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Crash vs PEM? Differences?

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,363
I"d describe several severe long bouts of very difficult to recover from PEM being more "crash"-like and then including baseline worsening for a sustained period.

I have generally pulled out of what seemed to be sustained worsening to some degree.

Yet I can do less and less it seems.

So during my three month trip to visit my daughter and I was supposed to have a really nice time, instead I never recovered from arriving, it got worse and worse, I hardly did anything the entire time, I coped out of go eat dinner half the time. I didn't t have dinner with the family on my birthday. Happy Birthday.

I was a wreck and got intensified tachycardia and POTS events happening at 5 pm, quite terrifying to feel them frankly. Its not as much of a problem as it was then, so it improved. I'd get strep throat daily around 2 pm.

My stomach getting killed off by viral reactivations, it seems, then seems to make me generally worse each time another bout happens, so its degrading my body. Six years of battling these stomach issues and I'm not remotely winning.
 

xebex

Senior Member
Messages
840
For me a crash is where i have no choice but to lie down. I feel very sleepy and feel like my muscles are withering away and my brain is filling with lead. I HAVE to lie down and I fall into a coma like sleep but i'm not actually asleep. This lasts for up to 6 hours. I will finally sleep and then the next day I will wake up in PEM - which is POTS, muscles aches, irritability, headache, flu like feeling, muscle weakness, sound and light sensitivity I can also feel very low and anxious but that is usually triggered by eating the wrong food. This can last up to a week and if i don't rest it gets worse and worse. If it lasts more than a week I call it a relapse and I often drop in function and it can take months to get back to baseline (which is pretty low) if I ever do.
 

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,363
and it can take months to get back to baseline (which is pretty low) if I ever do.

whatever WAS baseline just seems to have slipped away...

I used to get a day now and then....a bit better day.

I just got up and overall, don't know why I bothered.
 

xebex

Senior Member
Messages
840
@Rufous McKinney yes my baseline is getting lower and lower :( I have to lie daown all day anyway but it is on the sofa and i'm active lieing down ie drawing or chatting or watching tv, but when i crash i have to lie down in my bed in a darkend room - i really should not be at the computer right now.

infact the worst thing about a crash that i didnt mention is that my eyes hurt and if i try to read they just hurt more and more and more. ughhh it is so awful not being able to entertain yourself in a crash.