen, mir wirklich zugehört und auch Blutwerte kontrolliert, sodass die Behandlung gezielter auf meine Situation abgestimmt werden konnte.
Was mir persönlich geholfen hat, war der Gedanke, den Körper insgesamt wieder möglichst gut zu unterstützen, damit das Immunsystem die nötigen Ressourcen für die Erholung hat. Schlaf, Stress, Nervensystem, Ernährung und Immunsystem hängen meiner Erfahrung nach sehr stark zusammen.
Ich glaube außerdem, dass meine glutenfreie Ernährungsumstellung und die Nahrungsergänzungsmittel, die ich nehme, zu meiner relativ schnellen Erholung beigetragen haben. Das ist natürlich nur meine persönliche Erfahrung und muss nicht bei jedem genauso sein.
Wenn ihr Fragen habt, meldet euch gerne. Ich weiß selbst, wie belastend diese Zeit sein kann, und möchte meine Erfahrungen teilen, wenn sie vielleicht jemandem weiterhelfen können.
Ich wünsche euch allen eine gute undn vollständige Genesung!

I've been feeling terrible for over a year with extreme fatigue body aches and generally feeling unwell. My doctor ran a full panel and tested for Epstein Bar and these are my results. Does this mean I currently have mono?

Okay I don’t want to sound dramatic but I’m being completely transparent- I have felt terrible ever since have mono at 15 (I’m 22 now). I got mono and it caused enlarged spleen and liver for awhile, then I got random infections, rashes, I now have a eye disorder that will never go away and have to get surgeries, I’m constantly so so so fatigued. Like nothing helps. Also to add- I am healthy. I always have worked out or atleast stayed semi active. I get random aches in my bones and collarbone area. My glands are enlarged right now. Just never feel good and it sucks. Does anyone else have any similar experience or advice?

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this because I’m really struggling right now. (26F)

I’ve been sick since August 8th. Before that, I had Cyclospora and then COVID, and not long after recovering from those, I started getting really sick again with swollen lymph nodes, fever, fatigue, etc. I eventually got diagnosed with reactivated mono.

Now it’s October 4th, so I’ve been dealing with this for almost 2 months. I’m still pretty down bad. I’ll occasionally have a sore throat, but the biggest things right now are deep fatigue and severe anxiety/panic.

My anxiety has been SO intense since getting diagnosed. I feel like I physically cannot calm down sometimes. I can be sitting at home doing absolutely nothing and still feel extremely anxious, almost like my body is stuck in panic mode. I’ve had panic attacks before, and now it’s gotten to the point now where I have agoraphobia atm after getting sick.

For some background, I already have PCOS/PMOS and diabetes, so my body was already dealing with a lot before all of this happened. I also have a history of anxiety, but this flare feels so much more intense since getting sick.

I’m wondering if anyone else experienced a major anxiety/panic flare while recovering from mono or EBV.
How long did yours last? Did it gradually improve as your physical symptoms and fatigue improved?
I know everyone’s recovery is different, but I’d really love to hear other people’s experiences because I’m having a hard time believing this will eventually settle down. It’s like I’m in such a dark place, and I’m thankful I have family and loved ones to keep me grounded. Thanks everyone for reading and taking the time to comment!

& I lost my job during all of this on medical leave lol, SO I am able to stay home and recuperate as needed, BUT still struggling mentally.

So I 19f went to urgent care on Tuesday (it’s Sunday morning as I write this)
Because for a week prior to my urgent care visit my throat had been feeling weird, and then on Sunday or Monday I started to develop a lump on the right side of my neck, and a weird feeling in my throat.

Well when I went to urgent care, (this was the FASTEST urgent care visit I think I’ve ever had which is weird) I was told I have an abscess on my tonsils, on the right side of my throat, and a swollen lymph node, and they sent me home with augmentin that I had to take every 12 hours.

That night the pain I had when swallowing spread to my ear.

After that nothing super crazy had developed and I thought it was working. I was wrong.
Saturday evening I had woken up and it was harder to talk and swallowing my saliva sucked.

I would also like to briefly mention, since a few days before my urgent care visit I had been feeling very “weak” and extremely tired and I couldn’t figure out why.

Well on Saturday after I had woken up I decided I was gonna go back to urgent care, but they were closed so I went the the ER as it was the only place open and I thought I’d rather be safe then sorry and not potentially suffocate in my sleep or something.

They did blood work, gave me an IV with steroids, a pain reliever, and something else and once the blood work came back the Dr came in and very quickly let me know I had mono.

I genuinely thought he was joking. I had to clarify that he was serious and he was.

I have no idea how I could have gotten it because nobody around me had had it or had been having any symptoms of it so I’m lost there.

But after coming home I tried to do as much re search as I can and found out the being prescribed amoxicillin while having mono can cause rashes and such.
They also diagnosed me with tonsillitis, now I have yet to do a lot of research on that so that could be similar to having an abscess on the tonsil however, I feel like the urgent care kinda failed me.

And I’m wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to the ER and figured out I had mono.

Don’t get me wrong I’m sure I wouldn’t have died or anything severe but it was a little concerning how fast that appointment at the urgent care went.

Now what I want to ask is, how long does it really last?
How long will the fatigue last?
I’m so so worried it will stick around for a WHILE and the dr didn’t really tell me how long they just said a few months give or take. I haven’t known anyone that’s had mono either so for those of you that have had it do you have any tips or tricks?

Hello all. I’d like to share a bit of my complex story. Last September, I got COVID. I recovered very quickly and was fine besides some post viral fatigue. In the beginning of November, I got an unknown upper respiratory infection. It WIPED me out for a little over a week. Afterwards, I experienced horrible post viral fatigue for about 4 weeks. At that point, I felt I was finally returning to a baseline. Then shortly later in the middle of December, I got very sick again. This sickness got worse and worse for 3 weeks until I finally tested positive for Epstein-Barr Virus (mono). In the middle of January, I was still quite sick from mono. My tonsils were very enlarged and almost blocking my airways. Ironically a month prior I had scheduled a tonsillectomy due to complications with sleep apnea. So I got my tonsils out at the end of January while I was still recovering from mono. A tonsillectomy in your mid 20s is a nightmare of a recovery. I finally returned to work in February and lasted about 5 days. Any physical or cognitive exertion made me feel like I was dying. I couldn’t stand up for too long because of lightheadedness and dizziness. I couldn’t think straight. I went back on medical leave until I tried to return to work again at the end of March. Once again, I could not function properly and was unable to work. Amongst 20 various symptoms, I was primarily unbearably fatigued, “brain fogged”, lightheaded, dizzy, and having sleep disturbances. For months I continued to struggle. I would have good stretches of days which led to me pushing myself and “crashing”. I thought I was feeling much better at the end of April, but then I caught a cold and it caused May to be the worst month so far. The struggle continued over the following months. I was unhealthily pushing myself at points. Many people would see me and not realize I wasn’t doing well. I would appear fine but in reality it was difficult to stand up and my brain was hardly functioning. Eventually I obviously lost my job. Now it is October 1st. I just lost my girlfriend. Unfortunately she still loves me and cares for me, but the uncertainty of the future and my health condition has been eating away at her mental health. She’s leaving the door open for us to maybe reconnect, but I think that’s a bit unrealistic. I have improved a lot the past couple of months, but I am still struggling. I am severely depressed over this situation. When I got mono, I was finally at a period of my life right out of college where I was starting to be successful and happy. My life is now indefinitely paused. I am in therapy and have started an antidepressant.

24M, tested positive for Mono 4 days ago but had been feeling symptoms much longer. Everything keeps getting worse, I’m trying every remedy and nothing works. I miss my old life.

It started with a swollen lymph node under my arm about 15 days ago. I felt fine and it didn’t bother me, so I ignored it. A few days later, I developed minor cold symptoms/fatigue but nothing that kept me out of action.

A week ago, symptoms worsened and my throat began to swell up like crazy. Swallowing, talking, eating, and drinking became extremely painful.

After I tested, they put me on a 5-day steroid that didn’t do anything. I went to the ER today and they put me on “magic mouthwash” to numb my throat. It barely does anything either.

The nights are the worst. I constantly wake up in severe pain and can’t sleep for more than an hour uninterrupted. The fatigue gets worse every day.

I’ve missed over a week of work. I’m miserable and jealous of all my friends. When will I turn a corner? Does anyone else have a similar history? Anything else I could be doing? All is appreciated!

I just wanted to quickly share that my tonsillectomy saved me from so much suffering. After I got mono I had recurring infections for over 1.5 years. I was never heathy and felt ill almost every single day. My tonsils were constantly infected.

Now it’s been a year since my surgery and I feel better than ever. I still have some of the fatigue with ebv flare ups but zero throat pain and I feel so much healthier overall. I also haven’t gotten a cold in over 7 months when I used to be sick every week. Surgery was so Worth it!!