How to Diagnose Cytomegalovirus

Cytomegalovirus is one of the herpes viruses. A cytomegalovirus infection usually causes few symptoms in healthy people. Once a person is infected, the infection lies dormant in the body, but can recur later. CMV often mimics other diseases, so it can be difficult to diagnose. Follow these steps to diagnose cytomegalovirus.

Instructions

1. Notice if you have any of the following symptoms--headache, fever that lasts for several days, chills, an enlarged spleen, unusual or extreme tiredness and muscle aches. CMV often mimics mononucleosis.

2. Ask your doctor to give you a blood test which can detect antibodies for CMV infection. This test can tell if you have been infected, but it can't tell when you were infected.

3. Tell your doctor if you are pregnant and suspect that you have CMV. Special testing can be done on blood samples taken at different times during your pregnancy to determine when you were infected. An active CMV infection during pregnancy can harm the fetus.

4. Detect if your infant has any developmental problems and report them to your doctor. Most newborns infected with CMV have no symptoms, but mental, hearing or vision problems can develop later on.

5. Request that your doctor take cultures from your throat, urine, or other body tissues if you suspect an active serious CMV infection. If you have any other illnesses with fever, such as pneumonia, liver infection or anemia, they could be the result of complications from a CMV infection.

Tips & Warnings

• Between 50 to 85 percent of adults in the United States are infected. It is also the most common virus to be transmitted to a developing fetus.

• To help avoid infection during pregnancy, limit contact with children less than two and a half years of age. They are the most common active transmitters of the virus.

• To prevent infection, practice good personal hygiene.

• Fetuses that have been infected with cytomegalovirus have a high rate of birth defects or other complications from the disease.