Why do I wake up so achy (and tired) every 2 weeks or so?

[Mary]

This is different than waking up crashed. I'm lucky in that my body is generally very predictable - I can do x amount of exertion safely (generally) (roughly 4 hours of light activity) but go over that and am guaranteed a crash the next day, especially if I do anything late in the day.

This extra achiness and fatigue is not related to over-exertion the day before. I didn't overdo it yesterday, ate okay at dinner (sauteed shrimp and spinach), slept reasonably well with all my supps, and woke up very achy and tired. Actually this achiness is more than the achiness I get with a crash.

I could tell it was not a crash, took 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda in about 8 ounces of water first thing, and have a little more energy now (5 hours later) and not as achy.

But I have no idea why this seems to happen out of the blue maybe every 2 weeks, not sure - haven't really tracked it. However, I have learned enough to know that even though I wasn't crashed this morning, I should not push myself to do anything until my energy improved.

Any ideas?

 

[Viala]

This extra achiness and fatigue is not related to over-exertion the day before. I didn't overdo it yesterday, ate okay at dinner (sauteed shrimp and spinach), slept reasonably well with all my supps, and woke up very achy and tired. Actually this achiness is more than the achiness I get with a crash.

Spinach is very high in oxalates which can cause pain and fatigue, maybe that's what you're reacting to?

 

[Mary]

Spinach is very high in oxalates which can cause pain and fatigue, maybe that's what you're reacting to?

@Viala - Could be! I've never really considered oxalates as a problem for me before but who knows - thanks for the suggestion! I'll keep an eye out for this and see if I can find a correlation between what I eat the night before and how I feel in the morning.

 

[Viala]

@Viala - Could be! I've never really considered oxalates as a problem for me before but who knows - thanks for the suggestion! I'll keep an eye out for this and see if I can find a correlation between what I eat the night before and how I feel in the morning.

I hope it helps!
Oxalates are in a lot of foods, the highest are spinach, potatoes and yams, some nuts, beets, buckwheat, quinoa. I've been researching oxalates for a while and it's interesting because they can be connected to CFS by changing how our Krebs cycle works. They also affect thiamine which is used along with magnesium in antifreeze ethylene glycol poisoning which creates a lot of oxalate metabolites.

Then some people with CFS or fibromyalgia feel better after high doses of vitamin B1 and Mg, it's possible it is all connected to our oxalate metabolism. I think it's not the whole CFS picture but it seems to be a substantial one, at least in some ME/CFS subgroup. Another peace of the puzzle, right?

There are a lot of websites about high oxalate foods which are very handy, Elliot Overton has some great videos on youtube about oxalates and helping people with chronic fatigue by using thiamine and magnesium. I also use this website to find out if specific foods are ok:

https://oxalate.org/

 

[Florida Guy]

I woke up very tired today as well. My bb showed 68. In my case I think it was because I didn't use my usual sleep meds, I take a day off from thc every 4 days to reduce tolerance. Instead I took some seroquel that I got online years ago and some clonidine because that helps sleep too. I slept and did not seem to wake up during the night but in the morning its like I only got a couple hours. Seroquel will make you sleep but the sleep will be low quality.

I find that cbd reduces the effect of thc, other people like the 2 together. If I can take what I need, then I sleep fine. Between the state and doctors here, they tighten the screws every year to make it harder on patients. I had my prescription reduced for no good reason, I asked and could not get a coherent answer. They just don't want to, perhaps the state puts pressure on them now, I don't know. But in nov we vote on making it legal for everyone so we will be out from under the thumb of politicians if it passes.

Mary, unless you have that problem every time you eat spinach or oxylate containing foods, its probably not that. I'm sure you are watching your diet and if you noticed any pattern of food and a day or two later some problems, you would have jumped on that long ago.

Things that bother my sleep include eating shortly before bed, taking a supplement late in the day that should be taken early, eating spicy food, or thinking about things, ruminating over and over. Things that help include relaxation, light meditation, taking magnesium, taking my sleep med (essential), and refusing to think things over and over. I keep coming back to counting my breaths, letting go, and eventually the thoughts go away and I drift off.

Other possibilities are if you suspect you are about due for a bad night, maybe take a pain reliever of some sort. Perhaps the aches cause bad sleep? Room too warm, a cool room brings better sleep. Now that I think about it, last night I felt cold and used a blanket which is rare and woke up tired. Temps were not down either so maybe my body was signaling something?

 

[Mary]

My bb showed 68.

What is bb? I feel like I should know

Seroquel will make you sleep but the sleep will be low quality.

Seroquel killed my mom. She ended up in the ER after one dose, I believe it caused a stroke, she lingered for some weeks but never recovered. There's a black box warning about it causing death in elderly persons. I'm not implying you're elderly - it's just a drug I would never touch. Yeah, my mom had dementia but she was sweet, not violent etc. There was no reason to give her this. Another reason I don't trust doctors -

Mary, unless you have that problem every time you eat spinach or oxylate containing foods, its probably not that. I'm sure you are watching your diet and if you noticed any pattern of food and a day or two later some problems, you would have jumped on that long ago.

Actually, I'm afraid that's not true. I've never considered oxalates to be a problem for me before. I still don't know if they are - I've been too afraid to eat spinach again for dinner! But I will try it one of these days.

I did discover several years ago that eating anything with MSG in any of its iterations (https://www.truthinlabeling.org/names.html ) at dinner time gives me severe insomnia - inability to fall asleep till after 3:00 a.m., if even then. But it took me several years to figure this out! So my dinners are very simple - probably a good thing - no processed foods. Did you know they put "natural flavors" (MSG) in low-sodium V-8??? One night I had low potassium symptoms middle of the night - it used to happen pretty frequently - anyways, I drank a large glass of V-8 (high in potassium) and was unable to sleep the rest of the night. I wrote the company how dismayed I was to find this out but never got a reply.

The extra achiness and fatigue in the morning that I wrote about above is not due to or related to lack of sleep. It just seems to hit randomly, with no rhyme or reason - unless it is related to oxalates. So it's a new line of investigation for me which I am going to pursue when I feel up to it!

About sleep in general - it's always a problem. I'm very careful about the supplements I take in the evening - they've been vetted not to cause insomnia (e.g., B6, it's in a lot of sleep preparations, but it gives me insomnia taken at night so I'm careful to only take it in the morning). I do take lots of magnesium, and I have a stack of supplements I take before bed, including niacin, inositol, melatonin, 5-htp, l-theanine. Also will add in NAG, chamomile extract, and a Chinese remedy for sleep. And doxylamine succinate (Unisom) will work great . . . until I develop a tolerance so have to switch it off with other things, including a CBD/THC gummy. I'm always switching things up, praying for a cure for ME/CFS so I can sleep properly!

And i definitely sleep better in a cool room, I've learned to quiet my mind (one way I stay sane with this illness) and also breathing exercises (e.g., box breathing). It gets exhausting just trying to sleep!!!

Oh, and I will take Advil middle of the night too - that's usually my worst time, unless I've inadvertently had MSG, in which case my whole night will be bad.

Perhaps the aches cause bad sleep?

I don't really feel the achiness and fatigue I'm writing about here until morning. It's not there when I go to bed. It's something I wake up with seemingly at random, but I am going to do some investigating when I'm up for it.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

 

[L'engle]

Seroquel killed my mom. She ended up in the ER after one dose, I believe it caused a stroke, she lingered for some weeks but never recovered. There's a black box warning about it causing death in elderly persons. I'm not implying you're elderly - it's just a drug I would never touch. Yeah, my mom had dementia but she was sweet, not violent etc. There was no reason to give her this. Another reason I don't trust doctors -

That is truly awful.

 

[Florida Guy]

What is bb? I feel like I should know

Body battery.

I've never considered oxalates to be a problem for me before. I still don't know if they are - I've been too afraid to eat spinach again for dinner! But I will try it one of these days.

You have certainly eaten spinach before? Unless it was a big meal right before bed it shouldn't do that. It may be a random thing or maybe they snuck some msg into a food item?

I did discover several years ago that eating anything with MSG in any of its iterations (https://www.truthinlabeling.org/names.html ) at dinner time gives me severe insomnia - inability to fall asleep till after 3:00 a.m., if even then.

I hate that stuff too, I'm not super sensitive to it, fortunately, but it gives me side effects. What makes me mad is that they lie about it all the time. They put it into spices, flavorings, extracts, if you see isolated protein, that is msg, if you see autolyzed or catalyzed protein or anything, it has msg. They need to pass a law that if any food ingredient has more than a very tiny amount they have to put it on the label. Chinese restaurants have signs in front saying "no msg" but their food is full of it. Its in the ingredients already that they use

Seroquel is not a good sleep compound. I still use it because bad sleep is better than no sleep. Another not so great one I use is mirtazapine. It also sometimes gives bad sleep. I use other things along with those 2 to get the job done. Clonidine helps, its a blood pressure med so if you have low bp, might not be so good. Also glycine and oleamide which is a compound you can buy online. It helps with sleep but is not that great. Its a shame insomnia is such a hard problem to solve

People randomly get better and randomly get worse without a logical trigger. Hopefully you will find the answer to this

 

[L'engle]

Another not so great one I use is mirtazapine.

I took that for a bit. Felt good temporarily but just made me very tired all the time without a huge improvement in sleep. My sleep is ok now so I don't usually take anything. Would love to get more sleep without side effects.

 

[Wayne]

Any ideas?

Hi @Mary -- I can't really say I have "any ideas" that would necessarily be helpful, but your experience does remind me of the first time I took some NAG (N-Acetyl-Glucosamine). I took about a 1/4 tsp. of powder (probably about 1 gram), and the very next morning I woke up and immediately noticed my body was way less stiff than it normally is. So I now take it every other day or so, and it continues to make a difference. Don't really know why however.

 

[Mary]

You have certainly eaten spinach before? Unless it was a big meal right before bed it shouldn't do that. It may be a random thing or maybe they snuck some msg into a food item?

@Florida Guy - msg doesn't leave me feeling very achy and tired in the morning. msg just prevents me from sleeping period. The very tired and achiness (different than crashing) has seemed to occur randomly to me. I never thought it could be related to oxalates. I've never investigated oxalates. I've never correlated feeling so achy and tired with what I had for dinner the night before. I have correlated severe insomnia with what I've eaten though, and it generally has to do with something I inadvertently ate.

Sure, I've eaten spinach many times. And I've never checked how I felt the next day. It never occurred to me to do so. I also eat chicken and beef with no apparent problem. Again, my biggest issue with food has been the additives - msg in all its forms - which I am pretty religious about avoiding. But it took me several years (perhaps unbelievable to you, but it did take that long) before I discovered the correlation with MSG and severe insomnia. And now I have a new thing to investigate, oxalates.

People here write about a million different food sensitivities. I don't go looking for all of them. On the whole my digestion is pretty good. Very few things upset my stomach, I'm fortunate, I know. It would be very difficult to live how many here have to.

 

[Mary]

@Wayne - I do take NAG at night for sleep (I mentioned it above). I think it may help a little with sleep. But it doesn't prevent the severe achiness and fatigue which seems to hit me randomly but which may be related to oxalates, which hopefully I will discover when I feel like doing another experiment! I have some family coming this week so want to feel as well as possible - not the time for experiments!

 

[Florida Guy]

I took that for a bit. Felt good temporarily but just made me very tired all the time without a huge improvement in sleep. My sleep is ok now so I don't usually take anything. Would love to get more sleep without side effects.

(Mirtazapine) Yes I agree, it works but it does not give good sleep. Its better than nothing, I use it every 12 days. I'll soon be out of it and will drop it. The only thing I like besides thc is etizolam which I got online from overseas. I only take it every 12 days to avoid dependency but I sleep well on it.

my biggest issue with food has been the additives - msg in all its forms - which I am pretty religious about avoiding. But it took me several years (perhaps unbelievable to you, but it did take that long) before I discovered the correlation with MSG and severe insomnia. And now I have a new thing to investigate, oxalates.

This is one of the reasons why I don't trust the fda. They have approved so much nasty garbage to put in our food and they seem compromised. I just eat mainly unprocessed food to avoid that junk.

I've heard of oxylates causing gout but that is a rare disease I think. Maybe could cause kidney stones as well but sudden tiredness and painful muscles does not sound like either of those. Cumin doesn't do any good? I haven't tried the baking soda yet. Creatine may do some good for some people with muscle aches but that is just a guess. I take it just in case it helps