Fatigue

Ben84

I had very low energy for a long time, and my GP couldn't find any particular reason. He said it was chronic fatigue syndrome, which when I looked it up seemed to be the symptoms packaged up with a name and no clear explanation or treatment. He also suggested I might be depressed, but the only thing I could name to depress me was being tired all the time, so that seemed a bit circular. Not a lot of use. Maybe your GP will come up with something better if you visit again? However, at the time I did (wisely or not) give up with going to the doctor and I figured trying to live healthier should make me feel healthier, and decided to work on that. I improved my diet a lot and that helped. However, I finally found the the cause of my tiredness was sugar, and refined carbs that also spike blood sugar levels. I stopped eating sweet things like chocolate and cookies, and replaced most the white flour with wholemeal things. Took a little while to show results, but not that long. I feel good every day now, but the few times I do something like eat white pasta or potatoes (potatoes are surprisingly bad!) for lunch I get exhausted by the early afternoon and feel tired all day the next day. Fortunately I'm starting to like the new foods I eat more with time, and the results are worth it, even if I do miss eating a few things.

Andrew_Ryan_89

Thanks for all the responses so far guys. Admittedly, my diet has never been historically the best but when this all started happening, there was no major switch in my diet and back when I was younger, I was a lot slimmer than what I am now. 4-5 years ago, I did start getting nose bleeds and one nostril is always blocked.

He half a day of doing test only for the doctor to say "there was a bit of blockage" but could not elaborate further. Gave me something to put up my nose for 3 months, done it and no better results. The nose particularly occur when I get stressed and slight physical trauma (girlfriend pinching my nose for a joke as an example).

Ben84

My diet hadn't changed around the time it started either. I felt fine eating lots of sugar and refined carbs as a child, but then felt tired more and more often by my late teens and was really tired in my 20s, and I found cutting out or reducing certain things as an adult (around age 30) made the tiredness stop. Perhaps it was a growing effect from eating these things for a long time, or perhaps as I've become older I've become less able to tolerate it. It's unknown really, but my experience suggests that things we got away with when we were younger may not be ok now, so I would still consider diet as one possible cause.

Elizabeth_Braun

Hi Andrew!

The tension gives a clue to me and some of the other symptoms too. There are very likely to be some blocked up emotions in there.

Emotion is a poorly understood thing, but when you know that it's a form of energy that can get get 'stuck' in the body when not allowed to flow freely (I.e. we don't admit something to ourselves - often, unhelpfully, something we're not even aware of or look down on as 'wrong' or even 'weak', such as anger, fears and insecurities etc), and cause generalised tension, tightness, pain and even panic.

From my own experience, I recommend Mickel Therapy and/or learning the Focusing technique. I had ME/CFS for a few years and MT cured it and gave me the keys to preventing it happening again.

The cause of chronic fatigue *is* known, just not widely recognised and scorned by the establishment thus far - as most new things are until they're accepted generally.

Mojisola

Elizabeth_Braun wrote: »

The cause of chronic fatigue *is* known

And the cause is ...

Elizabeth_Braun

An overdrive in the hypothalamus gland in the brain. There is medical research documenting abnormalities along the HPA axis (hypothalamus - pituitary gland - adrenals) in CFS and FMS patients.

The doctor behind the Mickel Therapy approach, Dr David Mickel, proposes that the overdrive comes about through the body of the sufferer feeling in 'danger' owing to certain emotional needs not being met etc. I only had to recognise where the percieved danger was coming from and to make a statement in my mind not to allow x to happen, and I actually felt that heavy, lead-like fatigue weight lifting in response. It was like an old-fashioned record player starting back up after a power cut.

Mojisola

Elizabeth_Braun wrote: »

An overdrive in the hypothalamus gland in the brain. There is medical research documenting abnormalities along the HPA axis (hypothalamus - pituitary gland - adrenals) in CFS and FMS patients.

The doctor behind the Mickel Therapy approach, Dr David Mickel, proposes that the overdrive comes about through the body of the sufferer feeling in 'danger' owing to certain emotional needs not being met etc. I only had to recognise where the percieved danger was coming from and to make a statement in my mind not to allow x to happen, and I actually felt that heavy, lead-like fatigue weight lifting in response. It was like an old-fashioned record player starting back up after a power cut.

This suggests that you had a psychological/emotional problem which was causing your fatigue and not ME.

megaginge

theoretica wrote: »

I had something rather similar and suggest you add food intolerances to your list of things to check out. My body seemed to be taking all its energy dealing with things it would rather I didn't eat (gluten and dairy in my case) and not leaving much for me!

I concur that some form of intestinal dysbiosis, such as Candida Albicans or a bacterial imbalance could be responsible ... could.

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

Well I know the cause with no doubt whatsoever!

It is believed that CFS/ME sufferers have Increase Intestinal Permeability Syndrome, research is currently investigating this and will be available later this year I understand. I am way ahead on this, the cause is a bacteria! A bacteria which replaces the digestive mucosa with a biofilm in order to to allow large food molecules to enter the bloodstream in order to provoke an immune response and histamine release. This benefits the bacteria and enables it to exist. Antibiotics will not affect them. They adapt to anything that threatens them sacrificing bacteria near the surface of the biofilm in order to update their DNA to resist attack. Persister cells are their ultimate safeguard.

No you don't. You're discussing leaky gut syndrome, which may or may not be a thing... But it's by far not the only possible cause.

Andrew_Ryan_89 wrote: »

Thanks for all the responses so far guys. Admittedly, my diet has never been historically the best but when this all started happening, there was no major switch in my diet and back when I was younger, I was a lot slimmer than what I am now. 4-5 years ago, I did start getting nose bleeds and one nostril is always blocked.

He half a day of doing test only for the doctor to say "there was a bit of blockage" but could not elaborate further. Gave me something to put up my nose for 3 months, done it and no better results. The nose particularly occur when I get stressed and slight physical trauma (girlfriend pinching my nose for a joke as an example).

I would recommend trying a low fodmap diet for a month, which is horrendous! But, might be telling. You could expect to feel worse for a few days, but feasibly then sleep much much better and not get the brain fog, fatigue and irritability that are often caused by issues with the gut biome.

And if it makes no difference you've basically ruled our your stomach being a cause. 1 month of this after 10 years suffering would be worth it.

IF you feel better on the diet, your options are to keep it going for several more months to give your gut health a chance to recover; but targeted antifungals could also help... This is a big IF and not really worth discussing because it could be nothing whatsoever to do with your guts.

This area of medicine is really massively under recognised by the NHS, so though some of it may sound quacky - there are tests you can do to see how you are very quickly to give it some credence, and a temporary diet change won't hurt you... Worth a try?

megaginge

Elizabeth_Braun wrote: »

Hi Andrew!

The tension gives a clue to me and some of the other symptoms too. There are very likely to be some blocked up emotions in there.

Emotion is a poorly understood thing, but when you know that it's a form of energy that can get get 'stuck' in the body when not allowed to flow freely (I.e. we don't admit something to ourselves - often, unhelpfully, something we're not even aware of or look down on as 'wrong' or even 'weak', such as anger, fears and insecurities etc), and cause generalised tension, tightness, pain and even panic.

From my own experience, I recommend Mickel Therapy and/or learning the Focusing technique. I had ME/CFS for a few years and MT cured it and gave me the keys to preventing it happening again.

The cause of chronic fatigue *is* known, just not widely recognised and scorned by the establishment thus far - as most new things are until they're accepted generally.

Whereas I find this personally fairly quacky.. but each to their own!

Torry_Quine

Elizabeth_Braun wrote: »

An overdrive in the hypothalamus gland in the brain. There is medical research documenting abnormalities along the HPA axis (hypothalamus - pituitary gland - adrenals) in CFS and FMS patients.

The doctor behind the Mickel Therapy approach, Dr David Mickel, proposes that the overdrive comes about through the body of the sufferer feeling in 'danger' owing to certain emotional needs not being met etc. I only had to recognise where the percieved danger was coming from and to make a statement in my mind not to allow x to happen, and I actually felt that heavy, lead-like fatigue weight lifting in response. It was like an old-fashioned record player starting back up after a power cut.

Glad you improved but this treatment is not understood by most as a cure for ME.