Chronic Fatigue

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME is an illness that is quite often not recognised or understood by Doctors. I have to admit that until it affected me, I couldn’t quite understand it….if you’re that exhausted, then just have a coffee or get an early night, right?! I thought there’s no way that feeling tired can be a reason not to carry on with life…how wrong I was.

It is very difficult to describe the sensation that takes over your whole body that makes even getting out of bed seem like an impossible task. Everyday things become unbearable; washing your hair can use up the energy for the whole day, cooking is impossible, working – unthinkable. It’s not just the physical fatigue though. I have hours, even days where I have ‘brain fog’ – I can’t think straight or formulate sentences.

I’m incredibly lucky to have had support from family and friends but on top of that, the acknowledgement from them, that there is something wrong and that is out of my control.

I do ascertain that there is a degree of positive thinking that helps, such as, I know that there have been times where I’ve come so close to collapsing onto the floor after being overcome with fatigue. I’ve been so conscious of not giving in to this as much as possible as I know it can be a downward spiral from here. I try to say that I can and will do things rather than pre-empting or giving up before even trying. I’ve learnt how to manage my energy levels better and don’t give myself a hard time if there’s something I can’t do or if I need a whole day to do nothing.

To most people, I look the same as there’s no particular outward signs of Chronic Fatigue. In fact, I’ve lost weight due to cutting out gluten (despite eating it my whole life, it turns out I have an intolerance) and refined sugar, so to some, I may even look better!

There is no magic pill for Chronic Fatigue unfortunately and over the last few years I’ve tried and tested different methods to improve my energy (feel free to comment if you have anything that has really worked for you!). However, I’m incredibly lucky that my brother put me in touch with Ryan at Live Vitae who has managed to discover the likely root cause of my fatigue and we are working on a plan to get better! Living with fatigue is tough – you can’t have a ‘normal’ life and yet you are expected to as you look fine. It’s totally different to being exhausted after a long week at work and sleeping more just doesn’t mean you’ll feel better. However, I do try and find the positives in things and I do believe that there are things in my life that wouldn’t be as great as they are, had I not had CFS. And now, if I can help people with making their homes healthier and hopefully eliminating triggers for illnesses then that would be amazing!