Why am i so tired, medical advice appreciated

Right i’m tired all the time to the point when i fall asleep on the settee after work and have to have a sleep in the day at weekends and can’t stay up past 10, last night i went to bed at 8.30!

I’m a 40yr old teacher (but not a stressed one), am pretty fit, commute 14miles most days and am generally in good health with a good balanced diet.

My blood pressure is 139/92, bmi 25.3, weight 75.6kg, height 173cm, fat 12%.

I went to the doctor a while ago who was little help and tested for anemia and glandular fever but both were negative.

Any help?

ta

What time do you get up in the morning?
Teaching seems like a pretty tiring job – you’re sort of performing all day, so I’d expect one to feel tired at the end of it.
Going to bed at 8.30 is unusual though. Maybe you’ve just got into the habit of napping and need to fight it, get up and do something else when the zzzs start to threaten.

Persist with your GP if it carries on and see if you can get referred for a sleep study. Might be that although you’re asleep at night, you’re not getting well rested (can be caused by lots of things eg. apnoea, narcolepsy etc.)

If not, perhaps alter your evening routine so that in the hour preceding going to bed, read a book (or singletrack..) and don’t eat / drink anything to near to going to sleep either. And then make sure you get up at a set time in the morning.

Hope that helps in some way.

Sounds like your getting too much sleep. If I get more than 5-6hrs I’m groggy as hell next day.

Did you get a thyroid function test too?

I get up at 7 so not silly early, going to bed at 8.30 is unusual but last week i’ve been having trouble fighting it.

I normally sleep like a log but i will try and change my evening routine as i do tend to sit infront of the tele with the laptop on my knee so not really resting. I think i’ll try and read a book instead.

thanks

What’s your level of hydration like – I find I tire much more easily if I’m not ‘peeing pale’ (sorry if TMI).

http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/cure-tiredness-when-dehydration-symptoms-cause-tiredness-1795463.html

http://www.google.com/search?&q=dehydration+tiredness&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Chronic fatigue / viral infection /depression / stress / lyme disease / Galloping dandruff / black lung.

Seriously its often really hard to find any medical explanation for this sort of thing. Eat well, no alcohol, moderate exercise , avoid naps and have a set bedtime for a week or two see how you are.

True sleep disorders like Obstructive Sleep apnoea are pretty unusual in someone with your build unless you have nasal/soft palate issues. Google “Epworth Score” and see how you do. If you are normal on this and do not snore and not falling asleep at work, I would not pursue sleep studies.

You should have had Thyroid Function tests and a glucose level done – but they are almost certainly normal in a bloke of your age and weight.

But most of the people we see with this – or feeling TATT – are just a bit knackered. And it is quite often teachers.

For any more detailed advice over the internet one would need to know waaayy more. Including alcohol, any history of liver/autoimmune problems etc etc so probably best to leave it there and implement the “sleep hygiene” measures Becky mentions.

If you are considering sleep apnoea as a diagnosis you should fill in an epworth score.
here is one I prepared earlier

Non specific tiredness is hard to pin down.

EDIT stoatsbrother beat me to it

Its an age thing, I’m feeling it too!! 40 this week, get up at 6.30am everyday, 2 mile dog walk, packed lunch making and breakfast for two kids, 7 mile commute to work, 20 minute sleep at wok lunchtime, commute home and another 20 min doze………but that does keep me awake til mid nightish, 8.30pm a bit early.

I get ded sleepy if I eat junk on getting home from work (which I’m “sure” is sugary peaks & troughs)

I find if I wasnt to stay up a bit later and have more energy I get mildy drunk, dunno if that is any help.

You need a career change

Get a stressful job

That’ll keep you awake at night !

“My blood pressure is 139/92, bmi 25.3, weight 75.6kg, height 173cm, fat 12%”

Christ I don’t know any of those stats for me… not sure if thats good or bad!

As to asking STW to diagnose whats wrong with you thats just silly. You havent actually said how many hours a night you sleep though. Isnt the actual needed 8 hrs or some thing??

Try cutting out the commute and take the car or bus and see if that makes you feel better.

Other than that go back to the docs and say you still feel knackered and sleeping lots.

The first thing that springs to my mind is depression and then thyroid, but I have no medical training what so ever.

back to the gp for peace of mind, how long have you felt off colour? any weight loss, change in bowel/urinary habit, pain or anything else in the same time frame eg cough etc?

Get another blood test done for iron deficency anaemia, and take some iron tablets and lots of fruit, worked for me, im now fatter and sleep better at night.

iron deficiency anaemia in a bloke should prob be investigated for a cause

You’re a fat knackered old man just like the rest of us, welcome to middle age.

You can try to fight it, but you will lose, maybe not just yet, but you will.

Look on the bright side; you’ll have to work until you die anyway.

😉

thanks folks, i’m ‘normal’ on the epworth score so i’m going to try and cut out sugary foods (i’ve just eaten a muffin!) and i’ll try and drink more water too and see how it goes over the week.

Though crikey i think you might be right!

Hmmm… sounds vaguely familiar to how I was prior to getting in the condition I am.

I used to find I’d be tired all the time, wanting to sleep halfway through the day but would fight on through it.

I’d ride and find that recovery took longer than 24 hours and the more I rode the less fit I’d seem to get. I’d also seem to be ill (cold / sore throat) after every ride. I went and saw the doctor as I felt something wasn’t right – they said I was fine – blood test OK and that it was just a bug going round.

Over 12 months this gradually but hardly noticeably got worse until I got hit by a bad virus and spent the weekend riding GT – whoops! Never been the same since and that was 7 months ago. In fact I’ve not ridden my bike since.

For 4 months I didn’t know what was going on – seemed to have OK days and then bad days where I could barely do anything. Anything physical or mental would wear me out and leave me washed out for a number of days afterwards. I’d rest for a week or so, then think I was fine and relapse quite severely.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I was diagnosed by the NHS as having ME / CFS / PVF and signed off work for 2 months – bit of a catch all for when someone doesn’t recover and they can’t pin the tail on the donkey. They basically told me to rest and I might recover if I was lucky.

Not really wanting to believe I had no control over my fate, I went off to find out what I could and over the space of 2 weeks I managed to learn a lot about what was happening to me at a physiological level. After seeking some help privately and having some tests carried out, it turns out my adrenal glands are not functioning properly and need to be nurtured back to full health.

Apparently Adrenal Fatigue is very common at present and more and more people are exhibiting symptoms these days, although the NHS only recognise Adrenal Failure. Do a search on it and you’ll see what I mean.

Since changing my diet, taking regular rest, introducing supplements and various other lifestyle changes I am slowly getting stronger and have more positive days than bad – no more peaks and troughs but I can’t ride just yet but that day is not far from my grasp.

All I’d say is listen to your body, if you don’t feel right then you probably ain’t right. I learnt the hard way, but had this not happened I would never have learnt what I have and I have made some really positive changes for the future.

It may be that this is not something you need to worry about but I wanted to mention it so you can check it out and see if there is anything in it concerning your health.

Sounds like there’s nowt wrong with you mate!

Commuet 14 miles per day – am assuming you are cycling.

A twenty minute nap on the couch is nothing.

If you are getting 8 or 9 hours a night that is nowt to worry about?

I can kip on the couch for 2 hours in the middle of the day at weekends (if the family allows me 😉 )

Sleep is great! I loves it!

Bushwacked I’ve never heard of adrenal fatigue (I work in the nhs) so I googled it.
Hate to say it but it appears to be a made up diagnosis spouted by alternative practitioners to sell dubious “supplements”.
There’s nowt wrong with giving conditions like this a label- after all that is what CFS/ME is really- or the old fashioned “MUPS” (medically unexplained physical symptoms”), it often helps to have a name for the thing that is making you feel rotten. Just worries me that there are a lot of unqualified charlatans selling snake oil on the back of pseudoscience.
If you have to go private to obtain a particular diagnosis it tends to question the validity of the diagnosis.

Go and have a wheat allergy test. My gf is gluten intollerant and she spent most of her free time asleep or on the sofa. I home diagnosed her with laziness but following a few interesting side effects the doc tested her positive as a coeliac. Since cutting out wheat shes fine. Its a massively underdiagnosed disease and easily missed.

Docrobster – when the NHS can do nothing for you and suggests doing things that make you worse, and have been proven so through clinical trials, your faith in the NHS becomes weakened and you seek alternative sources of recovery.

I have to add that the Dr that has provided me with the most wisdom about this happens to be a NHS GP who is at the forefront of understanding such issues via her private and general practice – so you should really find out more yourself before spouting such phrases as “unqualified charlatans selling snake oil on the back of pseudoscience.” as you are dissing one of your own.

Plus Adrenal Fatigue was first discussed in medical circles in the 1800’s probably a lot longer than you have been involved in the health industry.

Docrobster +1
Ian

continue with the GP and blood samples until they run out of things to check, and you MUST MUST badger your GP and say that things are not working or your getting worse etc.

TOO MUCH IRON can also cause fatigue, my bro-in-law cannot process it too well, and as a result his iron count is through the roof and has to have blood removed from his system monthly, he showed most of the same symptoms as too little iron!

i have to say, i hit 37 and it seems to me everything has become tiring and harder, running riding weights and keeping the weight off….

the youth is wasted on the young!

+2
Adrenal fatigue?

In the words of Professor Jim Royal; ” My arse “.

I work with the sickest people in the country, and often use adrenaline as an infusion to keep people alive…

jeez i’m knackered all the time and i’m only at work six hours a week at the moment!
i can understand your concern and like everyone else has said badger the gp and get second opinions.
oh and cut down on the rampant s*x and mtfu!

Make your own mind up.

Fatigue link

The advice is having a positive change to my life and I’m doing more now than I have in the past 6 months. The guy asked for advice, I gave him some from personal experience, not from someone else’s. If he doesn’t like it then ain’t no skin off my nose.

Oh, and Just because it’s not mainstream advice and isn’t in the NHS bible doesn’t mean it ain’t worth taking on board – remember – the world used to be flat 😉

There’s a word for alternative medicine that works, its called ‘medicine’.

I am glad to hear the that GMC has since reinstated her licence to practice
but with one or two minor restrictions
Believe what you want to believe

Oh, could someone suture my sides back together please…..

You seen the circumstances the complaint was made in? Lol!

The panel were further concerned that Myhill may not be fully aware of the reasons why her methods and advice are controversial, suggesting that she has demonstrated a lack of insight into her own “fitness to practise”, the “consequences of her actions”, and even the substance of the case against her. They point to the (lengthy) statement she made in her defense in which she simply asserts her expertise while offering no evidence of the efficacy of the treatments she provides nor the veracity of her general medical claims, and attempts a crude (and largely speculative) character assassination of the complainants.

Sorry, but it looks like she’s a bit of a liability….

I’d GUESS that the tiredness you describe is not that abnormal and you are probably just a bit worn out, why not take a full week off the cycling commute, get early nights and lay off alcohol completely. You might feel a bit better after that?

She’s been banned from advising on heart disease, asthma, contraception, breast cancer and vaccination.
Do you think the GMC does that lightly?
So in answer to your earlier question about “dissing one of my own”…?
Need I go on?
Thanks for the link by the way, I was almost taking adrenal fatigue seriously till then.

Tony – was just about to post a similar thread – pretty much the same situation bar the commute (6 miles each evening with the lttleun in the trailer instead though)

Bushwacked, I can totally sympathise with what you have been through and are going through. And the reaction/attitude of the others on this forum is just so typical of what people who have been diagnosed with CFS/ME have to endure.

It would appear that just because the “wonderful” NHS does not have the capacity or willingness to understand something then it quite obviously must be made up!! LOL.
I too spent 5 or 6 years going to my GP complaining of being tired but with “no fault found”. All my NHS tests were negative and I was continually told that there was nothing wrong, so I just carried on trying to live a normal life. However, it all came to a head about a year ago when my body has just simply had had enough and literally shutdown. At which point my GP finally diagnosed me with CFS. The ironic thing was the NHS had not even followed their own guidelines/protocols in ruling out all possible causes before diagnosing me with CFS and had not run half the tests that they should have done. What a joke.

The NHS simply recommended CBT and graded exercise. I couldn’t possibly see how this would help and like you I took it upon myself to find out what was really wrong with me and went to one of the most respected ME clinic in the UK. Within 2 weeks they achieved more in terms of a diagnosis than the NHS had not achieved in 6 years. Turns out I am gluten intolerant and that I also had a number of nasty parasitic/bacterial gut infections. (The NHS had never run and gut type tests). I too was also told that I had adrenal fatigue, following years of my body being under stress from the gluten intolerance and infections I had.

Being naturally sceptical of alternative/complimentary medicine I was wary at first. But coming off gluten was a revelation and a year on, the treatment I have been following has literally turned my life around. I am all too aware that the term adrenal fatigue is not recognised by our astute colleagues in the NHS and when I showed my GP my adrenal test results he just told me that was normal for me! I find it funny that if you have clear symptoms and your tests results are normal, then there is nothing wrong with you. And when you have clear symptoms and your test results are clearly abnormal, there is still nothing wrong with you.

I have clearly seen a massive improvement in my adrenal function over the last year and have test results to back it up. So perhaps it not the witchcraft that some in the NHS & GMC would have you believe!

Feildmarshall – clearly the NHS is not good at managing chronic fatigue / me / post viaral syndrome whatever you want to call it. even diagnosis is not clear and there is certainly no agreement or completre answers

However the adrenal fatigue thing and quite a number of similar conditions “diagnosed” by alternative practitioners is clearly bunkum and piffle.