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Navigate: FAQ Home Page > General Health Questions > Mono
Posted on: 03/26/2009
Question
Your website says you can only get mono once. This is misinformation. The Epstein Barr virus stays in the body and can reappear during times of immunosuppression or stress on the body. There is, in fact, a test that is done for mono that tells you whether or not it is the first time you have had it. I just had it done and it said that this is not the first time I've had mono. It's unfortunate that this is considered a medical website and it has such erroneous information.
Answer
Thank you for coming to our site and letting us know you thought our teen health page on acute infectious mononucleosis due to Epstein Barr Virus
(EBV) (http://www.pamf.org/teen/health/diseases/mono.html) was not accurate.
Please note that our site is for teens and it was not our intent to describe the entire spectrum of EBV-related conditions. In fact, the page is accurate in that a person only has acute mono once. Very rarely in immunocompromised persons, however, the virus can reactivate to cause disease later in life, which we do not typically refer to as "mono."