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Thread: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

  1. #1
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    Nov 2015
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    Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    I apologise for the incoming rant, but I need to get all of this down in writing. I'm finding it so hard to accept that all of my problems are being caused by anxiety. I've really tried to stay level headed about everything, but I'm just feeling worse and worse. I know I'm going to sound like a textbook "overthinker" but I'm convinced I have something going on health wise. I'm almost certain it's autoimmune related. That or something neurological and progressive.

    The symptoms that bother me most are ones I've spoken about before, and recently, they've become a lot worse.

    The main one which really has me worried is sudden waves of intense fatigue. Not sleepiness, tiredness or lack of energy - draining, unrelenting exhaustion as if my life force is leaving me and even breathing is an effort.

    When this fatigue happens, it comes on extremely quickly. I could be feeling absolutely amazing one moment, and the next I can barely talk without feeling like I'll pass out from the effort. Nothing triggers it. My blood sugar is perfect at the time. My blood pressure is a lovely 110/75. My oxygen saturation is fine. My heart rate is ticking away at 70. Yet I feel like I'm fading out of existence.

    It comes and goes in "waves". Sometimes it will happen for an hour and go away for another three or four weeks. Other times it will happen over a few days and gradually fade away.

    It has brought something new with it this time round too - Buzzing, throbbing and aching in my hands and feet. This pain is an easy 7 out of 10 on the pain scale, and nothing helps it. Sometimes the pain quickly gets replaced by a feeling of weakness in my legs and arms, with trembling, heaviness and any movement of those limbs causes a huge wave of exhaustion to crash over me. Again, this can last a short time, or linger for days.

    No matter how healthy I eat, calm/hydrated/rested I remain, it always comes back. I can't quite put my finger on an exact pattern, but it follows a similar process to relapsing and remitting diseases. The fact it hits out of the blue, no matter what emotional/health state I am in, really makes me wonder. The obvious things like blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, state of mind etc also somewhat rule out the usual suspects.

    Recently I was given antibiotics which I reacted terribly to even though I previously had no allergies to this specific medication. I had agonising joint pain, stiffness and I barely ate for three days. I read that autoimmune problems can flare up after a course of antibiotics. I was taken off them, advised never to take those ones again. Then soon after that, I had my second Covid jab, and the horrible joint pain flared up again. It lasted for four days. Because the jab causes an immune reaction, I was seriously suspecting some kind of autoimmune type flare.

    I've been to the doctor about all of this, detailing horrendous fatigue, headaches, joint and muscle aching, tingling, paraesthesia, hair loss, and memory problems. I was told, straight to my face that "we sometimes just need to sweep our pain under the carpet, I used to be a hypochondriac too".

    I never felt so alone in that moment. I didn't go in with big theories, and I didn't even want pain relief or meds, I just told them I had been suffering with this thing on and off for a long time, and nothing was improving. A paramedic who checked me over recently when I had chest pain thinks I have a neurological issue, or something relapsing and remitting, just from the history she took from me. Yet the GP didn't want to hear a single word of it. They just told me to be less stressed.

    I truly wish this was anxiety, because then I could address it.

  2. #2
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    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    Could you address your anxiety and see what happens with your physical symptoms?

  3. #3
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    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    Quote Originally Posted by Catkins View Post
    Could you address your anxiety and see what happens with your physical symptoms?
    I genuinely feel like I have addressed my anxiety. I've gone to therapy, done CBT, and took "stresses" out of my life yet the physical symptoms are so much worse. The therapist didn't think I had health anxiety after everything we went through. Most of my actual anxiety comes from OCD. I've been doing really well with that too. This just seems like something getting progressively more taxing on my body.

  4. #4
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    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    Just happened again about 40 minutes ago. I was chilling out on the sofa and decided to do some light sketching. All was well. I'm at my most happy when I'm drawing. I moved my arm to reach for another pencil and it felt suddenly clumsy and heavy and so tired. I felt a rush of heat all over like I had a fever. My cheeks flushed hot and I started feeling shaky all over. Legs felt like jelly and my hands were not as dexterous as they normally are. To the point where usual pencil line work looked noticeably less neat. I felt like I might pass out. My speech was a little slower too. Even talking becomes exhausting.

    I tried to ignore it, but gradually felt weaker and weaker, and I had to stop drawing. I took my blood pressure, checked my heartrate and made sure I wasn't dehydrated and everything was perfectly normal. My legs are slowly feeling more normal again, but my hands are still "off". Almost like my elbows and shoulders are weak and that travels all the way to my hands.

    I've reported this to doctors so many times and they never want to investigate anything beyond taking a routine blood count and telling me to reduce my stress levels.

    This isn't normal. I wasn't remotely anxious. I am of course anxious about what this could possibly be, but in general, I am genuinely happy and relaxed seconds before these "episodes" of feeling I'm about to drop at any second. It doesn't follow any pattern. I can be at maximum stress and feel what I recognise as anxiety based symptoms, but they come nothing close to this. It doesn't get better when I distract myself. It doesn't come on during times of stress. It doesn't respond to rest.

    I'm at a loss because doctors won't listen and I'm sitting here wondering if it will be something I'm stuck with forever, or if it's something potentially harmful that needs investigating sooner rather than later.

  5. #5

    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    i know exactly how you feel i’ve had a good 6 months and then all at once loads of things happened which have set my anxiety off again same as you though i can be doing something relaxing and out of nowhere the fatigue hits me just know you are not alone

  6. #6

    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    How are you now? If you are experiencing an escalation of anxiety, talk to a professional who can help you through this difficult time.

  7. #7
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    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kayleighbebs View Post
    i know exactly how you feel i’ve had a good 6 months and then all at once loads of things happened which have set my anxiety off again same as you though i can be doing something relaxing and out of nowhere the fatigue hits me just know you are not alone
    Thank you for your reply So sorry you have to go through the same feelings. They're rough!
    I can't seem to accept it as anxiety based, but I'm not completely ruling that out either.

  8. #8
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    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    Quote Originally Posted by Solarbind View Post
    How are you now? If you are experiencing an escalation of anxiety, talk to a professional who can help you through this difficult time.
    My energy levels are great now. I don't feel anxious apart from a couple of minor OCD issues, but nothing I don't deal with all the time. It always happens like this. Days or weeks of decent energy, and then a massive, draining crash.

  9. #9
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    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    Just revisiting this with a quick update.

    I few mornings ago, I woke with intense pressure on my chest, and my entire left side felt wrong. Painful, then numb, then like hot water was getting poured over my fingers. I tried to ignore it, and carry on with my day, but it just got worse. Then that weakness I described hit me really hard. Tried to power through, and tell myself it would pass.

    It got worse and worse during the day until I ended up in hospital. I had been advised to go in after I was finding it hard to even walk up the stairs.

    They checked my heart, ran lots of bloods and were happy I wasn't having a cardiac episode or stroke.

    I was fully expecting the doctor to tell me I was anxious, but to my surprise, he sat me down and asked me to go through everything from the beginning. When all of this started, how it had progressed, and what my GP had ruled out/ruled in. So I told him everything, and he said it wasn't anxiety, that the symptoms were very real, and he has worked with patients with very similar problems. He said anxiety and stress are certainly playing a part in how I feel when they happen, but there is definitely something going on. He told me it's more than likely my immune system reacting to food. My left side seems to be where it flares up the most when it happens, along with the all over weakness/fatigue, hair loss, rashes and joint pain.

    He put me on a strict diet and a routine to follow. As I have family members with autoimmune diseases, he told me I'm likely genetically predisposed to having an autoimmune type response to certain triggers like food and environmental factors. My mum has an autoimmune disease that attacks her digestive system if she eats a certain trigger food, so it makes sense that a gene or two had been passed down to me.

    I was both relieved and terrified, relieved that somebody had finally listened, and terrified as autoimmune issues can vary between manageable and well... not so great. I mentioned things like Lupus and MS, but the doctor thought that my issue sounds more reactive and low grade. Obviously my GP will need to run some tests to rule out the major autoimmune diseases, but I trusted this doctor more than any others I'd ever seen. They specialised in this particular issue, so in a way, I was really lucky to end up in hospital that day!

    I have to follow this routine to see if anything helps. I have to try and manage my stress response to the symptoms when they do happen, but now that I have a potential answer, that will hopefully be easier to do. I'm slightly scared, because I don't want to it to end up being something like Lupus or MS, but I'm trusting the doctors expertise that it's a less devastating one that I can manage. I'd eat cardboard for the rest of my life if it meant those symptoms going away for good!

  10. #10
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    Re: Relentless fatigue, weakness, and aching. I feel so done.

    Yet another update. GP is testing me for lots of autoimmune stuff.

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