‘It’s a horrible attack on the body’: What it’s really like to have mpox

For Tristan, a 31-year-old living in London, the onset was less obvious.

“I was in Turin to watch the final of Eurovision with friends. I was very tired and had bad lower back pain the whole time – but we were on holiday, out drinking every night, so I assumed it was just that,” he said.

“I ended up buying a plane ticket to go back to London early, because I was feeling so unwell.

“I had noticed a couple of small spots coming up on my intimate areas, which I assumed straight away was an STI – so I went to get a test,” said Tristan. Although he had recently had sex, they had used protection.

“I was still feeling terrible, so I went to A&E a couple of days later whilst waiting for my results. At this point, I had a secondary infection – strep throat, probably because I was so run down from what I didn’t yet know was mpox – and I had a weird, blanching rash on the top of my feet.”

“My STI doctor had got the results back the same day I took myself to hospital – I had monkeypox. Suddenly all the staff in A&E put on hazmat suits – it felt over the top, but I understood, especially because Covid had just happened.”

‘It was an extreme attack on my body’

Tom (not his real name), a 25-year-old also from Atlanta, Georgia, had symptoms that were entirely concentrated on the face and mouth. He thinks he got the virus from a three-way kiss at a gay bathhouse in the city.

“It started with one bump above my lip and it was p—ing me off. It started growing, but it didn’t hurt at first,” Tom said.

“A few days on, I got the lesions on my tongue. It was awful, an 11/10 of pain. I couldn’t drink any water at first because it stung so much. I never cry but I would wake up in the middle of the morning crying because it was that bad. It was an extreme attack on my body.”

“I had to eat, obviously, but there were lesions all over my tongue, even on my tastebuds. I would try to drink smoothies and apple sauce. I lost some weight. I have some PTSD, and whenever I feel random sensations in my tongue my anxiety will spike and I will think ‘Oh god it’s happening again’.”