Fatigue

[bks68]

Does anybody suffer from generalized fatigue? Exhaustion? It started a few years ago. I would become so exhausted I was weak, and lay down immediately. I sleep 9-12 hours a night, and within 8 hours of being up I'm absolutely wiped out. Sometimes my fatigue is unrelieved by sleep period. I just want to lay in bed all day. It's debilitating. If I am still awake at 10-12 hours after waking, I'm having heart palpitations and weakness, and I just feel like my body is about to give out. It hardly seems normal, especially when I compare myself to those older than me. At 25 years of age I should be at the top of my game, but I can't even stay awake as long during the day as my 70 year old grandmother who works full time and has chronic leukemia.

Anyways, I came from a high stress, poor household. I was always tense and on edge with my parents. I've recently been told I may have panic disorder. I've started medications. It's funny, I take a sedative (klonopin) when I feel the anxiety/panic building - and though I can feel the sedation from it, I feel more "alert" and "awake" when it takes effect than I did right before taking it. As if the anxiety wears me down harder than a sedative can.

[mollymahoney]

OOOOOH. I'm finding more and more people I have something in common with.

I'm 26 years old. I used to work in television where people are expected to be awake and alert on call--something that I'm afraid I've been desperately trying to be, unsuccessfully. I've only realized that what I have is panic attack. I've had it for years without realizing that that's what I was having all this time. It's not asthma or my irregular heartbeats. It's panic attack. And one of the times I get it is when I lack sleep.

I don't function well without sleep and unlike my peers who have talent sleeping on call, I have insomnia and despite it cannot sleep on command. I, on the otherhand need more time to recuperate. Because of this I've always felt I'm a burden to my team. I seem to have sleep debt from years of abusing my body clock. I get palpitations when I don't have enough sleep and feel so weak. I've had an experience when I was supposed to go on graveyard shift. I took sleeping pills in the day to get some sleep before work. Unfortunately the sleeping part only kicked in at work and I just felt so weak and panicked at the same time.

I've heard my doctors tell me to change careers because of this, not knowing what I have are panic attacks. My mom has consistently begged me to change careers for many reasons aside from this that it seems I'm just convinced I could never go back to this job. I also come from a poor household who tells me I can be whomever what I want to be but say I should quit the job that I like at the same time. I realize my parents' worry-wart approach to life had taken it's toll on me. Apart from sleeplessness, I feel sedated from the passion I've lost.

[mtatum4496]

I think many of us who have taken anti-anxiety medication to deal with panic attacks have experienced the same thing. On one level, we feel the sedating effect, but on the other hand we also feel the panic subsiding, which does a lot to make us feel more comfortable and in connection with what is going on around us.

My doctor told me to look at it this way - when you are having a panic attack, it is like you are on a ladder and are afraid of falling off - this makes you nervous and also feel as if you are about to black out because of the fear. By taking the medication, you climb safely down the ladder back to ground level, lose the fear and the sense of being about to black out, and thus can move around easily once again - you are back in control.

For me, the slight sense of being sedated is much more pleasant than the nervewracking sense of losing touch with myself and the rest of the world, which is part of what happens to me when a panic attack hits.

Molly, sleep deprivation was a major contributing factor to the development of my health woes. Frankly, I doubt I would have ever developed panic disorder if I had been eating right, getting the right amount of sleep, and engaging in moderate exercise a few times a week. Even now, if I don't sleep soundly, the next day I am much more apt to experience a panic attack of some kind.

I can understand not wanting to give up the job you love. It is so hard to find a way to make a living that provides you with more than just a satisfactory wage. Hopefully, a way will open for you to get better and to be able to keep working in the profession you love.

[cupcakes2009]

OMG it sounds just like i have written this myself lol im 27 and feel and do the same thing, i did a post yesterday about feeling so tired and ill and weak all the time :(