Reaching out to any fellow athletes who might have experience with mono. Bloodwork came back positive today. Besides the normal rest, good diet, etc. does anyone else have any helpful advice?
Pretty devastated right now. I’ve been burying myself with training and being lean for too long and I feel like this is probably a result of years of that. I’m not going to be stupid and pummel myself with training now just looking for anyone else’s experience with this.
Unfortunately - in my experience - you have to let it run it’s course. The level of fatigue I felt when I had mono was unlike any other I have ever experienced. Lots of rest, keeping up on hydration, and anti-biotics/etc were the only things that truly helped. If you get on prednisone watch out for the hunger - I remember being a bottomless pit. I was in college at the time, so it was rather tough to be that ravenous and eat ‘healthy’ food.
I believe mono is the precursor to Epstein Barr, so you best bet is to forget about the next 6 months. If you come back too early, you just prolong it, get relapses, and start over again. Just get your mind right that you are just going to be a civilian for a long time, and start fresh months from now when it is completely gone. And keep in mind you might feel all better, but you are not. The worst thing you can do is think you will just train easy through this whole thing, believe me I know…
Thanks guys. That’s pretty much what I figured and I suspect that pushing through these past months with multiple antibiotics made things worse.
Keep aerobic base, forget races for now. Maybe try something new as a weight lifting routine
It sucks but as others have said just rest up. Don’t do anything athletic until you are recovered and cleared by doctors. It is not worth it to try to do any training. As you have seen, you will just fatigue your body and dig the hole deeper. You will regain your fitness, it may take some time but the bulk of your training is not going anywhere.
I am very sorry to hear this. Like Monty, I won’t sugar coat this. Take it seriously, even if you feel good you run the risk of relapse. I definitely had a rough go at mono and I am still no where close to 100% over 2 years later. It is hard to say in my case as I ran into some inner ear issues and it is impossible to say whether those were caused by the virus or some sort of degeneration over the years. Looking back though I would have taken even more rest. I got back to it about 4 weeks afterwards. Less is more. Again, I am sorry to hear about this. Take care of yourself 
Again thanks for everyone’s response. I clearly missed some of the warning signs of this and hopefully some of this information can be helpful to others.
Thomas,
Do you mind sharing what specific inner ear issues? PM me if you want to take it offline.
This started with severe issues in my left ear that I have been dealing with for a few months. During this time I was on antibiotics twice. I fought through it and was actually historically strong (for me) on the bike and run. Then boom, about two week ago it became very bad in hurry. Did a TT the day after a great training day and was awful. Literally in the span of a week I lost 100 watts from the bike. Couldn’t elevate HR. Then the swelling of the lymph nodes, fever, throat issues, etc. appeared. I’ve never felt fatigue like this and all I want to do is lay around, but the weirdest thing is that the fatigue is causing me such discomfort that I can’t sleep well.
The rest of my bloodwork came back and is problematic as well, requiring additional scans tomorrow. Really hoping nothing worse is going on. I can’t be arsed with this.
Sorry to hear.
I had mono back 20 years ago while in university - it took me years before I could climb a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing.
I didn’t do any aerobic training at the time. I am not sure if I did, how much quicker I would have recovered. But definitely would have helped.
Mono beat the crap out of me.
Rest up and take it easy on yourself in recovery.
IME with mono:
Sleeping is your new BFF. I was sleeping 8-11h per night and took a 2h nap, sometimes a 3h nap each day for 4-5 weeks. That was the only way I could function.
When I was dx’d I had been showing symptoms for about 2-3 weeks, sore throat that would go away with 2d off, somewhat swollen lymph nodes, a little excess fatigue, a fever now & then that broke that night. Then one evening after a run in the rain I couldn’t get warm, was running a 104F temp, achy etc. Went and got checked out. + monospot. Wasn’t able to train for about 10 weeks. Started back with too much and set myself back for another 2 weeks. Think I ran a fever/had a sore throat every day for about 3+ weeks. All in all it was pretty miserable between struggling to stay awake a mere 2h after sleeping 10h at night, to the sore throat & general malaise.
You’re done training for at least 4 weeks and probably in the 6-12 week range. After that you’re going to need to make sure you don’t bury yourself when you get back to some training. Training is your worst enemy.
Even after you start feeling normal you’re going to need a lot of recovery time. (I was dx’d in early/mid Oct and it was probably June before I was truly back to 100%). 30 min a day felt like 90 for the first week or two. Even a month later a 3h aerobic ride was much more tiring than it should have been. I can remember a simple 10k/40k duathlon taking a week to recover from even though the race was ~3 mo after I got the all clear to start training again. I slept the entire 3h trip home, didn’t even wake up when we stopped for gas & food, or at least they claimed we stopped for gas & food.
Bummed for you, been there know what it’s like. Hope your case isn’t too severe and you recovery quickly
I’m curious as to those who have dealt with it. Did you ever regain your prior form?
Reaching out to any fellow athletes who might have experience with mono.
Man, sorry to hear it.
Was over 40 years ago for me; happened during basketball season in HS. I kept getting more and more tired, and the doc finally did a blood test and sent me straight to the hospital. He thought I had some other usually fatal illness; don’t recall what. After some more tests he told me the good news was that I just had mono and that it was probably as bad as it could get. Unfortunately it got a lot worse. I was sleeping 20hrs/day and got so weak I couldn’t walk. About 6 months to recover enough to really exercise as I recall. It was a real bitch!
Yes, surpassed it eventually. I got diagnosed heading into the off season. The next year I wasn’t as fast due to the fact I didn’t start any any physical activity until late December and no real training until late January. Spent Feb/Mar/April figuring out/managing my fatigue load.
X volume of training, especially any efforts took me some extra days beyond normal to recover. Took me a bit to figure that one out. In hindsight I’d probably have given myself another 2-4 weeks before starting anything other than walking. Instead of late Jan start walking then and start back late Feb.
The next season I was fine though.
It’s not the end of the world, you’ll be fine, just not in the next 4-6mo.
I’d not sweat it too much - except when your fever breaks (hahaha a little sick humor there!) Just sleep lots, eat healthy, read books, do some things that you’ve been putting off due to triathlon, play xbox, become a professional napper and let your body heal itself.
Yes, I have gotten better than I was in the past. Took a full recovery and then rebuild after the mono though.
You aren’t kidding about sweating it. I’ve never recalled sweating like this with any fever I’ve had.
Nearly two months post diagnosis I was cleared to ride again. I have no desire to dig crazy deep, but I did a 20 minute threshold test both running and cycling. For anyone who is curious the results were interesting. Cycling my FTP appears to have dropped 51 watts, running FTP is down 40 watts. Swim paces are unaffected (lifelong swimmer though so not surprising). Interestingly, aerobic zones appear the same. I did some easy efforts and my HR was exactly where it was before so it looks like I just lost my top end. I did not expect this.
My coach is taking the reins once again and I will very slowly be adding volume and will not be adding any intensity until I prove that I will not be going backwards. Our conservative take is to get ~8 weeks of this sort of data back and if it looks good I will be able to focus on a strong rebuild. The first month after diagnosis was hell, so I’d rather play it very conservatively than take any chance of going backwards.
Cheers for everyone who posted previously. Also fuck mono.
Came across this thread, wondering how you’re doing now? I got diagnosed at the end of August. Had started feeling crappy a few weeks earlier. Feeling a lot better lately and slowly trying to get back into it but still feeling somewhat tired, though nowhere near what it was 6 weeks ago. Hope you are feeling better.
Long term results have been reassuring. Things didn’t get to where I wanted as quickly as I wanted, but I ended up on a terrific streak of fitness toward the end portion of the year and built up to a nice peak of form for a few events over the past month or so. As much as I’m tempted not to, I’m backing things off for a bit after the next few weeks to focus on long term training for my key races next year. I don’t feel any ill effects right now, but I don’t want to tempt fate continuing to build my form now that my major goals this year are over. Time to get a bit of recovery and keep broadening the base for next year.
Good luck!
Thanks for the update, glad you are doing well now! And thanks, hoping to get back to normal soon.
I’ve just been diagnosed with EBV - mono. Haven’t been feeling great for six weeks. I thought it was a cold and then another cold. After reading some posts I’m going take it easy and stop working out. I was only doing a few 3 mile runs or a 50 min bike the last few weeks and then the next day I’d feel like crap. Thought it was a head cold.
How does a 60 year old guy get mono? I hate taking time off. My whole life, like many here, has been about maintaining fitness. At my age I find consistency is key. This sucks.