Chronic
fatigue symptoms : Causes and solutions
by Marc Deschamps
Chronic fatigue symptoms are different from
drowsiness. In general, drowsiness is feeling the need to sleep, while
fatigue is a lack of energy and motivation. Drowsiness and apathy (a
feeling of indifference or not caring about what happens) can be
symptoms of fatigue. Fatigue is a feeling of weariness, tiredness, or
lack of energy.
Fatigue can be a normal and important
response to physical exertion, emotional stress, boredom, or lack of
sleep. However, it can also be a nonspecific sign of a more serious
psychological or physical disorder. When fatigue is not relieved by
enough sleep, good nutrition, or a low-stress environment, it should be
evaluated by your doctor. Because fatigue is a common complaint,
sometimes a potentially serious cause may be overlooked.
The pattern of chronic fatigue symptoms may
help your doctor determine its underlying cause. For example, if you
wake up in the morning rested but rapidly develop fatigue with
activity, you may have an ongoing physical condition like an
underactive thyroid. On the other hand, if you wake up with a low level
of energy and have fatigue that lasts throughout the day, you may be
depressed.
Common Causes of chronic fatigue symptoms
There are many possible physical and
psychological causes of chronic fatigue symptoms. Some of the more
common are:
-Anemia (including iron deficiency anemia)
-Sleep disorders like ongoing insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, or
narcolepsy -Ongoing pain -An allergy that leads to hay fever or asthma
-An underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) -Use of alcohol or illegal
drugs like cocaine, especially with regular use -Depression or grief
Chronic fatigue symptoms can also accompany
the following illnesses:
-Infection, especially one that takes a long
time to recover from or treat, like bacterial endocarditis (infection
of the heart muscle or valves), parasitic infections, AIDS,
tuberculosis, and mononucleosis -Congestive heart failure -Diabetes
-Chronic liver or kidney disease -Addison's disease -Anorexia or other
eating disorders -Arthritis, including juvenile rheumatoid arthritis,
which affects children and teens -Autoimmune diseases such as lupus
-Malnutrition -Cancer
Certain medications may also cause
drowsiness or fatigue, including antihistamines for allergies, blood
pressure medicines, sleeping pills, steroids, and diuretics.
Home Care for Chronic fatigue symptoms
Here are some tips for reducing Chronic
fatigue symptoms :
-Get adequate, regular, and consistent
amounts of sleep each night. -Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet and
drink plenty of water throughout the day. -Exercise regularly. -Learn
better ways to relax. Try yoga or meditation. -Maintain a reasonable
work and personal schedule. -Change your stressful circumstances, if
possible. For example, switch jobs, take a vacation, and deal directly
with problems in a relationship. -Take a multivitamin. Talk to your
doctor about what is best for you. -Avoid alcohol, nicotine, and drug
use. -Consider a natural remedy.
Marc Deschamps is the editor of Health
Longevity Magazine, a free online publication, featuring articles full
of information on various health topics such as common diseases, immune
support, cardiac, mental & sexual health plus appropriate solutions
to help you find the road to health longevity. More articles can be
found at http://www.health-longevity-magazine.com
For menopause sufferers, fatigue it is all
too common. Some women report lying on the couch with their eyes closed
unable to move for long periods of time. Or they experience mental
fatigue that provides for feelings of indifference and an overall
slumber from day to dusk that makes them unable to perform activities
with maximum effort.
Fatigue comes in many forms: loss of energy
after working out, motion sickness fatigue as a result of senses mixing
signals in the brain causing your ears and eyes to overwork, and more.
Some women suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome and others are
diagnosed with hypothyroidism.
If you think you are suffering from chronic
fatigue syndrome, see a doctor. This is a complicated syndrome and
needs constant medical attention. For people who think they might have
a sluggish thyroid, one suggestion is to buy a bottle of iodine
tincture and place a circle of iodine on your stomach or thigh. If it
disappears before 24 hours, keep applying it until your system doesn't
absorb it within that time period.
Fatigue in woman suffering from menopause is
typically due to (surprise) a hormonal imbalance. Estrogen regulates
homeostasis as well as the life processes in the body that determine
body shape by distributing fat, constructing vital tissues, maintaining
blood flow and correct cholesterol level.
Besides lack of this female hormone, there
are lots of menopause symptoms that contribute heavily to fatigue
symptoms such as the inability to sleep or waking up intermittently in
the night, an insufficient diet compounded by too much caffeine and
alcohol, night sweats that wake you up periodically, and overall
depression and stress.
Another factor of menopausal fatigue is the
lack of progesterone produced in the body. Progesterone is the
¨happy hormone¨ that accounts for a woman’s sexual drive. With
the introduction of menopause, levels of this hormone can decrease
significantly.
The magical question now is: how can you
combat fatigue during menopause? Luckily, there are a variety of
answers. Introducing certain herbs into your diet can greatly boost
energy levels. Herbs like sarsaparilla and wild yam root contain plant
estrogen, which is like the estrogen produced in our bodies. In some
women, hormone replacement therapy is required. Also, the use
progesterone vaginal cream goes a long way to restoring sexual desire.
Exercise is reported to help with numerous
menopause symptoms, fatigue being one of the major ones. The simple act
of walking and basking in the sun which is an excellent source of
Vitamin D can noticeably boost energy levels. Do you smoke? Get rid of
those cigarettes right away – they have been scientifically proven to
lower estrogen levels.
The information in this article is for
educational purposes only, and is not intended as medical advice.
Cathy Taylor is a marketing consultant with
over 25 years experience. She specializes in internet marketing,
strategy and plan development, as well as management of communications
and public relations programs for small business sectors. She can be
reached at Creative Communications: creative-com@cox.net or by visiting
www.everythingmenopause.com, http://www.howtoconquermenopause.com or
www.internet-marketing-small-business.com
New
Hope for Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Sufferers
by Deb Bromley
There are numerous theories with regard to
the causes of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, many of which may be
indeed touching on the truth or at least touching on an aggravator or
contributor to these afflictions. Diseases in general have been growing
in epidemic proportion over at least the past 20 years, especially in
the United States, where our increasingly toxic environment and
lifestyles have drifted further and further away from what is natural
in the name of progress, technology, and profit. Chronic fatigue and
fibromyalgia are no exception, the two often being experienced
together, and possibly symptoms of the same disease. Many agree that
having one or both of these conditions reflects a compromised immune
system, but whether this has resulted from viruses or chemicals or
heredity or DNA mutations or other causes is much debated. As in the
question of the chicken or the egg, I think the answer lies in what
came first, at least in terms of triggering the disease.
We all have unique genetic weaknesses and
tendencies, but usually a disease that we may be predisposed to will
not surface unless an external environmental factor triggers it.
Viruses lay dormant in all of us, as do many bacteria. The body's
immune system keeps them in check unless the body is damaged and
becomes weak and imbalanced to the point that viruses and bacteria grow
out of control and flourish, causing disease. But what external
"triggering" factors came first to weaken the immune system to allow
such a systemic breakdown to occur?
The answer most likely lies in how
increasingly toxic and contaminated our bodies are becoming. This
cumulative toxic overload is the result of the growing number of
harmful chemicals we're exposed to in our everyday life -- over 10,000
in food processing and preservation alone. We eat chemically-processed
foods that contain preservatives, pesticides, dyes, hormones, bleaching
agents, neurotoxic artificial sweeteners, steroids, and antibiotics,
drink hundreds of chemicals in our tap water, breathe in fumes from
factories, are bombarded with radiation from numerous and growing
sources, and chemicals are outgassed in our homes from our
Teflon-coated pans to our stain-resistant carpets. We are surrounded
with plastics, paints, solvents, cleaners, medications, and many other
toxic chemicals, and when you mix them all together in our bodies with
our own natural chemistry, as in a chemistry lab, the results can be
unpredictable and potentially explosive. In addition, antibiotics that
destroy good bacteria along with the bad have been dangerously
overprescribed, contributing to weakened immune systems, and expensive
unnatural synthetic drugs are being dispensed in record numbers that do
not cure but only suppress symptoms, while causing a plethora of
harmful side effects to the tune of billions of dollars for the
pharmaceutical industry.
Recent studies have shown that antibiotics
and chemicals can permeate cell walls and destroy, damage, or mutate
mitochondria, which most claim cannot be regenerated. What are
mitochondria? In short, they are the powerhouses of our bodies. They
assimilate food and produce critical nutrients, but their primary
function is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a vital
component of life. ATP is believed to provide 90-95% of all cellular
energy and has been found to act as a neurotransmitter extracellularly.
Also, an enormous amount of ATP is required by our energy-hungry
muscles. Unfortunately, the brain does not store ATP, ATP cannot be
shared between organ systems, its supply is very limited, and the
demand for it by the body is very high. Therefore, ATP must be
constantly synthesized to provide a continuous supply of energy or an
ATP-imbalance occurs, which may lead to neuronal cell deaths, chronic
fatigue from lack of energy, nutritional deficiencies, and muscle
weakness and pain as in fibromyalgia, among many other symptoms. ATP
imbalance or poor regulation can be very dangerous – too much ATP in a
few areas of the body can actually be just as damaging as too little,
such as in spinal cord injuries.
Scientists have theorized that mutations in
mitochondrial DNA also contribute to aging, and when the production of
ATP is interrupted or stopped for any number of reasons, a cascade of
free-radical damage begins. The key to chronic fatigue and
fibromyalgia, and many other diseases, may lie in cellular damage by
chemicals, while the road to recovery may lie in eliminating toxins
that cause cellular damage and pursuing natural courses of treatment
that help the body heal itself.
Although most doctors and researchers do not
believe mitochondria can be repaired or regenerated, they used to say
the same thing about brain cells, and that has since been disproved.
The body is a miraculous creation, and if it is not abused, it has many
self-healing and regenerative abilities. I came across one University
of California-Berkeley research project recently where mitochondria in
rats were able to be rejuvenated with large doses of acetyl-L-carnitine
and alpha-lipoic acid, common natural dietary supplements, which also
appeared to make the old rats more youthful. Also, Cordyceps given to
mice caused an increased supply of ATP in the liver, has substantially
benefitted chronic fatigue sufferers, and when given in human clinical
trials, demonstrated overall improved liver health. And to relieve
pain, guaifenesin has been used successfully by individuals with
fibromyalgia. It is believed that guaifenesin works both by causing
urinary excretion of excess uric acid, phosphate, and other substances
that should have been excreted by the kidneys that have built up in the
cells and tissue to the point that they depress ATP formation, and by
actually reinforcing cell walls to minimize entry by toxins and further
damage to the cells. (There seem to be very few all-natural products
that contain guaifenesin without ephedrine or chemicals. I found one
product made by Naturade called Herbal Expec that I would recommend)
After "Yuppie Flu" first surfaced in the
1980's, a few progressive doctors tried giving patients injections of
adenosine monophosphate (AMP), a chemical precursor of ATP, but this
was expensive, inconvenient, difficult to tolerate, and the results
were very slow and gradual. Next, in the 1990's, oral ATP supplements
were tried, and are still available today, but they had side effects
and did not allow the body to naturally assimilate the ATP itself which
makes it less targeted and effective. But more recently, there has been
significant success with another precursor to ATP – D-Ribose. D-Ribose
is a complex sugar with no side effects. It goes to work quickly in the
body, effectively fueling the mitochondria so that additional needed
ATP can be produced for many hours at a time. In particular, it
increases ATP production in muscles, including the heart, therefore
besides improving muscle strength and helping alleviate pain, it
additionally benefits individuals with heart problems, and increases
blood circulation, oxygen levels, and energy levels. Ribose formulas
often include creatine, as the two are believed to work synergistically
together to increase overall ATP production.
With cellular damage, and the accompanying
gut damage from ingesting chemicals, there are also often multiple
nutritional deficiencies that result from poor absorption and
assimilation, regardless if you think you have been eating well,
therefore a potent vitamin and mineral supplement and an immune system
builder are also recommended, preferably liquid sublinguals (under the
tongue) to enhance absorption. Since our soil has been damaged from
chemicals, and thus much of our food is lacking in vitamins and
minerals, the vitamin/mineral nutritional supplement should be the one
thing you take for life to maintain health even if you feel fine. For
those who can afford it, a new spectroscopic test is available from
Spectracell that examines white blood cells, which help protect the
body and combat disease, and can pinpoint your specific and unique
cellular deficiencies.
Although the natural supplements mentioned
above may be extremely helpful in repairing cell damage over time,
increasing energy, and may potentially help alleviate symptoms in the
short-term, in order to foster long-term healing and maintenance of
health, it is critical that toxins that store in fatty tissue be
removed from the body, such as with binding whole grains, natural
detoxifiers, and chelation therapy, and further toxic exposure that
contributes to cellular damage and other health problems be avoided.
Since your body is likely chemically addicted to many substances, a
natural course of treatment that involves the elimination of chemicals
often results in short-term withdrawal symptoms or temporary
exacerbation of symptoms where you feel worse before you feel better,
but this stage passes quickly.
The more you understand what you're fighting
and your options, the better armed you will be to battle it. And half
the battle is knowing and eliminating what caused the disease in the
first place. Although there are supplements that may help, natural
steps to better health do not have to cost a fortune. There are many
inexpensive dietary measures that can be taken. To learn more about the
thousands of harmful toxins in our food and everyday environment and
how to avoid them, how to bind toxins and remove them from your body,
how to treat symptoms of disease naturally, and how to adopt a
non-toxic chemical-free diet and natural lifestyle that will help your
body heal itself, please visit the NatureGem website at
http://www.naturegem.com. From the home page, you can also link to a
copy of this article with active links to helpful resources.
Deb Bromley is a science and technology
researcher and the President of NatureGem Nontoxic Living, devoted to
promoting awareness of toxins in our food and environment that can
cause disease, and providing access to nutrition information, natural
remedies, and alternative health resources.
Candida
and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
by Dr. Brian Martin D.C., F.I.A.M.A.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is an autoimmune
disease, which can begin after a minor illness such as a cold, or an
intestinal bug. It also strikes people during periods of high stress;
it may develop gradually with no clear illness or other event preceding
it. CFS symptoms are painful and pesky—headaches, tender lymph nodes,
fatigue, weakness, muscle and joint pain, and the inability to
concentrate, may intermittently plague an individual for more than six
months. The disease can also be stressful for friends and family as it
primarily affects the central nervous system and depresses the immune
system of the individual. The disorder may develop as a consequence of
the following issues: female hormonal imbalance, repeated
administrations of antibiotic drugs in childhood, magnesium and zinc
deficiencies, recurrent vaginal yeast infections, and diets high in
sugar and alcohol.
Due to the fact that CFS it is often times
the disease health care providers clinically diagnose after everything
else has been ruled out—many patients become extremely disheartened.
Unfortunately, CFS is often misdiagnosed as neurotic or psychosomatic.
There are no specific laboratory tests or clinical signs for CFS and
diagnosis is primarily determined through symptoms alone.
Over the past ten years, holistic
healthcare providers have developed a new outlook on CFS; they believe
that there is a Candida-related fungal connection to CFS. While it is
unclear whether Candida actually causes the disease, many suffering
from the illness have benefited from natural, anti-fungal remedies.
Holistic healthcare practitioners aim to balance the body and heal the
cause of the illness, so that the symptoms disappear completely. In
addition to an accurate prognosis of CFS, holistic healthcare providers
recommend the following lifestyle management tools to aid in the
treatment of CFS: a sugar-free and nutritious diet, natural anti-fungal
remedies, an unpolluted home and work environment, acupuncture,
massage, chiropractic care, and emotional support. Nutritional
supplements and herbs such as: magnesium, essential fatty acids, zinc,
Milk Thistle, Licorice, Dandelion Root and Leaf, Oregon Grape, and St.
John’s Wort are often prescribed and may be implemental in the healing
process.
DR. BRIAN MARTIN, D.C., F.I.A.M.A., IS A
LICENSED CHIROPRACTOR AND ACUPUNCTURIST.
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