Dr. Kasey Holland on EBV Reactivation Symptoms and How EBV Triggers Autoimmune Disease

When Dr. Kasey Holland was in naturopathic medical school, she was experiencing a cluster of mysterious and sometimes debilitating symptoms, and didn’t know what they were, despite the fact that the answer was staring her right in the face (Literally! She was busy diagnosing patients with the very thing she had! ). When she eventually figured out that she had reactivated EBV, and then healed herself, she decided to make this complex virus her specialty. Read on to learn Dr. Holland’s insights on EBV reactivation symptoms, the best EBV treatment, how EBV might explain what triggers autoimmune disease, and much more.

*This is a short clip from our interview with Dr. Kasey Holland. Click here to watch the full thing.*

You can also listen to Adrienne’s interview with Dr. Kasey Holland on The WellBe Podcast.

Dr. Holland’s Journey to EBV Specialist

As with many of the experts we interview at WellBe, Dr. Holland’s interest in her chosen field came from personal experience.

In 6th grade, Dr. Holland developed mono, a disease caused by the Epstein-Barr Virus that is also known as infectious mononucleosis. Her case was so severe that she was out of school for nearly three months, and even afterwards, she didn’t fully recover. “It became something that I didn’t quite understand was still a problem,” she remembers. “We thought, okay, you had it once, you had a bad case, [recovery] is taking longer. But I didn’t realize how it would impact the rest of my life, and who I take care of my body and the decisions that I need to make.”

In the years afterward, she would feel fine for a while, then her symptoms would flare up again in times of stress. She played sports, and always had a harder time than her fellow athletes recovering physically from the exertion. Still, things felt manageable, and so she didn’t investigate her symptoms further. 

But then when she went to college, she completely crashed. She was playing volleyball, taking premed classes, and — as many college students do — eating and drinking whatever she wanted. She didn’t understand what was going on. She felt like she had mono again, but when doctors ran the monospot test (a simple diagnostic which tests for two antibodies that are present during and shortly after a mono infection), it came back negative. She was told that she was tired, that it was adrenal fatigue, that there was nothing really “wrong” with her. 

This continued throughout college and into medical school, where she was studying integrative and naturopathic medicine. As she continued to learn about the impact of viruses on the body and notice patterns in her own symptoms, she began to wonder if she was dealing with EBV. Then, when she started working with patients, she kept seeing people who were presenting with symptoms of EBV. “They were just attracted to me. The universe does that,” she says. “They had the same symptoms that I had, and I would say, ‘I’m going to run an EBV panel on you,’ and it would come back positive. I thought, okay, this is the same thing I’m dealing with.”

Finally, she ran the panel on herself, and it came back positive. She understood that she’d been dealing with a real, diagnosable condition this whole time. “As I peeled back the layers of my health, of other people’s health, I just wanted more people to know that you can heal from EBV and also just know what’s going on with their health when this happens,” she says.

Understanding EBV and EBV Reactivation Symptoms

Dr. Holland says that EBV is incredibly common, infecting an estimated 95% of people in their lifetime. She explains that it’s just a normal bug, usually passed through saliva, that most people get as a child. It’s part of the herpes viral family, which has the property of going from latent to lytic. “When it’s latent it’s not replicating. It’s still in your cells, but it’s not causing problems. And then if we go to lytic, where it’s active, that’s when we have the problems,” she explains. “So once you have it, it’s not going to leave your body.”

All herpes viruses are considered opportunistic infections, meaning that when they spot an opportunity — such as an impaired immune system due to stress, chronic inflammation, or something else — it becomes active again. This ability to exist in a latent state and then become lytic explains the concept of EBV reactivation. Yet many people aren’t aware once the virus has woken up, because they aren’t aware of EBV reactivation symptoms. 

While some herpes virus reactivation symptoms are well-known and obvious, such as the cold sores associated with herpes simplex virus 1, EBV reactivation symptoms aren’t common knowledge. Making them even more difficult to identify is the fact that most people aren’t aware they’re even carrying the virus. Says Holland, “most people don’t even know that they had it, because it can manifest as just a cold or a sore throat, and it often co-occurs with something like strep.” 

For many people, they get mono once and that’s the end of it. But for others, for various reasons, the effects of the virus linger. “In a reactivated state, or a chronic state where it’s gone latent and then it’s gone lytic again, or maybe your body never was able to actually put it in a latent state — that’s when things get really wild and we see all sorts of symptoms,” she explains.

According to Holland, some of the most common EBV reactivation symptoms include: 

• Gastrointestinal problems
• Joint pain
• Dizziness
• Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) 
• Severe fatigue
• Malaise 
• Anxiety 

“When EBV turns on, the problem is that it pushes on a lot of inflammatory pathways, which is why it’s also associated with other diseases,” she says. “When that happens, depending on what else is going on in your life, what your gastrointestinal health was like, we can see a big, wide range of symptoms.”

The virus can become reactivated by a number of different factors, all of which come back to oxidative stress (a bodily state where there is an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants, which can do damage to the body). Whether or not these things cause the virus to go latent and lead to EBV reactivation symptoms depends on the oxidative stress their body is already dealing with. “When we look at somebody, we don’t know their oxidative stress levels, we just don’t quite know why their body is reacting that way,” she explains. “Mycotoxins, mold. Birth control causes oxidative stress. The standard American diet. So many things. So, we have to consider the whole person and what is in their toxin bucket and what has caused it to get to the point where there’s enough oxidative stress that EBV is reactivating.”

What Triggers Autoimmune Disease? The Role of EBV  

Recently, there’s been some very compelling research showing that EBV might help explain what triggers autoimmune disease — most notably MS — and Dr. Holland says that we’ve known for some time the role that EBV can play in autoimmune conditions. She explains that this is because of the unique ways that EBV impacts the pathways within our bodies.

“Once the EBV reactivates, it causes a snowball effect because it decreases the body’s own capabilities of clearing out reactive oxygenation species [a type of free radical], and then the virus itself being reactivated creates more oxidative stress,” she says. She explains that by looking at how this snowball effect impacts the body, you can begin to understand what triggers autoimmune disease. Specifically, the reactivation of the virus affects certain pathways in the body that are associated with autoimmune conditions, in particular the NF-Kappa-b pathways.

“These are pathways that affect how our cells develop and proliferate, and EBV causes them to operate in ways that they weren’t supposed to,” Dr. Holland says. “This is why EBV is more associated with autoimmune conditions.”

But, as she points out, blaming autoimmune conditions on EBV doesn’t actually address the root cause of the issue. She says that when the research ties EBV to autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, “then we get into this bubble of thinking, ‘Oh, EBV causes all autoimmune conditions.’ When really, no, what caused it was the oxidative stress that ticked off the EBV, that then really started a fire. So, yes, we have to deal with EBV, but we have to deal with these other things, too.”

The Best Approach to EBV Treatment 

“Anytime I start treatment with a patient, I like to use the therapeutic order, which is a core part of naturopathic medicine, where we start with the foundations with the least invasive tool and then go all the way up to the most invasive,” Dr. Holland says. With EBV treatment, this often means getting rid of whatever exposure or condition is causing the oxidative stress that led to the EBV reactivation.  

While there are a wide variety of things that can cause oxidative stress, Dr. Holland says that there are some major ones that tend to be associated with EBV reactivation:

• Mold. Holland says that if you’re living in mold and have had EBV in the past, it’s almost guaranteed that the virus will reactivate. This may be the case for people who have thought that they cleared out the mold from their home but, in actuality, left trace amounts. “If you’ve had a past positive EBV panel and mold exposure, I don’t even want to retest you because it’s going to be there,” she says. “EBV and mold. Mold causes a ton of oxidative stress on our bodies, so it’s going to turn [the virus] on.” In these cases, the first step of EBV treatment is getting rid of the mold exposure. 
• Parasites. “Another thing I’ve seen be huge is parasites,” Holland says. “I’ve seen people after we get rid of parasites, they just say, ‘I feel better than I have in 10 years. My EBV is nonexistent.”
• Trauma. She explains that unhealed trauma can keep your sympathetic nervous system — the one responsible for the fight-or-flight response — turned on. “When you’re in that state, it’s the same as if a grizzly bear is chasing you,” she says. “When that bear is chasing you, you’re not going to be creating hormones, your immune system won’t be working, you’re not going to be digesting. And if you’re in that state, it’s really hard to heal.”
• Glyphosate. Holland says that when she checks the glyphosate levels of her EBV patients, they’re almost always elevated. This is because glyphosate, the active ingredient in pesticide Roundup, causes a great deal of stress on the human body. While glyphosate is being removed from the residential market by 2023, it will still be sold commercially, so it’s important to buy organic whenever possible to clear it out of your system.

If any toxins and stressors have been cleared out and a person is still dealing with EBV reactivation symptoms, Holland’s next step of EBV treatment involves herbs. “There are a ton of herbs that are helpful. It really depends on what you have going on with your body,” she says. Typically, she’ll use a blend of herbs, which often contain echinacea. However, she says, she doesn’t like to use echinacea for a prolonged period of time, as it revs up the immune system. “We don’t want to push you toward an autoimmune state where everything is reacting a lot,” she says. She also likes to use astragalus, which is an herb that supports your body’s natural killer cells as well as your nervous system. 

There are also supplements that can help, including vitamin D and vitamin C (she recommends IV vitamin C in particular, which has been shown to lower levels of EBV antibodies). She also recommends certain antioxidants, particularly resveratrol, curcumin, and glutathione. 

“[EBV treatment] really becomes an art,” she says. “There are fun things we can do too, like flower essences, neural therapy, and guided imagery to help release trauma and things that may be keeping us in that state. It’s highly individualized for each person and their journey.”

The WellBe Takeaway on EBV and Autoimmunity

Epstein-Barr virus is an incredibly common virus, and it may play a bigger role in long-term health than we previously knew. For these reasons, it’s essential to remember these key things about EBV, autoimmunity, and your health:

• Epstein-Barr virus infects around 95% of people in their lifetime. People are usually infected as children, and then carry the virus with them for the rest of their lives. The virus has the ability to go from lytic (active) to latent (inactive). When it is latent, it causes no problems to a person’s health.
• EBV can become lytic when a person’s level of oxidative stress becomes too high. Oxidative stress is caused by a number of different factors, such as environmental toxins, life stresses, inflammation, and more.
• EBV reactivation symptoms vary from person to person depending on what else is going on in their body. Some common symptoms include joint pain, gastrointestinal problems, fatigue, and anxiety. 
• EBV reactivation may help us answer the question of what triggers autoimmune disease. EBV is associated with autoimmune diseases such as MS, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis, and Holland says this is because of the various ways that EBV impacts important pathways in our bodies.
• Effective EBV treatment involves, firstly, removing whatever stresses and/or toxins may be raising a person’s levels of oxidative stress. After this, the treatment may involve herbs, supplements, or more unorthodox treatments such as guided imagery and neural therapy.

Watch our full interview with Dr. Kasey Holland to learn why she believes an EBV vaccine might be on the horizon, what she thinks about the Medical Medium’s celery juice recommendation, why variety in diet is so important, why blood tests don’t always match how a patient feels, how long it normally takes for her patients to respond to EBV treatment, the similarities and differences between EBV and long Covid, her thoughts on EMFs, and more.

You can also listen to our interview with Dr. Kasey Holland on The WellBe Podcast.

Do you think you’ve ever experienced EBV reactivation symptoms? What were they and how did you treat them? Share your experience in the comments below!

Citations

1. Stuempfig ND, Seroy J. Monospot Test. [Updated 2022 Aug 8]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-.
2. Bjornevik K, Cortese M, et al. Longitudinal analysis reveals high prevalence of Epstein-Barr virus associated with multiple sclerosis. Science. 2022 Jan 21;375(6578):296-301. 
3. Knipe DM, Cliffe A. Chromatin control of herpes simplex virus lytic and latent infection. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2008 Mar;6(3):211-21. 
4. Sies, H. (2000). What is Oxidative Stress?. In: Keaney, J.F. (eds) Oxidative Stress and Vascular Disease. Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol 224. Springer, Boston, MA. 
5. Mikirova N, Hunninghake R. Effect of high dose vitamin C on Epstein-Barr viral infection. Med Sci Monit. 2014 May 3;20:725-32. 

The information contained in this article comes from our interview with Dr. Kasey Holland, a licensed naturopathic doctor. She received her BS in Cell Biology and Neuroscience from Montana State University, and her Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from Bastyr University, before completing a residency with an emphasis on chronic illness and functional medicine. She is also a certified mold practitioner through Dr. Jill Crista, ND. Learn more about Dr. Kasey Holland here.