Always tired too...

I just got done reading the thread named "Always tired" by Orion82698, and I was struck by the similarities, so I have to post.

I'm 41, and have been suffering for 5 years now with overwhelming fatigue/tiredness.  The initial post by Orion nearly describes in verbatim my issues.  I was in great health until I suddenly started becoming more and more tired.

Through the previous 3 years, I've gone through every blood test, x-rays, cat scans, hearth monitors and everything else without finding a cause.  I've been checked for rheumatoid arthritis, lyme and cfs but due to my lack of real muscle or joint pain, have been ruled out.  I underwent multiple sleep tests which came back fine.  I had my testosterone levels checked, no problems.  I had an allergy test with only a mild issue with dust mites.

They thought depression and treated without any success.  My real depression is the lack of energy and ability to live like I used to.  I too don't experience headaches, sore throats or anything obvious.

Like Orion, I too work in the technology field.  I too generally seem to sleep well, and wake up feeling somewhat alright, but crash within 20-40 minutes after waking.  I also, like Orion, began experiencing all these issues after a very stressful period of my life with work, a house and a relationship falling apart.

At this point, I'm just existing.  I don't really do much because I don't have the energy.  The doctors make me feel like it's in my head, and most of my friends/family don't understand either.

Sorry such a long post, but I'm curious how Orion is coming along now, and if anyone else is in a similar stuck point in figuring out what's wrong.  At this point, I guess I'll look into the adrenal fatigue direction.

Sparker,

    Welcome to healing well. 

Reading your tests and your story, almost makes me feel like I'm looking into a mirror.  I too don't have sore throats, headaches.  The only pains I have is a stiff neck, that seems to always be there.  It worse in the morning, and get's better throughout the day.  My fatigue is just like you described.  I wake, and after about twenty minutes, I feel like my eyes become heavy, and I crash.  I stay like this the rest of the day.  I too use to be extremely healthy.  Eating 6 meals a day, working out every day.  However, just like you, I was EXTREMELY stressed!!!! 

I'm coming along alright.  My illness (adrenal fatigue) is a long process that has up's and downs.  It can take a while for people to recover from this, however step on in recovery for me was finally seeing that it's not in my head, that it's not depression, that something truely is going on in my body. 

My suggestion to you, is to pickup Dr. Wilson's book "Adrenal Fatigue... the 21st century stress" and also look into getting a saliva test done.  It's $150, but it's pricessless when you truely know that's going on.  Here is the link for the adrenal test kit....http://www.salivatest.com/Page.aspx?nid=12&action=view&category=2

You want the kit that does 5 tests.  4 saliva tests (morning, noon, evening and before bed) and one DHEA-S test. 

I had mine rushed shipped, so I could do it right away.  The tests came back in 2 weeks and were very detailed.  They had a complete write up from a doctors on what they found on your test.  I broke down in tears with happieness once I saw my results.  If you would like to see my post with the results, look at my post called "Finally"

Please keep me up to data as much as you can, and provide me with as much detail as possible.  I'm on here daily (almost all day long), just have been busy the past 2 weeks and haven't had much time to reply. 

Take care!!!

-O-

Thanks for the welcome hippimom2. Thanks for reply Orion. So, you are making some progress towards feeling better? I would love to feel that. This morning I felt especially awake and alert and as usual the crash came on the drive into work, it's especially discouraging when I feel that coming on.

I just ordered the book and saliva test. I'm going to pick up some vitamins today as well. I'm ready to try just about anything to be honest. I've gone a year now just not trying to get better because I've given up hope. The doctors are just plain worthless because they rule out what it isn't and then say it must be depression because they can't find anything else.

I just read your Finally post. I'm excited for you that you've found something, and hopefully on the road to recovery. I remember wishing I had cancer or anything else that they could diagnose over this mystery that every doctor seems to wash their hands of.

I'll keep posting here as I progress in getting the tests and try the diet change. Thanks for the help.

I'm usually not a sweets person, but yes, I did go through a sweets phase. I literally had 5-6 bags of those little candy bars you give out at Halloween in my desk. I would also eat chocolate chip cookies at home and other sweets.. and that is very unlike me. I haven't craved it as much lately, but like you, in the beginning I was all over the sweets.

Diet, that will be interesting eliminating sugar and white flour products. Caffeine shouldn't be a problem as I don't drink pop any longer. For a long while I was drinking 12-18 cans of Coke a day to try and stay awake, doesn't have any effect any longer.

Supplements and Vitamins, I just ordered everything you're taking online, so it's all on the way. What are the adrenal stuff you talk about? Is it just a single type of pill?

Exercise, will try to do it more regularly. Most people feel awake and energized as they exercise, I end up feeling more tired and zone out. I'm going to buy a dog to keep me company each day for my walks.

Sleep, I just started going to bed at 10 and am sleeping until around 8. Some nights I sleep well, others not.

State of mind... I'm working on that. A lot of negative things have happened due to these problems. I lost a high profile technology job, my fiance left due to my lack of energy (guess that shows she wasn't so committed), and many friends think I just need to "get better" and don't understand my situation. If I can get a sliver of hope or make any steps in recovery, I'll feel much better. Given that I'm going on 5 years of this though and I'm still fighting means I'm not giving up yet.

I appreciate the help and support, and am willing to do likewise if anyone needs someone to vent or talk to.

Not sure if anyone else has described how the tiredness/fatigue feels, but mine feels like it's focused right in the middle of my forehead/frontal lobe. I've described it to everyone, but it feels like a wet washcloth or towel is placed on the front of my head. It's seems like a noticeable pressure and weight. It's not a sinus issue, I've had all that checked out.

I should also add, the only other strange symptom I've had that other people haven't mentioned is sometimes my fingers/hands will get very cold. I'm normally a very high metabolism person and run hot so this is different than my norm. I've had all the normal things checked as far as circulation and all that, as usual nothing found - all normal.

Well, I feel over all week.  Like picking up a 10lb weight and carrying would feel like 100lbs.  I also feel tired around my eyes.  If I push myself too much, I get bags around my eyes (red), turn pale, and break out into cold sweats. 

I too have cold hands every once in a while.  I haven't been able to link it to anything.  I'm usually a warm/ hot person.  I also sweat very heavily.  I use to have bad night sweats, but they have seem to gone away.  No matter what climate I'm in, my under arms are always wet, to the point you can see it through my shirt.  I've always been like this, but it's gotten worse over the past year.  When I sweat, I really sweat.

My other symptoms are a stiff neck.  It seems to be getting better, but is always stiffer in the mornings.  I also have swollen nodes under my jaw line. They have been gone for the past 3 weeks.  I'm taking this as a sign that my immune system is getting stronger, because I haven't gotten a cold or sick after working out, or doing yard work...like I have in the past. 

But just because you have more or less symptoms than I do doesn't mean we both don't have the same thing.  Stress can effect people in different way.  When this first started for me, I could feel my neck starting to hurt.  I thought it was from doing heavy squats with barbells, but it never got better after the muscle soreness went away.  It got worse as the months came, and I came to realize this was a symptom.  The same with my fatigue.  It started with me feeling more and more tired throughout the weeks.  I thought I had Mono and was awaiting my resutls when while I was on vacation.  While in Florida for 4 days, The last day I started to feel better.  For the next 5 days, I was myself again.  I had my energy back, and my strenght.  I couldn't explain it.  That further proved that this was/is stress.

Well, I received the adrenal fatigue book a couple of days ago and began reading. It's somewhat of a confusing book in that the information is never really summarized in specifics... most specifically, I wish he'd have gone into more detail on what the diet should be.

I started the vitamins and supplements as well. So far, no positive or negative effects yet. Too early I imagine for anything positive to happen.

Still waiting for the saliva test, it should be here today I'm hoping.

Thanks for the site link, I'm making a shopping list for this weekend and what foods I'm going to buy and try to get some meals planned. I'm not exactly a great cook, so my meals (like last night) consisted of chicken on the grill and a can of green beans. I need to start munching on veggies while I'm at work, that would be a way of getting them in.

The exercise is tough. Right now I've been doing some yard work preparing for winter, so that has been my exercise for the last week or so, but I only last about an hour before I'm pretty much whipped.

My saliva test arrived yesterday, so I'm taking it through today.

Well, this weekend will be the big push to get and cook the right foods.

I sent the saliva test stuff back, so now I just have to wait for the results.

Today, I'm dragging BIG TIME. I think being a software developer has to be the absolute worst job to have with this ailment. Sitting all day is horrible. I find I have to get up and move around every 30 minutes minimum just to stay somewhat awake and alert. Today I'm struggling to make it to 3:30 PM so I can duck out early and go home to sleep. ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH. I hate this feeling.

The sad thing is most people are looking forward to Friday night so they can go out and do whatever with their friends. I haven't had that thought for coming on 5 years now. I hope to just make it through the day and then get home for some sleep.

A friend's wife gave me a copy of some pages from a medical book that talked about what nutrients and herbs to take for assisting adrenal recovery - so not strictly adrenal fatigue, but simply strengthening the adrenal glands.  The following items were in it, some of I was already taking, some I'm now considering after I check some more.

For nutrients, it said the essential items were a B complex (100mg of each major B twice daily) and vitamin C (4,000-6,000mg daily in divided doses).

Items marked very important were Coenzyme A (which I've never heard of) and L-Tyrosine (500mg daily on empty stomach with water or juice - not with milk - take with 50mg of B₆ and 100mg of C for better absorption).

Important items were raw adrenal glandular and raw adrenal cortex glandular.  Huh.

Helpful items were multivitamin with at least the following: calcium 1500mg, magnesium 750mg, natural beta-carotene 15,000 IU, copper 3mg, potassium 200mg and zinc 50mg.  In addition, Coenzyme Q10, chlorophyll, raw liver extract and SAMe (do not use SAMe if manic-depressive disorder or taking prescription antidepressants).

The recommendations it mentions are: fresh fruit and vegetables, especially green leafy ones, brewers yeast, brown rice, legumes, nuts, olive and saflower oils, seeds, wheat germ and whole grains.

Eat deep-water ocean fish, salmon or tuna a least 3x a week.  Include in diet garlic, onions, craptake mushrooms, pearl barley (which contain germanium).

Avoid alcohol, caffeine, tobacco - which are highly toxic to the adrenal and other glands.

Stay away from fats, fried foods, ham, pork, highly processed foods, red meats, sodas, sugar and white flour.  These put unnecessary stress on adrenal glands.

Get regular, moderate exercise.

As much as possible, avoid stress.  Continuous and prolonged stressfrom marriage, job, illness and feelings of low self-esteem or loneliness can be detrimental to adrenal glands.

Anyways, much of which I kinda knew, but some new pieces I didn't know.

Yup, the smoking thing is gonna be hard - but in the long run it'll pay off. I'm with ya on the red meat thing - that's something I can reduce but not entirely eliminate. I'm going to try and increase my fish consumption though.

I am thinking about adding some other supplements, namely L-Tyrosine, CoQ10 and Niacin. Then because I'm not taking any adrenal extracts, looking to add ADRENergize. I realize I'm throwing the kitchen sink in many ways at this, but I've spent a hell of a lot more money in doctors and therapists over the years with zero return on that, so this doesn't bother me.

Yeah.. still waiting on saliva test results. I'm kinda worried though because the day I took the test was one of my best energy days I've had in about a month, so hopefully that won't skew my results.

Yeah.. I'm starting to spread out my supplements. Right now I'm taking pretty much what you're taking, and I'm not experiencing any issues (except one day when I took them on nearly an empty stomach - ugh).
I'm going to add anything from this point one at a time so if there's any issues I know what did it.

Everyone at work here thinks I'm crazy when they see me pull out this huge load of pills and pop them. It does look pretty funny though with all the pills.

Sparker,


How's your neck? Stiff/sore? Worse in the morning?