When fatigue interferes with your life 2/2/15 by Dr. Michael Cutler

[*GG*]

Most of you know how tired you can feel after a particularly long or stressful day of work. But to feel run-down by mid-day or need a nap by early evening is not normal.

I hear this complaint often from patients, yet there are no safe medications to treat this. That’s why in these next few articles I’ll address the inter-related topics of chronic fatigue, chronic low energy, fibromyalgia, altered mitochondrial dysfunction, and how to return to feeling good.

Defining chronic fatigue syndrome
Fatigue can be severe. The severe form is known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Its causes are poorly understood according to the medical scientific literature. Here are the diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). It begins with persistent fatigue for more than six months that is unexplained, plus four of the following seven symptoms:

• Short-term memory loss/poor concentration.
• Sore throat with enlarged, painful neck or axillary lymph nodes.
• Unexplained muscle pain.
• Pain of multiple joints without swelling or redness.
• Headaches.
• Inability to get restful sleep.
• Feeling of exhaustion for more than 24 hours after physical/mental exercise.

If you look again at the above diagnostic criteria for CFS you’ll see a combination of symptoms of fibromyalgia (muscle pain, joint pain) and extreme physical and/or mental fatigue. As you can imagine, meeting these criteria is not so common, although an estimated at 1 million to 4 million Americans have it. Furthermore, there are no diagnostic tests [1] [2] to prove CFS or definitive treatments [3] for it. And while some people affected by CFS feel better in time, most remain functionally impaired for many years. [4] [5]

You may already know that there are no safe prescription drugs to treat CFS, only symptom treatment. Of course there are treatable conditions that can give you the symptoms of CFS. It is important to identify and treat these whenever possible:

• Any chronic illness such as failure of the heart, lungs, liver, kidney or intestines.
• Connective tissue disorders (i.e. Lupus), arthritis, fibromyalgia, neurasthenia, multiple sclerosis.
• Depression, anxiety, somatoform disorders, psychoses (bipolar, schizophrenia).
• Sleep disorders or multiple chemical sensitivity disorder.
• Low hormone function: thyroid, cortisol, or sex hormones (i.e. testosterone).
• Infections such as Chlamydia pneumonia, Lyme disease, syphilis and viruses known as Epstein-Barr virus, Human herpes virus, coxsackie virus B, spuma virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or T-cell leukemia virus.
• Medications.

Chronic low energy and what I call “pre-CFS”

cont'd

http://easyhealthoptions.com/fatigue-interferes-life/

 

[*GG*]

Seems like an ok write up, wonder what the next article will tackle?

GG

 

[worldbackwards]

Apologies as I haven't read the article yet, but there's another cracking picture cliché for connoisseurs of such things:

Forgotten the car keys again?

 

[minkeygirl]

I wake up feeling exhausted after I've slept. I reach for the remote and I'm panting like I just ran up a flight of steps. And I have a real problem with this sentence:

"Although CFS is relatively rare"..

 

[drob31]

Apologies as I haven't read the article yet, but there's another cracking picture cliché for connoisseurs of such things:

Forgotten the car keys again?

Looks like someone's favorite sports team just messed up expression.

 

[MeSci]

Apologies as I haven't read the article yet, but there's another cracking picture cliché for connoisseurs of such things:

Forgotten the car keys again?

Actually it's fairly illustrative of the eye strain I get - I have to close them and have a strong urge to rub them - it seems to help in some way!

 

[MeSci]

Most of you know how tired you can feel after a particularly long or stressful day of work. But to feel run-down by mid-day or need a nap by early evening is not normal.

I hear this complaint often from patients, yet there are no safe medications to treat this. That’s why in these next few articles I’ll address the inter-related topics of chronic fatigue, chronic low energy, fibromyalgia, altered mitochondrial dysfunction, and how to return to feeling good.

Defining chronic fatigue syndrome
Fatigue can be severe. The severe form is known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Its causes are poorly understood according to the medical scientific literature. Here are the diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). It begins with persistent fatigue for more than six months that is unexplained, plus four of the following seven symptoms:

• Short-term memory loss/poor concentration.
• Sore throat with enlarged, painful neck or axillary lymph nodes.
• Unexplained muscle pain.
• Pain of multiple joints without swelling or redness.
• Headaches.
• Inability to get restful sleep.
• Feeling of exhaustion for more than 24 hours after physical/mental exercise.

If you look again at the above diagnostic criteria for CFS you’ll see a combination of symptoms of fibromyalgia (muscle pain, joint pain) and extreme physical and/or mental fatigue. As you can imagine, meeting these criteria is not so common, although an estimated at 1 million to 4 million Americans have it. Furthermore, there are no diagnostic tests [1] [2] to prove CFS or definitive treatments [3] for it. And while some people affected by CFS feel better in time, most remain functionally impaired for many years. [4] [5]

You may already know that there are no safe prescription drugs to treat CFS, only symptom treatment. Of course there are treatable conditions that can give you the symptoms of CFS. It is important to identify and treat these whenever possible:

• Any chronic illness such as failure of the heart, lungs, liver, kidney or intestines.
• Connective tissue disorders (i.e. Lupus), arthritis, fibromyalgia, neurasthenia, multiple sclerosis.
• Depression, anxiety, somatoform disorders, psychoses (bipolar, schizophrenia).
• Sleep disorders or multiple chemical sensitivity disorder.
• Low hormone function: thyroid, cortisol, or sex hormones (i.e. testosterone).
• Infections such as Chlamydia pneumonia, Lyme disease, syphilis and viruses known as Epstein-Barr virus, Human herpes virus, coxsackie virus B, spuma virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or T-cell leukemia virus.
• Medications.

Chronic low energy and what I call “pre-CFS”

cont'd

http://easyhealthoptions.com/fatigue-interferes-life/

If that's CFS I don't have it. I don't have a sore throat very often now, I don't have any joint pain which would be unexpected in a 61-year-old, I didn't have headaches for many years during my ME, and only very rarely get bad ones, and I definitely don't have 'Feeling of exhaustion for more than 24 hours after physical/mental exercise'. I usually feel well the day after exertion.

This guy is only a general practitioner with a special interest in natural medicine.