| Gitanjali is a bright, young, successful career woman who has been driven to desperation. She is literally and figuratively ‘tired’ of life. For the last couple of years she has been plagued by extreme lethargy, tiredness, and exhaustion and felt perpetually ‘washed out’. Struggling to cope with her fatigue and unable to carry out even the minor demands of daily routine, she has been shunted around from one doctor to another, put through countless investigations and yet is not a step nearer to finding answers to her predicament.
Chronic fatigue is a major medical problem that affects millions of people every year, severely reducing people’s ability to function, let alone enjoy life. Fatigue can take many forms. Apart from a disinclination for any muscular effort, the person may experience headaches, joint aches, backache, digestive complaints, dizziness, unrefreshing sleep, inability to concentrate, irritability, depressed mood and constant weariness. Nutritional imbalance, weight loss and anemia are often present giving the person a gaunt, ‘washed out’ appearance.
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Patients who suffer from CFS must acknowledge the condition, keeping guilt out of it. Though there is no proven, reliable cure for it, certain lifestyle modifications will help to make the symptoms more manageable |
Unfortunately, chronic fatigue is not taken seriously by both the sufferer and the medical fraternity. Doctors usually order a battery of tests only to report that all the test results are normal, meaning that there is nothing wrong physically and it is all in the ‘mind’, thus tragically dismissing them as hypochondriacs. Well, in reality about 40 percent of all patients who have fatigue have causes based in physical factors (including life style problems), another 20 percent have known obvious physical illness and 40 percent can be attributed to psychological factors or psychiatric illness.
It must be borne in mind that the fatigue in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) as this condition is usually referred to, is an unnatural tiredness that is severe. It is not relieved by sleep or rest, nor is it the result of excessive work or exercise; and is of fairly recent onset, not life long. In many instances it is triggered off by a flu-like illness, that persist for weeks or months even after the infection wears off. Some patients may experience repeated bouts or attacks of such symptoms, each attack lasting from hours to weeks.
Fatigue is associated with several physical and psychological conditions like viral infections; long term auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis etc., medical conditions like hepatitis, anemia, cancer, neuromuscular disorders, diabetes or hypothyroidism, severe depression, chronic sleep deprivation; drug or alcohol abuse, severe obesity, and chronic stress syndrome leading to ‘burn out’.
Researchers have found evidence of chronic activation of the immune system in many of these patients that pours uncontrolled amounts of chemicals called lymphokines into the body, apparently provoking fatigue, muscle aches and other symptoms. It has also been ascribed to allergic, hypersensitive reaction of the body to certain substances. Decreased levels of stress hormones, particularly cortisol which is related to fatigue and lethargy, have been reported in CFS. Yet, there is so much more to be done to unravel the causes of the mystery that is chronic fatigue syndrome.
Patients who suffer from CFS must acknowledge the condition, keeping guilt out of it. Though there is no proven, reliable cure for it, certain lifestyle modifications will help to make the symptoms more manageable. Here is what you can do if you suffer from chronic fatigue.
KEEP AN ENERGY DIARY, which will enable you to plan your activities during your peak energy periods during the day. It will also help to keep track of factors that may contribute to fatigue.
LIMIT SETTING which are designed to keep both mental and physical stress within a manageable level so that you do not force yourself into a situation in which you are likely to fail because of the syndrome.
INCREASING ATTENTION CAPACITY by engaging in activities that are interesting or engrossing will help to focus attention and increase alertness.
EXERCISE in some suitable form that suits your energy levels is a must to prevent muscle atrophy and further fatigue. This can be done by gradual increment of exercise time, starting from 3-5 minutes a day.
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