How to Cope with Epstein-Barr Disease Part 1/2

This video by TV360 shows you how Ann copes with the Epstein-Barr disease and how it affects her daily life part 1/2.

How to Cope with Epstein-Barr Disease Part ½ When I was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr, I had a decision. I needed to decide whether I was going to have this disease affect to my life for up to two years or more as I was told or maybe try to affect it myself by doing a few different things. Prior to Epstein-Barr, my workout schedule was basically that I would ride three to four days a week for approximately two hours on more on a mountain bike. I was doing endurance races. I switched to doing endurance races which involve four to six hours of a mountain bike race. The symptoms have first started really were just a little bit if fatigue meaning that I was little more tired earlier on and had to go to sleep earlier. In the mornings I couldn’t quite wake up like I used to. The next thing that happened to me was the headaches that they were just so severe and they would last all day and nothing would help. I would take migraine medication and it did nothing. The other that was the most severe were the drops in blood pressure. I would be walking and I can tell that it happened because I had to grab or hold to something or I would have fallen. My blood pressure remains like 80 over 50. That’s how low it was. And then the other thing I had was a low grade fever—not consistently very random and it was so low that again, you don’t think there’s much to that either that you put them all together and at a point you just can deal. The fatigue got served out that if somebody called me at night, I couldn’t carry on the conversation because I wouldn’t remember probably the next day. Or even that night, I wouldn’t make sense to them like you kind of tell it so I'm just like a drunk whose spurring the words. And I feel very fortunate in that. my problem was diagnosed within one visit. They ran a test for everything else. But ultimately, I got the call from the nurse that said, “You have Epstein-Barr.” What I was told though is that if you take a break and don’t do something, then at least you will not make yourself worth. Meaning that if I tried to work out and kept my same workout schedule, I was probably going to extend the life of the virus and also just really make myself more tired the next day. I decided to start working out again. I didn’t do any full tilt at the same level but I started biking. I considered two and half hours, I started with one. And I did realize that I was tired the next day and maybe I would pay for it but it was so worth it mentally that it was really okay. I was willing to take that balance. And at this point and being only six, seven months out from the diagnosis, I would say I'm 95% there.