Always Tired - How Chronic Fatigue is Stealing Your Life

Do you find yourself always tired? Many people wake up every day feeling more and more exhausted as a result of chronic fatigue. In America we tend to live fast hard lives where we push ourselves to the limit every day trying to accomplish something only to be thoroughly drained of energy when the time comes to be with friends and family and have fun.

Being always tired when it's time to celebrate with friends and family is no way to live. If you feel exhausted all the time maybe it's time to see someone about it. Here's a personal testimonial about how chronic fatigue effectively stole fifteen years of my life.

Always Tired But Not Anymore
By Jane P Lass

"I was always tired. From the moment I would wake up in the morning until the time I went to bed I would have a lack of energy. It did not make sense for me to feel always tired yet I did. I have not ever led an extravagant lifestyle, I do not make it a habit of being on the run all the time, and I certainly do not have the stress level of other folks the way a single parent does."

That quote was from a patient suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but needless to say there are many causes of illness which have similar effects. Sadly doctors frequently have difficulty differentiating the ultimate causes and aren't always able to provide relief from fatigue.

Common symptoms include (but are not limited to):

• continuous low grade fever
• joint pain
• difficulties with short term memory
• waking up tired on a daily basis

While any and all of these symptoms are attributable to a number of potential causes what should throw up a red flag for individuals suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is the continuous (hence: Chronic) nature of any or all of the aforementioned symptoms - the leading among them being always tired.

Sufferers Often Don't Know What's Going Wrong... or Even If Anything Is Wrong

As an example consider this patient quote: "Yet there I was, waking every day feeling lousy and being always tired. It just wasn't any way to live but I had been to the doctor numerous times, probably an average of three or four times a year for various ailments and just general malaise. It finally cam to a head one day this year when I had simply had enough. I was fed up with being always tired. I went to my doctor on a day I was feeling normal and said, 'Listen, today is like any other day for me, and I feel just plain lousy. I felt lousy yesterday, I feel bad today, and odds are pretty good tomorrow is going to be the same. I've had it!'"

Chronic Illness Comes from a Variety of Potential Culprits

Comments like these are common for people suffering from long term illnesses, whether it is an ingrained pitched battle with something like sinusitis, or perhaps continuing viral or strep infections. Inevitably what happens with these people feeling always tired is that something has got to give. Usually what gives ends up being the patient's spirit. Their desire to live life fully dwindles until they become a shell of their former selves. Sometimes it gets to the point where their own family members don't recognize the personality of their ill relatives anymore because they've become so withdrawn.

Diagnosis Perplexes Doctors

Diagnosis of chronic symptoms like these is extremely difficult for doctors because they are used to reacting to and treating short term issues, such as a cold or flu. Rest and relief medication are the normal prescription for short term sickness. Unfortunately many sufferers of longer term disease do not go back to their doctors after a few days when their being always tired has not subsided. Patients who trust their doctors too much and don't express the nature of continuing symptoms run the risk of not ever feeling better. Being always tired is just no way to go through life.

I interviewed an expert in fatigue, a specialist for those complaining about being always tired. He suggested anyone feeling constantly tired should take a free online fatigue symptoms quiz. Then simply take the quiz results to their doctor and set a course of treatment or further diagnosis. Patients with similar symptoms who are always tired ought to learn more about the cause of their lack of energy symptoms and seek treatment. You don't have to be always tired.

I hope you start feeling better soon.

Jane P. Lass

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jane_P_Lass
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I Didn't Want to Wake Up Tired Anymore

Every day I would wake up tired. I couldn't avoid it. It didn't matter if I went to bed early or late, it was a given I would open my eyes in the morning feeling like I had a mild hangover. As you can imagine, that was no way to start the day - and yet that is exactly how every day started for me.

I Wasn't A Morning Person... But Suddenly Not An Evening Person Either?
Waking up tired day after day made me convinced I just wasn't a morning person, which some people aren't. When I started coming home after regular work days feeling like I suddenly wasn't feeling much like an evening person either... I started to wonder what the heck was going wrong.

Fatigue Is A Grinding, Insidious Disease
Before long I was dropping out... of life. On the rare occasion when I did see friends they'd always joke that I'd dropped off the face of the Earth. It wasn't all that far from the truth. I'd stopped going out, I didn't participate in any team sports any more, and I'd even stopped running, which I'd been doing from the time I was five years old. How does someone go from being a star athlete with unbounded energy to a person who'd wake up tired everyday and not want to ever get out of bed?

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Was The Cause Of My Problems
I finally got fed up. I just didn't want to wake up tired anymore and I was sick of one doctor after another telling me I had a minor viral infection. My reponse finally became, "NO KIDDING! I am ALWAYS feeling like I have a virus infection! Seriously, I can't be THIS unlucky - if my immune system was that week I'd be dead already!" I guess throwing a nutty woke up my doctor. He said that persons who wake up tired may be suffering other symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Lack of Energy Was Defining My Life

I couldn't help it - the complete lack of energy I had kept me away from friends, family, and at times... work too. I wanted to enjoy the great relationships I had developed over the years but I just didn't have the get up and go I needed to motivate myself to go see people or do things. Commitment to do anything was something I couldn't make myself do. My life, my friends, my job all suffered because I couldn't muster the energy to keep going.

I Tried Just About Everything
I had tried allergy medications, but they turned me into even more of a walking zombie. I tried diets. I tried exercising myself to exhaustion. I tried anti-biotics. Nothing worked and I was in a deep depression. Eventually I had resigned myself to the truth that this was all my life was going to be.

I Didn't Know It Didn't Have to Be This Way
Hindsight is 20/20 the saying goes... My doctors kept telling me that I was suffering from a virus infection which would clear up in a few days... and they'd send me away. But because I always felt crummy... it never occurred to me that my doctor might be wrong. My symptoms were not short term. My fatigue was chronic. Day in, day out, my lack of energy was just enough to keep me from enjoying my life.

It Doesn't Have to Be the Same for You
If you aren't feeling your best day after day, fill out the brief symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome survey.