Causes of Chronic Fatigue

 

It’s irritating, but pretty simple to deal with the symptoms of most common illnesses.  Coughing, sneezing, and even nausea are easy to explain and take care of.  It’s when you have a symptom that doesn’t make sense that you and the medical community scratch your collective heads and try to make sense of what is happening.  One of the most misunderstood symptoms known to man is chronic fatigue.  Being tired due to work or long hours awake is understandable.  If you always feel like you have a lack of energy and have no idea why, it’s a bit more frustrating.  Here are a few of the reasons why a lack of sleep may be interfering with your life.

• Sleep disorders

• Stress and anxiety

• Disorders like fibromyalgia

In recent history there has been a lot of information on released on the condition known as sleep apnea.  It is characterized by the patient waking several times in the night often interrupting REM sleep when the body gets the most rest.  People with this condition literally stop breathing in their sleep.  The body wakes up enough to start breathing again.  Even if the patient isn’t aware of the wake cycle, the body is and is forced to go through the day running on empty so to speak.

If you are dealing with chronic fatigue because of stress, it’s very likely that you already know it.  It’s amazing how mental stress and upset can manifest in such physical ways.  Worrying at night can drastically change the quality of the rest you get each night.  Worrying during the day isn’t going to help much either.  There isn’t much you can do except practice good habits for stress reduction and seek medical help with the problem if necessary.

In some cases you can guarantee your fatigue problem is related to other health issues.  It isn’t uncommon for events like pregnancy, chronic illness like heart disease and diabetes, as well as just run of the mill viruses or bacteria infections can create a fatigued feeling.  However for people with fibromyalgia, their fatigue is something else all together.  With this disorder, the patient feels tired no matter how much sleep they actually receive.  For that matter some medical experts believe fibromyalgia and sleep disorders may be closely related.

Whether chronic fatigue is caused by fibromyalgia or some other chronic fatigue syndrome, it’s a relief to know that there is help out there.  It may take some time to get the right diagnosis, but the medical community is there to help.