Fighting the Battle with Fatigue

Do you sleep long hours at night but still wake up feeling completely fatigued? There are people that can sleep 12 hours or more and still feel as if they’ve not slept at all. What gives? There is a difference between simply being tired and having chronic fatigue. If a patient is tired, even a power nap can help them feel better, while adequate sleep does nothing for the fatigued. Your tiredness could be caused by a chronic condition or problems such as nutrient deficiencies, infections, excessive work or stress, medicines, or more. Fatigue is not a normal side effect of living. Instead of battling with fatigue every day, seek to find the cause and receive treatment to fight off your fatigue. We can help you along the way and get you back to feeling energized and ready to tackle anything!

Is it Tiredness or Chronic Fatigue?

For most people, 6-8 hours is enough to make them feel rested and able to tackle their tasks for the day. However, there are people that rest 12 hours or more and still feel tired. This could be a sign of chronic fatigue. Let’s look at some of the differences between normal tiredness and chronic fatigue:

• Hard work can leave you feeling tired and ready to rest. With fatigue, common everyday tasks wear you out, which doesn’t happen with normal tiredness.
• Tiredness goes away after receiving proper rest. Fatigue sticks around.
• Even a power nap can help boost your energy and mood if you are simply tired. That won’t happen with fatigue.
• Being tired generally has a known cause (exertion, lack of sleep, etc.), whereas fatigue may come on, linger for many days, and not have a known cause.

These are just a few examples of the differences between simply being tired and there being something more. Nealy any kind of major injury, illness, or infection can lead to chronic fatigue. There could be many causes such as infections, thyroid issues, heart problems, kidney disease, or mental health conditions. The cause could also be something simple such as electrolyte imbalances, dehydration, nutrient deficiencies, the cold or flu, or even medications you are taking.

What Symptoms Will You Have?

There is actually a syndrome for being so tired: it’s called “chronic fatigue syndrome”. In many cases, you might have extreme fatigue, but there isn’t an underlying medical reason causing it. There are many theories out there as to why it occurs, but it could be a combination of many factors that are all at play. For those who have chronic fatigue, they experience symptoms such as memory loss or mental fogginess. They may be too tired to perform basic tasks throughout the day, let alone something more complicated. You never want to run machinery or drive when you are feeling so tired. Studies have found that fatigue causes about 20% of fatal road accidents.

Patients also experience symptoms such as:

• Chronic pain in the joints or diffuse aching throughout the body
• Headaches or migraines, sometimes on a daily basis
• A lack of restfulness no matter the amount of sleep
• Depression and anxiety
• High levels of stress
• Even higher levels of fatigue or even pain after exercise or exertion 

Don’t Add Risk to Your Symptoms

For many people, they turn to caffeine to make up for their lack of restfulness. However, caffeine can have many negative effects on the body. In fact, caffeine is actually a drug and has many similar traits to other drugs such as amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin. Caffeine can be very addictive, and over time, a person can build up a tolerance to it, making them need more and more to feel awake. Hormones in the body help regulate your sleep and wake cycles. Adenosine is a hormone that makes you feel sleepy. Caffeine is a drug that is very structurally similar to adenosine. It binds to adenosine receptors and prevents you from becoming tired.

However, eventually, your brain will develop more adenosine receptors and you will need more and more caffeine to block those receptors. Caffeine generally causes a “crash” later on as well. You will feel a boost of energy while your sleepiness is being blocked, but eventually that blockage wears off, and you’ll feel more tired than before. Instead of straight caffeine in many energy drinks, coffees, and more, there are also many chemicals and sugars that can hurt your health. Some studies show that avid coffee drinkers actually can die earlier because of their caffeine consumption. As with any other drug, you have to be careful what you are taking and how often.

Fight Your Fatigue

There is no magic cure that will take away any person’s fatigue. Usually the condition is cured on an individual basis. A chronic condition could cause fatigue in one patient, whereas a medication could cause it in another. The key is to find the reason that your fatigue is occuring in the first place and remedy that problem. If you are a patient and willing to try a variety of treatments, we can surely help you gain back more energy to get through your day.

One of the treatments we look to is a nutritional assessment. How you are eating could cause nutritional deficiencies or allergies that are causing your chronic fatigue. We test for food allergies or environmental sensitivities that can cause your symptoms. We also look at what your body is lacking from your diet. If you have a food allergy or are missing a vital nutrient, your body is working extra hard to compensate for those shortcomings, causing you to be exhausted. We can also look to see that your body is functioning properly and provide spinal adjustments and chiropractic care. Customized stretches and exercises are also great for releasing muscle tension and pain that drains your energy.

Get Better with Help

Just like many other things in life, you can always achieve more when you have help and support. We can help you through many soothing therapies that actually work. Relaxing massages could restore your energy and relieve daily stress. Rehabilitative exercises and treatments can remedy problems with your body that cause your symptoms. We have so many forms of therapy, that you are bound to find something you like that actually works for you. Don’t go through each day feeling exhausted. Call Fox Integrated Healthcare today at (720) 588-9950 and see how we can restore some of your energy once more!