'Yuppie Flu' wasn't such a bad name!

[Marco]

OK, I know it was intended as derogatory and boy what would I give to be a yuppie now.

But I've never bought the description of 'fatigue'. Yes, from onset I was completely intolerant of aerobic exercise but didn't have what I would call generalised fatigue to the extent that, while feeling crap, I was able to work full time plus complete a part time masters degree. Its only (sic) in the last 15 years that I've suffered from cognitive fatigue/brain fog.

What happens to me is that as the day goes on (each physical or mental task adds cumulatively to the problem) I find my head feels progressively more inflamed feeling but simultaneously light, with a feeling of nausea and inability to concentrate leading to physical and mental lack of co-ordination. The first sign is usually smarting eyes and diffficulty focusing. Its this feeling of 'malaise' and inability to concentrate that knocks me off my feet and into bed. I've never really been able to adequately describe this feeling but it certainly doesn't feel like normal or post exercise fatigue.

I spent too much time on my feet this morning. I had my usual 2 hour rest after lunch which is usually enough but these feelings started again earlier than usual and I had to take myself back to bed. Lying there, I wasn't at all sleepy but had to close my eyes and felt as if my field of vision (with eyes closed of course) was swimming and shifting behind my eyes.

For the first time I felt I could place and identify the feeling. Do you remember as a kid when you contracted the flu or one of the numerous viruses/bugs that kids always pick up and your mother would plonk you on the sofa with a blanket and a basin just in case? I remember well lying there for days on end feeling sick, inflammed, head swimming, completely lethargic and with time seeming to drag endlessly (aka sickness behaviour). Of course within a week at most the bug was a distant memory.

24 hour flu is a common complaint. What about 25 year flu?

 

[jonnyboy]

Yuppie Flu would have been appropriate for me, both because of the type of onset I had, and also as I was a young professional. lol

'Total body failure' would seem a more apt name for the way I feel the majority of the time thou.

Chronic fatigue is a total joke of a name, hell both my parents complain of being tired a lot, yet neither of them are ill.

 

[heapsreal]

it should be called chronic crapitis, as we arent fatigued, we just feel like s__t, lol

 

[Marco]

it should be called chronic crapitis, as we arent fatigued, we just feel like s__t, lol

Myalgic Encephalocrapitis?

 

[Whit]

'Total body failure' would seem a more apt name for the way I feel the majority of the time thou.

I completely agree with that description and it's how I've described it multiple times. I often tell people that it's not as if I'm just tired. I tell them to picture staying awake for 2 days while fasting and getting piss drunk the first night so that the second day you've been without sleep or food for 2 days, and you're hungover. And that is about what a "healthy" person would have to do to simulate this kind of, as you said, total body failure.