I’ve compared notes with a lot of people who have fibro. One thing we all seem to have in common is that most of us have had mononucleosis at some point or another. This might strike some as No Big Deal, right? Well. From Wikipedia (link):
“Most people are exposed to the [mononucleosis] virus as children, when the disease produces no noticeable symptoms or only flu-like symptoms.”
I had a rather remarkable case of mono. I caught it during the last week of junior year in high school, which means i’m amazed i passed my finals. I fell asleep before, during and after each test. The teachers could barely keep me awake. After school ended, my stepmum took me to the doctor, and my doc was very concerned because my spleen was three times its normal size – she didn’t need to do an ultrasound, because she could feel it. Normally, it’s tucked away nice and neat behind the ribcage. For a month, i was not allowed to lift anything heavier than a paperback book. I was not allowed to move too much. I pretty much slept for three weeks straight, so that was no big deal.
I can’t recall exactly when the fibro symptoms started ramping up. I remember hurting a lot as a child, but i also remember getting beaten a lot as a child, so the pain i remember could have just been soreness from that mess. The first time i recognized abnormal pain was when i was in college – woke up one morning, tried to go to my classes, and halfway through the quad it felt like someone had suddenly broken all of my toes.
I’ll spare the details of my fibro history because it’s tl;dr, even for me at this point. Fast forward until about 20 minutes ago.
Poking around my google reader, came across a link to an article about vestigial organs. I was bored and couldn’t think of anything else to do, so i clicked it and started reading.
A new study, published in the journal Science (as of 2-3 days ago) has found that the spleen (*cough*points up*cough*) actually has a purpose: storing monocytes. According to the article, monocytes are “white blood cells essential for immune defense and tissue repair.”
Emphasis mine.
My mind is reeling about this, but there’s currently SO little information out there about this. Hell, the article was only published a few days ago. But i’ll definitely be looking for more information about this one.