Is your worst fatigue in the morning too?

[Derek Conklin]

I’ve been dealing with a variety of ME/CFS symptoms for nine months and was recently diagnosed with it after extensive testing.

my fatigue is worst in the morning. I wake up and feel dead and force myself to get up. I’m faded physically and mentally before I even get out of bed so this doesn’t just happen when I stand up.

I tend to get some energy by 12:30pm. By 8pm I crash again. And my fatigue comes and goes in between.

I’d say at my worst I’m like a battery with 5% charged and at my best I reach 50%.

Do any of you have fatigue patterns like this where it’s always the worst at certain points in the day?

Yes, mine is also worse in the morning. Mornings are the most depressing part of the day for me, for this is when I am the sickest, and the weakest! It takes many times 3 or 4 hours just for me to get up to pee and feed my dog! Lol....

 

[CSMLSM]

I’ve been dealing with a variety of ME/CFS symptoms for nine months and was recently diagnosed with it after extensive testing.

my fatigue is worst in the morning. I wake up and feel dead and force myself to get up. I’m faded physically and mentally before I even get out of bed so this doesn’t just happen when I stand up.

I tend to get some energy by 12:30pm. By 8pm I crash again. And my fatigue comes and goes in between.

I’d say at my worst I’m like a battery with 5% charged and at my best I reach 50%.

Do any of you have fatigue patterns like this where it’s always the worst at certain points in the day?

I used to be flat out when I woke after little sleep and gradually improved through the day until night time when I would be better with wired mind and insomnia and struggled to sleep. You may have adrenal fatigue or eve atrophy.
Look into the cortisol wakening response, it gets messed with with adrenal fatigue/atrophy.
You are supposed to have the highest amount of cortisol in the morning and reduce all day until bed. But adrenal issues cause it to start low and can increase as the day goes on if you rest and pace well leaving you with more at night keeping you awake. If you try to push yourself you stimulate the adrenals and tax it more and this results in the cortisol production crashing and major PEM from the affect on the HPA axis and sleep awakening response.
It took a very long time for me to understand this after much damage to myself with trying to push through.

 

[CSMLSM]

Then I might have a cup of coffee..if I'm not too run down. I sort of then wake up until- say 2 or 3 pm, when a whole list of fatigue symptoms. From 3 oclock on, I feel lousy in many ways...tinnitus starts up, nausea, the chemical drip drip. 5 pm is the worst time for my fatigue and misc. symptoms.

Stimulating the adrenals briefly and thus causing the symptoms from the desensitising of glucocorticoid receptors from brief cortisol increase combined with a then reduction of cortisol from the coffee stimulation taxing the adrenals.

 

[CSMLSM]

Poor in the AM, peak energy around 3-4.

Yes that was me for some time. My body thought that was the time to wake up as if I had actually woken up at that time.

 

[CSMLSM]

I was thinking more about my fatigue patterns. I do often feel an energy boost ~7-8 PM, but somewhere past 9 I lack the energy to follow what I'm reading, so that's it for the day. I certainly don't bounce out of bed in the mornings, but I have no trouble reading with breakfast, and I can usually go out and do whatever activities need doing, so I don't think I have an energy deficit then.

Last evening I did hours of thistle-pulling (really muscle-straining) until 8PM. I expected insomnia from that, but I wanted to get as much as I could cleared before the forecast rain. This morning, many muscle groups said "Noooo, I don't want to get up." but after breakfast, I went out and pulled more thistles, and my energy level felt about the same as the previous day.

So, aside from the usual (?) fatigue as bedtime approaches, I don't notice any pattern of energy loss during the day.

You have not caused major adrenal issues yet, please do not push yourself it will make things worse and disrupt your HPA axis further and more ME/CFS progression from my experience.

 

[CSMLSM]

yes, then subsides as the day goes on. Brain fog not so much

Adrenal fatigue. Brain fog is brain inflammation from immune dysregualtion.

 

[CSMLSM]

100%!
Mornings suck.
A few years back I was helping out my mum when she needed some caregiving and she wanted me to empty the dishwasher out first thing in the morning. NO!

I feel my best in the late evening -- dangit, right when it's time for bed. It's like all of the sudden the air is breathable and not dragging me down. I could run a marathon. Ok, not really but it's a noticeable difference for how I feel the rest of the day.
The worst thing is that when I go to bed -- feeling good -- I know I wake up the next day back to blah.

I bet you are super careful with pacing and do not push yourself much.

 

[CSMLSM]

This is definitely something to consider, thanks!



For the benefit of posterity, we have the following related discussions:

How cortisol levels normally change during the day:




Hair and salivary cortisol in a cohort of women with chronic fatigue syndrome (Roerink et al., 2018)
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...of-women-with-chronic-fatigue-syndrome.60069/




Why do I feel better in the evening? Cortisol, pain and insomnia issues
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...ning-cortisol-pain-and-insomnia-issues.45483/

Nice post fella!

 

[CSMLSM]

Patients here can have very abnormal cortisol curves.

This one can happen when the body is under a lot of stress, either lifestyle related or from infections, toxicity, etc and the adrenals are pumping out too much he cortisol to help the body cope or tremendously overshooting, as in Cushing's disease:
View attachment 46445
This is when the adrenals are not producing enough cortisol, in adrenal insufficiency or more profoundly, in Addison's disease.
View attachment 46443
This is when cortisol production is shifted, so the person can't get out of bed in the morning but is awake at night, the classic night owl.
View attachment 46444
There are strategies for treating each of these situations, best discussed with a doctor.

Nice post too!

 

[CSMLSM]

Opposite for me. At best from rarly am until an hour after breakfast, then increasingly downhill with worst 2-5 pm

But my mother had your pattern

How is your sleep quality? Also are you on any meds or supplements or substances that might contribute? Thyroid ok?

Do we have a poll on this forum for what block of time people have max energy? Youve gotten me curious

Maybe at the beginning of getting adrenal fatigue.

 

[CSMLSM]

I am like this. Been like this since 17, in 2007. Paracetamol (1g) occasionally helps me wake up feeling refreshed. I sleep better, the sleep is more restorative and dreams are more positive.

AM404, also known as N-arachidonoylaminophenol, is an active metabolite of paracetamol (acetaminophen), responsible for all or part of its analgesic action and anticonvulsant effects. Chemically, it is the amide formed from 4-aminophenol and arachidonic acid .

AM404 was originally reported to be an endogenous cannabinoid reuptake inhibitor, preventing the transport of anandamide and other related compounds back from the synaptic cleft, much in the same way that common selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants prevent the reuptake of serotonin.

Yes I used to use low dose paracetamol to help for this reason.

 

[CSMLSM]

Hi double bubble great thread ..
Yes ! Is the answer ... And I have breakfast and then lay back down until late morning ....
I rest again after lunch and then by 3 I have some .... Evenings I'm my most alert and alive

I was like this myself.

 

[CSMLSM]

Yes, mine is also worse in the morning. Mornings are the most depressing part of the day for me, for this is when I am the sickest, and the weakest! It takes many times 3 or 4 hours just for me to get up to pee and feed my dog! Lol....

You have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh now wish I could see the fuuny side before

 

[Violeta]

I think I have adrenal fatigue and brain inflammation. Yesterday and today I am finding that motivation is improving more quickly than fatigue. I am going to have to work hard to pace myself. Thanks for all the information and sharing, everybody. It's so good to have a place where people understand what you are going through AND want to help the situation AND have some very good helpful information.

 

[Mimicry]

My symptoms seem to fluctuate a lot, I sometimes have periods where I feel best in the morning and am full of energy after breakfast (and then need to go to bed early) and then there are periods (like this week) where I feel nauseous, brainfoggy and achy until evening and then get All The Stuff done. I don't really have a pattern to this. It's annoying, and I can't predict and plan my days due to the fluctuations.

 

[MelissaAnne]

I feel like it takes everything I've got to get out of bed in the morning. Usually takes me a few hours to feel better, but on flare days, I don't even want to get out of bed! I usually have the most energy at night.

 

[Wishful]

I don't really have a pattern to this. It's annoying, and I can't predict and plan my days due to the fluctuations.

Yah, ME is terrible for planning. It keeps changing unpredictably. We might do hundreds of experiments with different foods and treatments and times of day ... and then it changes, so that bulk buy of <whatever> is wasted, and maybe one of those treatments that didn't work then, now would be helpful. Is it any wonder that some of us feel depressed at times?

 

[Before_the_Dawm]

I used to be the opposite fine in the morning, then exhausted during the day and night.

Now my symptoms are bad in the morning, I never feel refreshing and I struggle to get out of bed, but I currently have to let the dog out.

Some days I have a few hours just after mid day when I'm feeling more able to move, but usually during the afternoon/evening I have limited energy to stand and get out of bed to brush my teeth.

 

[overtheedge]

I'm best in morn, slowly worse over day

 

[Nord Wolf]

Typically it takes everything I have to drag myself out of bed in the morning... and many times this doesn't happen until 10am, even when I've gone to bed at 9 or 10 the night before. I literally drag around to get something to eat, then after eating I usually crash and pass out on the couch for an hour or 2. When I wake again and am slightly better and can manage mental tasks for a bit, but I'm careful not to over do it.. Then my energy tanks again... more naps.
Most days no matter where the pattern is at, I crash around 3pm.

My day usually follows that pathetic little up and then crash hard pattern. On occasion I will feel slightly "better" in the evening around 8pm, but not always. Some evenings I'm dead to the world.