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anyone have poor stamina before they got CFS?

uni

Messages
52
Hi,

I am wondering if any of you had poor stamina before you got CFS. Mine was a more gradual onset rather than acute viral - although symptoms got worse after coming down with a flu. I've actually had poor stamina starting in my teenage years. I tired more easily than my peers but still pushed myself to be active. I actually remembering having signs of dysbiosis back in middle school, along with a sort of "out of it" feeling gradually worsening into brain fog and lowered concentration. I had also had poor balance, anxiety, fatigue, and it seems like everything got worse when I got CFS. I feel like I definately have a predisposition for this illness.

This makes me gravitate towards Myhill's mitochondria hypothesis and Rich's GD-MCB hypothesis.
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
I didn't have noticeably poor stamina at all before I got ME and was in very good health. It was an acute viral onset for me. However there were some stamina issues and more prominently issues with co-ordination.

When I do look back I wonder though if my own immediate family's and extended family's lack of interest in sports participation/prowess is a clue to some sort of mitochondia or related problem. As ME also has hit the in-laws I'd suspect a virus or something infectious is causing the ME but this lack of exercise related interest and ability may be there as well.

Although we all joined sporting groups and enjoyed the social side of being on a dance/team sports and individual sports none of us were any good at them and it seemed to take more out of us than others. We would be last in the cross country races at school for example. I attended my local athletics group as a child and a teenager and didn't improve as others did. Did ballet badly and other dance classes badly. Couldn't follow an aerobics class for example. Eventually most of us gave up and none of us even watch sports on TV.

We all did a very long walk to and from school each day and then did well scholastically so the stamina issues only became apparent during the very extreme measures - i.e.long runs or long games.

As a family we lack rythem, balance, co-ordination more noticably. The members of my family who don't have ME have very active lives and play musical instraments etc (albiet often badly), we are often involved in the arts.
 

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
I had excellent stamina before I became ill with ME/CFS and my father is a marathon runner (currently 61 years old).

Perhaps this was a sign that you were already becoming ill before you knew you had full-blown CFS?
 

Ocean

Senior Member
Messages
1,178
Location
U.S.
As a youth and young adult, I needed more sleep than others and I had trouble waking in the mornings unlike my peers. But I did plenty of sports and had plenty of physical energy for that and was generally quite active physically. Didn't notice any unusual recovery time or anything. I did need caffeine at an early age to get going in the mornings.
 

searcher

Senior Member
Messages
567
Location
SF Bay Area
uni- I have had a similar background. I was always pretty athletic (played on my tennis team, biked everywhere, etc.) but never had much stamina. I had a lot of trouble running laps in gym and during sports practices, even though I was nominally in good shape. And I used to sprain my ankles all the time (which is a sign of bad balance.) And like ukmrv, I never seemed to improve my aerobic capacity no matter how hard I tried. I usually needed a little more sleep than most people, but generally didn't notice fatigue until my late 20s (which progressed to full-blown CFS in my early 30s.)

My mom also never had much stamina and can sleep at the drop of the hat (I am jealous of this since napping is now difficult for me no matter how tired I am.) My brother just ran a marathon so if it is genetic maybe I got the unlucky genes :) But more likely we had some genetic predisposition and were exposed to specific triggers (pathogens, environmental factors, etc.) that our bodies have trouble handling.
 

snowathlete

Senior Member
Messages
5,374
Location
UK
SNAP.

I also needed more sleep and could never get up in the morning.

I also had poor stamina. I never have understood why because i used to play football pretty much every day with my brothers and friends, and loved sport. Running, swimming, cycling. But i could not build stamina.
In fact in the end i had to give up long distance running because i would say my stamina got worse and worse, despite my effort to increase it.

So i guess it could be related. I havent had any better explaination for it at anyrate.
 

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
Similar here although maybe not that pronounced. Stamina and endurance always the biggest issue. I was best at (hardcore) skiing which I could do for 8 hours at some point, since my 30s a half day has been more than plenty :) Long tennis matches wore me down and my soccer coach usually swapped me out by minute 60 ;) But it never got significantly worse until my viral infection in 2009 (which started the stomach troubles and nutrient deficiency) and it was partly explained by a likely genetic predisposition to always having low normal red blood cell count (from my moms side). I also always had trouble getting out of bed and would routinely miss the first one or two hours of school in the morning which routinely got me into trouble ;) Now that I have been digging myself out of that hole I am wondering if predisposition for some makes it more like a chronic, but less severe condition that can be taken care of with lifelong supplementation and good care and mainly maintaining healthy sleep (I always needed more as well and am currently on 7-10 hours per night). Wonder if they ever find that elusive pathogen (chances are slim that it exists but not impossible IMO).. For most it could be as simple as chronic EBV (or any other virus of the herpes family unless those will turn out to be opportunistic reactivations only). I still love sports :)
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
The sleep issues would not start until adolsecnce for us. Anyone else notice that?

We all started as larks and then around 11-15 the sleep pattern would shift and we became night owls instead. This would then be the pattern for the rest of our lives getting worse as we got older. No one ever reverted back to being a lark although there are some family members that did not get the "shift" and remained morning people. None of the morning people in my family have ever developed ME.
 

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
I have also been wondering whether borderline nutrient deficiency through malabsorption due to digestive issues could explain why my stamina goes up with colder climate - I love summer days but exerting is much harder than in the winter, no matter how freezing cold the winter is. Maybe we deplete fast when sweating profusely and that causes more symptoms. Just a guess..
 

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
This is interesting as I was a nightowl for a long long time but since my onset of 2009 I have forced myself to go to bed early (though the known hormonal issues gave me insomnia initially but were cured much with LDN) and get up early again and it took quite some time to adapt but I would say it has helped me enormously. In fact I cannot believe that I am a morning person again (not necessarily feeling grand but decent in the morning) and it seems to help with this condition.

The sleep issues would not start until adolsecnce for us. Anyone else notice that?

We all started as larks and then around 11-15 the sleep pattern would shift and we became night owls instead. This would then be the pattern for the rest of our lives getting worse as we got older. No one ever reverted back to being a lark although there are some family members that did not get the "shift" and remained morning people. None of the morning people in my family have ever developed ME.
 

Ocean

Senior Member
Messages
1,178
Location
U.S.
The sleep issues would not start until adolsecnce for us. Anyone else notice that?

We all started as larks and then around 11-15 the sleep pattern would shift and we became night owls instead. This would then be the pattern for the rest of our lives getting worse as we got older. No one ever reverted back to being a lark although there are some family members that did not get the "shift" and remained morning people. None of the morning people in my family have ever developed ME.

I was always a night owl even as a much younger child and struggled to get up and be alert in the mornings.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
I could never build stamina, either. I was a gymnast and a sprinter, but could never build the stamina to do endurance work like floor exercise or medium-long distance running well. It's not like I didn't train -- I just never got anywhere.

I don't think I needed more sleep than most, though. If anything, I was a poor sleeper. I didn't walk around tired or sleepy, though.
 
Messages
15,786
I had a normal sleeping pattern as a teenager, which is actually pretty unusual. Most teenagers have altered circadian rhythm, and can't sleep until late at night, and have trouble getting up in the morning.

I still sleep between 9pm and 7am or so, though it's been much crappier sleep quality since I got sick, and sometimes has to be augmented with naps.
 

justy

Donate Advocate Demonstrate
Messages
5,524
Location
U.K
Count me in. Poor stamina nd inability to build fitness past a certian level, dispite being very active and doing swimming, dance etc. Everything said on here is so familiar to me.
 

Otis

Señor Mumbler
Messages
1,117
Location
USA
A possible variation on the theme. I got mono at age 15. I had a period of significant fatigue and was eventually (mis)diagnosed with activity induced asthma. After that point I didn't have the stamina I used to. I bounced back and the fatigue abated but I was never the same.

I was able to play (American) football which is mostly anaerobic until high school where there was much more aerobic conditioning and I just couldn't keep up.

Since then I've had a 30 year+ decline to complete disability. I've got viral problems now so I suspect I was able to fight back to 80% after that mono 30 years ago but my defenses have been falling apart in the 30 years since at an increasing rate.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
From an infant all the way to adulthood, I needed more sleep than others, hated waking up in the mornings because I often felt terrible on awaking; but always found myself alert, awake and content at night, and have always been a night owl for that reason. I also always had problems with stamina all my life. In fact, I often think that I had "CFS-lite" all my life, before several infections I caught in the last decade or so dropped me into more severe levels of CFS.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
Ditto Hip - I like your term CFS-lite which sums me up for about 6/7 years before an acute viral onset, which is about the time of IVF treatment I had, a link? I think so.
 

Dufresne

almost there...
Messages
1,039
Location
Laurentians, Quebec
Besides my cognitive symptoms suffered since early childhood, I could never run longer than five minutes without becoming winded. That's how it started for me. Even working in the fitness industry decades later, and in the gym daily, I was never able to develop my cardiovascular capacity to the point where I could go for a nice jog. 10-15 minutes was all I could handle. No problem with heavy weights until my slow but steady onset of PEM which started in 2005. Along with this came a worsening of existing symptoms and a slew of new ones. My condition has continued to worsen, never fundamentally improve.
 

kurt

Senior Member
Messages
1,186
Location
USA
Count me in. Poor stamina nd inability to build fitness past a certian level, dispite being very active and doing swimming, dance etc. Everything said on here is so familiar to me.

My too, although I was very active, including swimming, biking pulling a bike trailer, always busy, as a volunteer, part-time work on the side, plus a demanding job, and a family, my stamina had started to slide starting at least 10 years prior to the 'flu-like illness' that led to CFS. Maybe sometimes we miss that obvious distinction, between activity level and stamina. Some people who get CFS may think of how active they were before, and not recognize that their stamina had been declining faster than their activity level would suggest.

For about 3 years prior to CFS the diminishing endurance became more noticeable. For example, I could not swim as many laps, which I thought was just due to de-conditioning, but in retrospect, it was something else.

I am in partial remission now due to the combination of mold avoidance, methylation support (both Fred and Rich's protocols, combined) and a consistent and fairly complicated rehydration therapy (treating OI and low blood volume). Also regular use of natural antimicrobials. And a lot of deep-level stress-reduction. The partial remission has improved my stamina, particularly the rehydration therapy, which seems to reduce PEM. I have tried dozens of treatments and this is the only time my stamina has improved, but only by a little, maybe 10-20% on good days.