EBV (Epstein Barr virus) is a sneaky virus that is responsible for the so called “kissing disease”, mononucleosis. It is in the family of herpes viruses. Often kids or young adults are exposed and have no symptoms or the classic viral disease that includes severe fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat and perhaps an enlarged spleen. Once this passes these people will have antibodies for life. These viruses don’t exactly just disappear. They tend to live in the salivary glands or lymph nodes and can be reactivated under certain conditions.
Since COVID came on the scene, I have seen more and more chronic EBV cases in the last 5 years than the last 18 combined!! Adults who would reactive EBV could be turned around usually with in several weeks prior to COVID and now I am seeing it activated for years!
I recognized early on COVID was reactivating this EBV virus and was a cause of the “long-hauler syndrome” associated with chronic COVID. This was later proven in some research that was published. But why do some people have this reactivated and not resolve and others do?
The easy answer is those people with a weakened immune system have more of a tendency to have this reactivated virus stick around but the difficult question before a person got COVID what weakened the immune system to allow this virus to persist? Turns out I am learning that there seem to be three BIG categories that can suppress your immune system enough that when you get some other stressors like COVID that it will reactivate this virus chronically!
If you have chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autoimmune conditions (lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc), multiple sclerosis, joint pain, unexplained neuropathy, muscle aches or general malaise that you haven’t been able to figure out the cause even if it is episodic then you need to learn more about how to test for this virus (the regular tests often miss it) as well as the three big culprits suppressing your immune system which keeps your body from fending off this virus.
READ ON…
Testing for EBV is tricky because we tend to only focus on the EBV IGM test which says you have a brand new active infection. The other two markers on the typical testing panels are IgG and tend to be thought of as signs of past exposure. The test not ordered is the EBV early antigen test which is felt to be more of a marker of reactivation. There is also a special test that you can look at the IgG nuclear and viral capsid antigen and see if it is replicating which is also indicative of reactivation and this is not done thru regular labs but guess what is actually typically covered by insurance (shocking I know!).
Step one is knowing if this EBV virus is activated and then treating it with some herbal products, antivirals and stress reduction to see if this can tame the beast and send it hiding and deactivate it! However, if these standard approaches don’t work and nothing is changing in your symptoms then there is an added issue. This is KEY to turning the tide in the chronic conditions! Let’s take a look:
- Mold: If you had been exposed to mold at ANY time in the past then this can suppress your immune system enough that when exposed to COVID or other serious infections it hits your harder and has a tendency to reactivate these viruses. If you have had any exposure in your work or home to water damage you could have mold toxins still in you! Funny thing about this is ten people could all be exposed at the same time and only 1-2 may demonstrate symptoms. You can test for mold with a urine test and this is a very important first step to getting you well.
- Lyme or other tick-borne co-infections: This is such a HUGE topic that a simple paragraph about how nasty these are won’t do it justice. I am going to use the term Lyme disease as an umbrella for all of these tick-borne infections. They can have occurred as a child and been dormant or smoldering for decades before creating symptoms that often get diagnosed as “autoimmune, multiple sclerosis, early dementia, neurological issues, rheumatoid arthritis, neuropathy” and so many more. I often hear that people have already been tested for this and if you were testing with standard testing with quest, DLO or Labcorp then you could still have one of these conditions as the standard testing MISSES this diagnosis. My last newsletter went into this so I won’t belabor it but if you have anything chronic at all you owe yourself taking a closer look at these tick-borne tests.
- Mast cell activation: sometimes when the body has really struggled the mast cells which are cells that produce histamine get activated. When this occurs many random and bizarre symptoms can occur including sudden allergies to foods, sudden rashes, POTS type symptoms, palpitations, joint pain and any type of gut issues. But guess what? Those with mast cell activation even if something like COVID started it there is typically an underlying mold or Lyme issue!!
How does this all pertain to chronic EBV? These all suppress the immune system allowing this virus to continue to invade and replicate. No amount of anti-virals are going to turn this around until you take a look at these immune suppressors: mold, lyme and mast cell activation!
If you have chronic EBV or symptoms that are unexplained then let’s look deeper! Don’t forget we have a special option for non-patients to see if you have a tick-borne issue that needs addressing! If you are currently our patients these tests are already available to you and we can explore this together!
To your health,
Laura Miles
