• +Audience
• epstein barr virus

This past Satur­day, while brow­sing at the next-to-last garage sale (one of my favo­rite Satur­day mor­ning events), my ears per­ked up like a bunny when I heard a gal chat­ting with the owner of the house.  I heard things like “sick for 5 years…fibromyalgia…a lot of pain all over my body…had to quit my job and live with my parents…in bed for two years…they had to bath me...” and more mise­ra­ble ima­ges of something she was clearly glad to be over.

So, while my hus­band sat in the car with the patience of a saint, I lin­ge­red. When she finished chat­ting and was hea­ding to her car, I wal­ked towards her and said gin­gerly “I overheard your con­ver­sa­tion. Can I ask you about the fibrom­yal­gia and your expe­rience??” I couldn’t help myself.

As a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist who has stood up to the inane allo­pathic fai­lure in the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism, I knew that the majo­rity of cases of “fibrom­yal­gia” were due to undiag­no­sed or poorly treat­ment hypothy­roi­dism, as well as the accom­pan­ying hell of adre­nal fati­gue,  thanks to the gar­bage can TSH lab test or the stu­pi­dity of T4-only treat­ment like Synth­roid.  Yet, here was a young woman, Mel, who was now the pic­ture of health. What was her story??

Mel’s story was a tale of sud­den onset follo­wed by five years of misery, all over body pain,  immense fati­gue, utter hel­pless­ness, debi­li­ta­tion, and neck lymph nodes SO swo­llen that they loo­ked like two huge goi­ters – right and left. It was also a sce­na­rio of no firm diag­no­ses, yet no hesi­ta­tion by doc­tors to make stabs– from fibrom­yal­gia to an unk­nown chro­nic fati­gue disorder.

But I knew right away what she pro­bably had: acute Eps­tein Barr Virus (EBV) reactivation.

I knew because I had the exact same malady which once took away more than a year of my life (as com­pa­red to Mel’s horri­fic five years).  And like her, with the use of medi­ta­tion (and in my case, intense ima­gery and homeo­pathics), I got well as if it never happened.

And we also sha­red a rea­son why the EBV virus became acti­va­ted in our bodies in the first place: STRESS.  For Mel, it appea­red to have nothing to do with anything thyroid-related, but an extre­mely stress­ful helping-vocation that was eating her alive. For me, it was the stress of having to be where I didn’t want to be, fee­ling overtly powerless…and on top of being on the lousy Synthroid.

And for thy­roid patients all over the world, inc­lu­ding you, the risk of reac­ti­va­tion of the Eps­tein Barr Virus is a cons­tant threat. It can result from one or more of the follo­wing bio­lo­gi­cal stresses:

• being undiag­no­sed thanks to the ina­de­quate TSH lab test
• being on a T4 medi­ca­tion like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, etc
• falling into low cor­ti­sol from adre­nal fatigue
• having chro­nic side issues pulling your body down such as glu­ten into­le­rance or celiac, low ferri­tin, poor diges­tion, or making mis­ta­kes in your treatment

Even worse, add life’s stres­ses as icing on the cake, and you’re a sit­ting duck for the risk of reac­ti­va­ted EBV.

What is EBV? Eps­tein Barr Virus,  also called human her­pes­vi­rus 4 ( HHV-4) is an oppor­tu­nis­tic virus that actually lies dor­mant in at least 95% of all adults over their 30’s. It’s what cau­ses mono­nuc­leo­sis, aka “mono”, as a tee­na­ger,  but you don’t have to have had mono to carry the dor­mant virus. Wiki­pe­dia sta­tes that it also pro­bably has a pri­mary role in many autoim­mune disea­ses, inc­lu­ding ” der­ma­tom­yo­si­tis, sys­te­mic lupus erythe­ma­to­sus, rheu­ma­toid arth­ri­tis, Sjogren’s syn­drome, and mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis.” i.e. this is one nasty virus!

Why do so many thy­roid patients find them­sel­ves with it? Millions of thy­roid patients live their lives com­pro­mi­sed due to being on T4-only meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, and other T4 med brands.  Addi­tio­nally, patients find them­sel­ves with poorly func­tio­ning adre­nals, poor diges­tion and other con­di­tions rela­ted to a poor treat­ment – all adding to a lowe­red immune sys­tem, which allows the oppor­tu­nis­tic EBV virus to take ahold, espe­cially in the face of extreme or chro­nic life stress.

What are symp­toms of a reac­ti­va­ted EBV? It can vary from patient-to-patient, but can inc­lude easy and excess fati­gue, achi­ness, joint pain, all over body pain, swo­llen lymph nodes, slight fever, rin­ging in the ears, and a gene­ral I-don’t-feel-well. When my EBV anti­bo­dies were acute, I would be in bed for 2 – 3 days after pulling weeds for just twenty minu­tes while sea­ted.  I couldn’t gro­cery shop; I couldn’t do hou­se­work. Nothing. Nada. I also had cons­tant rin­ging in the ears and achiness.

How do I find out if I have it?? Ask your doc­tor to send you to a lab to be tes­ted for it.   Or you can use Healthcheck USA–scroll down on the lat­ter link to find the test. Put STTM10 in the form to get a discount.

How do I treat it?? It’s not easy. I per­so­nally bene­fit­ted from taking a presc­ri­bed anti-virus medi­ca­tion. Though that les­se­ned my symp­toms by 50%, it wasn’t enough. I then moved to homeo­pathic medi­ca­tions and some dedi­ca­ted men­tal ima­gery to finally get rid of it, as well as lots of rest and the immune enhan­cing sup­port of vita­mins, mine­rals, sup­ple­ments plus healthy stra­te­gies i.e. wha­te­ver it takes to nou­rish your immune sys­tem. Nou­rishing sup­ple­ments inc­lude high dose Vit. C (2000 mg mini­mum),  Vit E as mixed tocophe­rals,  sele­nium (200 — 400 mcg), mush­room extracts, CoQ10, high dose B-vitamins, mine­rals plus plenty of healthy and raw foods.  And ulti­ma­tely as a thy­roid patient, being on a MUCH bet­ter hypothy­roid treat­ment with natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid is the key, besi­des trea­ting one’s adre­nal fati­gue, glu­ten or diges­tive issues, low ferri­tin, and all other rela­ted conditions.

Bot­tom line, once you are ade­qua­tely trea­ting your thy­roid pro­blem (see the current Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment), addres­sing poten­tial adre­nal fati­gue, low ferri­tin, glu­ten issues, low B12, for exam­ple, and using good stress mana­ge­ment in the face of pres­su­res within your life, your risk of having a reac­ti­va­tion of the dor­mant EBV virus is very low.