Hey everyone,
I’m glad so many of you seem to appreciate my post - it was just something I banged out rapidly, without much thought, but perhaps that is why it conveys my sensations with accuracy.
The process of being symptomatic has become so familiar to me now, yet I remember when I was first diagnosed with M.E/CFS five years ago and my doctor mentioned fatigue, it just didn’t register - I couldn’t understand that my problem was fatigue at all - my understanding of ‘fatigue’ then was so disparate to what it is now….and the CFS criteria are so vague, they hardly encompass my illness experience. It is only when speaking to other people with M.E/CFS that you realise you are on the ‘same plane‘, if you will.
A couple of years ago a researcher came up with distinctive kinds of fatigue in ME/CFS: there was wired/tired and fluey fatigue and molasses (cement trousers) fatigue and something else. Everything was distinctive to ME/CFS except fluey fatigue.
I do think ME/CFS fatigue is in a whole new league…. I experience it as like being stuck in a ‘burn out’ state. You can rest a bit, replenish a bit, but as soon as you start gearing up to activity , your body seems to go into overdrive and cuts out again. And again. And again. I personally experience a definite pattern to my symptoms. They are cyclical in nature. At first, when I do a little tiny bit of activity, it feels like I’m experiencing ‘just’ extreme exhaustion, but when I push past that it quickly deteriorates into a hyper illness state with concomitant neurological symptoms.
He gets it worse than me; for me muscle stiffness is big thing and a hot constricted feeling in my muscles and a sensation like my skin isn't breathing as weird as that sounds. My concentration at first sharpens actually and then goes south, I feel irritable and snappy, I feel so hot all over that cold rarely bothers (it usually does); heart starts pounding, mental abilities decline dramatically, am terrible at speaking to people, have problems with dizziness and spatial orientation sucks as does coordination overall. I become like this awkward block of constricted muscles.
Its amazing how similar our experiences are except I don't have headaches or nausea. I can actually push those symptoms out with more exercise temporarily but then they come back magnified.
I guess its even more amazing as I’m a young woman.
Muscle stiffness, or a ’hot constricted feeling in the muscles’, as you put it so articulately, is probably my worst symptom. I get really irritable when I’m in the wired stage, too. I have this theory that I get irritable, not just because I feel like total crap and that’s irritating, but because my body is reacting to stimulation and illness as if its some kind of threat…your body makes you feel irritable as an impetus to “get itself out (of the situation)”/avoid the threat, which, of course, is no small task.
Cort you say, you can “push those symptoms out with more exercise temporarily” but then they come back magnified. I’m quite intrigued by this and wondering if you could go into a little more detail? It’s just that if I push past the cramps and burn and do more activity, I can get a sensation of numbness in my muscles, which can be deceptive. I then feel even more depleted afterwards, when the numbness dissipates and the sensation returns. Just wondering if you experience anything similar as our experiences seem to be quite parallel?
To Weldman --
Thanks for your suggestion. It seems unlikely that I would have magnesium deficiency at this point as my diet mainly consists of oats, spinach, green fruit and veg smoothies (and primarily foods that are high in magnesium) but I will give magnesium supplements a shot according to your recommendation anyway!
Even now I use Ritalin to compensate for my cognitive deficit, which is the most unpleasant aspect of my illness, to be able to work at least part time and I never have so gargantuan aftermath from straining myself mentally as I always have from straining myself physically.
The flushing symptom is really interesting. I remember that when in the past I naively tried to overcome it by walking longer and longer distances I always got unnaturally red cheeks after this physical activity. I remember that I had such flushes in times when I was healthy only after substantial sleep deprivation.
I also think the anxiety after physical activity is something useful in the differential diagnosis with respect to depresive disorder.
When I had some emotional problem or was mentally fatigued I was used to get calm and fresh by sport. Now with CFS sport makes my brain to malfunction and feel anxiety.
agreed on all points...especially the flushing thing. Sometimes, when i'm at a low point, my nose goes all red and hot...i sort of look like rudolph!
