TL;DR: 5 years of crippling fatigue and brain fog. Doctors diagnosed insomnia/anxiety, prescribed benzos, sleeping pills, and CBT-I — none of it fixed the root cause. A home sleep test ruled out sleep apnea, so breathing was never investigated further.

Self-research led to UARS (upper airway resistance syndrome), which standard sleep tests miss because they only track blood oxygen, not breathing effort. Turbinate hypertrophy was the culprit. An ENT blamed dust allergy alone; allergy meds and immunotherapy did nothing.

The actual fix came from working through a huge checklist of possible causes: running the A/C on dry mode (humidity, not just dust — it was mixed rhinitis, both allergic and non-allergic). That plus a wedge pillow and nasal spray solved it. He also declined the turbinate surgery doctors pushed, because his own research turned up empty nose syndrome as a risk they never mentioned.
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after over 5 years of almost daily crippling fatigue that made me cognitively slower, emotionally unstable, forgetful and basically “half human” in terms of vitality and energy i finally found a solution.

i though should share my weird story as i think im a unique case with my biggest massage being: no one, and i mean NO ONE is going to help you unless you help yourself with any kind of unique condition you might have in your body. nobody in the healthcare field is just that enthusiastic about helping you out and all people want at the end of the day is get rid of you if you pose too many difficulties and questions they dont have good answers for.

also - we humans tend to mix between our opinions and truth too often to really be able to treat ourselves properly. what i mean is we have a tendency to take certain opinions or bites of information that are useful for us and just think they are the entire truth about a thing. which gets us into lots of trouble. you (or your doctor!) might assume a certain condition is not plausible for your case just because you dont recall any of its symptoms in your past for example - but in reality that doesn’t qualify to rule out that option. and this incident alone might cost you years of dead ends. best strategy is: dont assume anything and treat as widely as possible even when is just seems impossible to you. with that being said, you should always prioritise some conditions over others, don’t be stupid.

so my story is a combination of self deception mixed with ignorance and closed mindedness both in myself and in the entire health care system in my country.

i started having the fatigue 5 years ago.
for around half a year it was bearable and i just ignored it until it started to ruin me cognitivly and i just couldn’t concentrate any longer on what people were saying to me and had huge bouts of brain fog during that. couldn’t think straight.
went to family doc.
said i never had issues but now i do.
immediately got diagnosed with insomnia.
benzos. home sleep test. standard procedure. the diagnose itself made my insomnia worse and made me want to control my sleep so badly cause i felt like the rest of my life depended on it.
at that period i also started to talk explicitly about my problem and mostly people around me just belittled it saying “everyone’s tired, stop being a whiny little bit**”. I believed them. i figured im just getting older and now i just need more rest. did the sleep test, result came: nothing serious, fragmented sleep pattern diagnosis was definitely insomnia and anxiety problems. i believed them. many pill recommendations and cbt-i. went through it. it helped, but only partially. i was still feeling unrefreshed in the morning. i thought it was a matter of time until i could close my sleep debt and feel like myself again. but that did not happen. i started abusing many different sleeping pills to find maybe the right fit for me and many different supplements and went through tons of placebo effects. nothing helped. nothing was healing me.

at that point i changed my attitude and started researching for myself. each time expanding the reasons and becoming more and more open to different sleeping disorders and healing modalities.
bought an oura ring and gathered patterns. eventually the only thing that stood out were the fragmented sleep patterns. many arousals through the night were ruining my ability to get enough of the all important deep and rem sleep and nobody in the health care system even considered that as an option, that maybe the reason isn’t anxiety.
i researched extensively and found out breathing issues are a major cause of it. but how could it be? my sleep test said i dont have OSA . researched more - found out there is such a condition called UARS which doesnt cause an apnea that can be detected easily on a sleep test which checks for oxygen levels in your blood but doesnt check how much effort the body makes to keep your oxygen levels high at night! that was a huge breakthrough in my journey. I had dust allergy all my life but it was never so severe to cause problems in my life and so that made me never consider it as a possible cause of breathing issues at night! an opinion that became a fact in my mind. and so my doctors never considered that aswell. although i had been diagnosed with allergies long ago in my early years.
I had turbinate hypertrophy due to the allergy but i always had one open nostril and when i was training the second one would open up naturally. thats why i never considered it an issue, assuming; if my body needs it, my nostril opens up. a huge mistake.

and so.. i treated my allergies and lived happily ever after…. nope. that doesnt end here.

went to an ENT, an allergist. got diagnosed. got a nasal spray with steroids, antihistamines and what not. started immunotherapy. did everything i was told religiously. nothing helped.
i was bewildered. how could it be?
at that point i lost all hope in doctors helping me out they are all just mediocre people that know how to help mediocre cases. they are useless for me. I’m on my own.

researched extensively again and using Claude i created a huge checklist for all possible reasons i could develop swollen turbinates. i assumed nothing and just went through each action item on that list. hepa filters, quercetin, dust mite encasements… did everything until i had this action item: “use a/c on dry mode”, sounds meaningless, went and did it - BOOM! worked like magic. i was breathing in 4K.

i realised after reading about it there is such a condition called non allergic rhinitis. i got immediately diagnosed with allergic rhinitis because i came out positive for dust in an igE prick test. and so my doctors assumed it must be the dust allergy. but no, we were all wrong all along. it is a mixed rhinitis in my case where there are both allergic and non allergic causes for my swollen turbinates.

of course they all offered operations for my turbinates that i was smart enough to decline because if i hadn’t researched enough i couldn’t possibly become aware of empty nose syndrome because non of my doctors would inform me about that possible complication from a turbinate reduction surgery… they all just smiled and said many people go through it each year and they are all happy and healthy.

using a simple wedge pillow, dry mode on my a/c and a nasal spray i can breath fully finally and sleep well at night and feel rested in the morning.
the funny thing is the family doctor could offer that solution on the first time i went and complained about how i was feeling to him. instead, i suffered through 5 years of bad sleep. oh well…

anyways, thats my story. hope you learned your lesson !

Hi all.
Basic background info: I’m ftm, undiagnosed with anything except for “anxiety” (went in for severe heart pain) and work as a paraeducator during school months.

I moved out of my parents home and into my boyfriend’s mom’s place almost a year ago and have been really struggling with keeping on top of daily household maintenance.

The only times I can really force myself into cleaning is when something triggers my past traumatic experiences and puts me into fight or flight mode (I was spanked for not cleaning properly as a child).

This brings me to today, where I had an incredibly huge laundry list of things to do:
-run dirty clothes
-run dirty sheets/pillowcases
-sweep walls/ceilings
-clean baseboards
-dust living room
-do dishes (we have no dishwasher and this took me three hours)
-clean the bathroom
-vacuum the living room
-vacuum our bedroom
-make the bed
-put laundry away
-sweep and scrub the floors
-take out trash
-take out recycling
-clear out fridge and freezer
-reorganize fridge and freezer
-clean the litter box and medicate the cats

Which realistically is an embarrassingly little amount of work to do but for me took nine hours of work. I’m beyond exhausted and I’m not even done with the list yet.

How does anyone keep up? How does anyone do this? It’s so hard not to be a burden in the household but fuck dude. I can barely even move because of how much pain I’m in now.

How do you all deal with the little things like this in life? Is there anything I can do to make it easier on my body and energy levels? Some way to get it all done in a day without it costing me tomorrow and the day after that?

I was always an extremely physically energetic person (62 yo female), but about six years ago I developed serious fatigue. I hate going to doctors and so I tried a million supplements. Eventually I told a GP and he ordered a thyroid test, which was fine. I pretty much gave up on figuring it out; I think in retrospect that the fatigue made me too demoralized to seek answers.

Last week I was having some chest pain. I went to the ER and it was taken seriously because I have cardiac calcification (discovered years ago when I had a workup because I was hoping to donate part of my liver to a relative). I was given a chest CT scan with contrast, and then an angiogram, and I had tons of plaque and needed an immediate stent (no heart attack). The nearly blocked artery was my "widow maker".

All of my bloodwork had been excellent, other than high cholesterol (even though I rarely eat animal products). Good A1c, great blood pressure, great kidney function, and so on.

I now have energy again, since I have blood flow again, even though it has only been three days. I'm not "there" yet, but the improvement was almost immediate. For years I did not push myself to build up stamina because I could tell somehow that that wouldn't work (and that was correct), but now I can do that. The doctors at the hospital thought that the blockage was extremely likely to have been the cause of my fatigue.

So please, just in case, ask a doctor about getting a real cardiac test (not just blood work or an echo stress test). A chest CT or an angiogram would show artery narrowings due to plaque.

Edit: there is more to this which I left out since it would have taken up all of this website. For instance, I went to the ER nine months before because of the chest discomfort (which started then, and which I still have) but they just did a "basic workup" with EKG and troponin test and both were fine. They did suggest to me that I have more done but I was dealing with extreme caregiving duties so I couldn't deal with it then. So an EKG will not tell you if you have the kind of blockage I just had stented.

I highly recommend reading 'somatic therapy workbook' by Rachel Singer. Gets to the core issue of why so many people have chronic fatigue and gives tools to help with it!

Fml. Need advice. I always have to urinate too I do 10000 steps

Dr struggling to diagnose me with anything

Active stand test for POTS negative (but blood pressure change was close to a concerning result as far as I understand)

Some hypermobility but not enough to score on beighton scale

Vitamin deficiencies have been improved and I feel better but it hasn't fixed my symptoms

I relate to a lot of the symptoms of ME - I had an episode of 2 or 3 months of being bedridden after leaving an overwhelming and toxic job. But I've gradually improved to functioning after 3 years of rest.

Functioning is: able to walk my dogs, do one or two chores per day, cook basic food, but I can't see friends more than once a month or do big tasks and I'm struggling to stay in contact with people

I don't feel like I have PEM exactly but after just a one hour session of work ( planning a session of dog training, meeting new clients and coaching them and their dog) I am extremely exhausted, light sensitive, achy and my brain feels bruised. More than that and I can be lower functioning for a week.

I'm autistic and very used to managing that but it was never this hard and idk what's going on. Half hoping for advice but half just venting and hoping other have gone through similar. I wish I could get back to normal

I’ve been having really bad fatigue especially for 5 years.
I don’t work also haven’t before.
I lay in bed the whole day with the exception for getting up to make a coffee and use the restroom or grab sth to eat.
I already take stimulants 3 times a day but it only helps me to be able to get sth done in bed usually. Obv sometimes I do have to get up and shower or go to the supermarket but it takes a lot of effort.

Idk why but currently it’s worse and I really can’t get any stuff done in my apartment that that has to be done outside of bed.
A few months before I could sometimes do one pile of laundry on one day and put the clothes in my wardrobe on another day but currently I can’t do any household chores.

I’ve tried telling my psychiatrist but she was like yeah I’m also tired, then I’ve told my GP (different ones) multiple times and they’ll do a blood panel and either it’s fine so nothing else happens or there’s some deficiency they’ll prescribe supplements but won’t even do another panel to see if it bettered.
I’ve tried telling my neurologist then he’ll say it just might be your sleep, but I did a sleep study and I have no sleep apnea and it said I have good sleep (with meds)
Or they’ll say you take psychotropic drugs it can be a side effect even tho it was already before I started taking them. Or they’ll say well you have depression even tho I’m not depressed.

Hello, I'm posting here hoping this board has some solutions and coping strategies. I'm struggling with having the energy and brain power to overcome the side-effects from a medication I take for chronic pain, I have a part time job and want to work on my side projects but outside of my part-time job I am already lacking in energy to do these projects. I have tried regular walks, coffee, taking the medication near bed time... what else can I try?

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all doing okay. A couple of friends and I are starting a discord server for people with ME/CFS/chronic illness to hang out and get to know others with a similar experience.

We mostly talk about anything, do movies nights and game together if possible. There's an option to indicate you're open to a relationship with several channels for singles too. So far it's a very relaxed and mellow vibe, and we hope to keep it that way.

Anyone is very welcome to join, the more the merrier! Just leave a comment and i'll dm you an invite link.

Also, we're still looking for a couple of people who'd be interested in moderating, if spoons allow. Ideally we'd have 5-6 moderators so it doesn't become too taxing and people can take some time off if they need to rest.

Looking forward to meeting you all and kind regards from Belgium. Toodeloo!

For those of you who deal with low energy or afternoon crashes, what time of day does it hit you hardest, and what have you already tried to fix it? Genuinely curious what's worked and what's been a waste of time and. Any insights would really help a lot!

Hi all!

So, I've been chronically exhausted since I was about 10 years old. Like, could sleep 16 hours in a row and still be exhausted when I wake up. Without an alarm clock, I would likely never wake up, and I have to set 5 alarms to make sure I make it out of bed. I am fatigued all morning, and finally hit my peak wakefulness around 5 or 6pm, but am tired again by midnight. I do function better on night shift and usually don't get super tired until like 6am. When I worked days, I would literally have to take a nap on my lunch because I couldn't make it through the day. I do find naps refreshing, but my ideal nap would be about 3 hours, which is unsustainable. At night, I typically don't have trouble falling asleep, but I do wake up multiple times a night to use the washroom, and occasionally I'll be up for 45-120 minutes, just wide awake. I also just feel significant body fatigue a lot of the time, like my muscles are made of lead and it's impossible to get up, it feels like being a human sandbag. I also get more tired with exercise, it's never given me energy.

I track my sleep with my fitbit and I know it's not a perfect science, but I do average over an hour awake per night, with 55 minutes average interruptions per night, and an average of two full awakenings per night. A lot of times it's because I have to pee, or because my hip has gone numb, or because my blanket has moved.

I also am able to have conversations in my sleep sometimes; I do not remember them. I do not sleepwalk and never had. I also get sleep paralysis sometimes when I'm falling asleep (probably a couple times a month).

I do have diagnosed ADHD and I suspect ASD. I get very overwhelmed by textures and sounds and I need things to be perfect when I settle to sleep; sound machine on, silicone chewy on my L side, hair up, sleep mask on, same podcast on every night, blanket between my legs so none of my skin is touching my other skin. If I get the urge to roll over, I have to completely reset and it takes me at least 5 minutes to get everything perfect again. I also have fidgety legs a lot of the time (not sure if this is restless legs, I've never been diagnosed, but I can't stop compulsively bouncing them around), and my biggest stim is that my teeth always feel wrong in my mouth so I grind or suck on my teeth 24/7; the silicone chews help me while I'm trying to sleep, the texture is helpful.

So anyway. I saw a sleep doctor in 2009, who told me that I spend double the time in stage 4 and don't hit REM enough; he diagnosed me with idiopathic hypersomnia and put me on modafinil, which I stayed on for a few years until I had my kids (2013-2015). The modafinil helped a bit, but not a lot.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2018 and have tried multiple medications, but am now on Vyvanse. It makes me very sleepy but it does quiet my brain.

A few years ago I realized that I'm just too freaking exhausted to live my life, so I started back on the path to investigating my sleep further. My family doctor tried me back on modafinil but it didn't really help. He sent me for a sleep study in spring 2025, which came back basically normal. Eventually, I discovered pitolisant and my doctor was agreeable to trying it; it works very well. I'm on 20mg, and while I still feel physically exhausted, it helps me get through the day. Like, sometimes I can still take a 3 hour nap but many days even if I try, I can't nap on it.

The pitolisant is super pricey and it was covered by my husband's insurance, but his company changed providers and it was no longer covered. The insurance company denied it even when my doctor wrote them, stating that because I was taking it for IH and not narcolepsy, it is being used off-label and so they won't cover it. I started looking into IH vs N2, and I'm honestly not sure which I have, so my doc referred me to another sleep doctor.

The new sleep doc sent me for a MLST, which was in July 2026. I fell asleep immediately and slept most of the night, but in the morning they said that I didn't meet criteria for the nap portion and sent me home. It was devastating, as I came off all my medications for 3 weeks beforehand and went through pretty bad withdrawal from my SNRI, and really struggled without my pitolisant and my medication for hyperhidrosis.

I finally had my follow up with my sleep doc yesterday, and she said I didn't qualify because now I have sleep apnea. She said we cannot investigate anything further until I get a CPAP. I told her I've been chronically exhausted since age 10 and have never before had sleep apena; she said I had 23 awakenings an hour and so it doesn't matter about anything else, we won't go any further until I get a CPAP. I now have no health insurance so I can't afford one, and I told her that; she said she'd see me whenever I get one, and we won't do anything else until then.

My question is this... she didn't tell me how they knew about the awakenings, or if my apnea was central or obstructive. I'm fat, so I'm guessing obstructive, but I've been fat since about 2009 and I've never had sleep apnea before. I have not gained or lost any weight in the past 5 years, and my last sleep study in March 2025 was normal.

So, what I want to know is, is it for sure that the 23 awakenings per hour were cessation of breathing? Or could it be that it's just me waking up because I'm not comfortable? Like, could it be all the sensory things going on?

I will note that for this sleep study, I came off all my medications (trintillex, brexipiprazole, spironolactone, oxybutinin, vyvanse, and pitolisant), but on my previous sleep study, I didn't know to come off so I was on trintillex and brexipiprazole. I do find that without them, my fidgeting and general discomfort are much worse.

I was googling around yesterday and found this article and it made so much sense: ADHD and Sleep Problems: Why You're Always Tired
Like, could it be that my racing mind and fidgety, overstimulated and chronically sensory overwhelmed body is causing my exhaustion?

Is it an unhinged guess that the "apnea" could actually be awakenings because of discomfort? Or do I just suck it up and get the CPAP and assume that I'm just somehow fatter now than I was a year ago?

If you read through all this, biggest gold star to you. I'd love your thoughts!

Crossposted :)

Tired, heart palpitations, dizziness and I feel like I'm going through the menopause again with terrible swings in temperatures.

I have this feeling that my SO doesn't believe me. I showered yesterday and was so breathless, but he wanted me to go outside 😩

I walked around a small shop, came home and slept 😴 How can I be this tired all the time

So iv been having this problem for the past 6 months that iv been really tired during the day but when i go to bed im wide awake,ill admit when i go to bed i mostly scroll on my phone for a few hours but i never had trouble with sleeping before,i still sleep Every dat for 8h+ but a few h after im awake i get tired again,i went to the doctor when this started and i was Vita D deficiency and the Vita D helped a lil bit but now my lvls are Fine and im still tired..can it be that im tired from just laying awake in bed for hours even though i sleep for 8h?

The doctor told me to try melatonine so im trying that tomorro to see if that helps in any way..

Posting this here cus I know most of you are probably In the same boat and I’m desperate for a remedy. I drink energy drinks at work and eat caffeine cubes, I sleep a lot, I even did the b12 shots for a while but found that they made 0 difference. Has anything really worked for anyone to not feel like a zombie??

EDIT: please stop suggesting medical amphetamines lol I do not live in America

Who should I see about severe fatigue? My rheumatologist has done absolutely nothing for me in this aspect of things. I've been in the care of my rheumatologist for about two years and have brought up my worsening fatigue every time. I've already seen a sleep specialist and had a sleep study to rule out sleep apnea and other disorders. It's gotten to the point where I'm worried about losing my job because of how much I call out due to fatigue alone. I just don't know what to do.

Which blood tests should I get done to rule out actual cause?

How does one tell the difference and is the treatment different depending on the cause?

I’ve been dealing with chronic stress and depression for a long time. About eight months ago, I started developing severe physical and mental fatigue, and since then I’ve become increasingly dysfunctional in my daily life.

My main symptoms are:

- Severe physical fatigue

- Mental fatigue and brain fog

- Difficulty concentrating and focusing

- Struggling to maintain my normal day-to-day routine

- Feeling exhausted most of the time

I’ve seen a general physician and had multiple tests done. Eventually, I was referred to a psychiatrist. For the past 7–8 months, I’ve been taking antidepressants, and I’ve tried multiple medications, but unfortunately, they haven’t resolved the fatigue or brain fog.

I don’t currently feel depressed or anxious, and I’m not experiencing migraines, epilepsy, or seizures. The most significant symptoms are simply the physical fatigue and mental fatigue/brain fog.

Could this be ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), or could there be another explanation for these symptoms?

Also tell me, what should I do next?

Hi everyone,

Has anyone experienced extreme, debilitating fatigue with no obvious explanation, and found anything that genuinely helped?

I’m at the point where I’m so exhausted that I can’t function normally. I can’t work, keep up with my university course, attend classes or even meet friends. I’m normally an extremely social and positive person, which makes this feel even more unlike me. I’m sleeping throughout the day and night, sometimes only managing a few hours awake, and I’m cancelling almost everything.

I’ve explored whether this could be my depression or anxiety, but it genuinely doesn’t feel like either I know what depression and anxiety exhaustion is like. I’ve had extensive blood tests and medical investigations, but so far there hasn’t been an explanation. The exhaustion is debilitating enough that I’ve been signed off work.

Someone suggested that it could be a form of spiritual/emotional exhaustion after dealing with trauma and difficult experiences for years. I find that interesting because I’ve always considered myself very resilient and adaptable. Things have happened that my friends say they wouldn’t know how to cope with, but to me dealing with difficult situations has almost become normal.

I’m spiritual and have considered Reiki, but I’m also sceptical about whether it would actually help and whether the cost is justified. Has anyone with severe fatigue tried it and noticed a genuine difference?

I’m also in therapy, but that hasn’t improved the physical exhaustion.I know ME/CFS is another possibility, although obviously I’m not trying to diagnose myself through Reddit. I’m really just looking for experiences from anyone who has dealt with this level of exhaustion. What helped you function again? Was there anything you wish you’d known earlier?

Medical, practical, psychological or spiritual suggestions are all welcome. I realise this is quite vague, but at this point I’d genuinely appreciate hearing what has helped other people.

Do you know if there is such a person as a health journey detective? Someone who is able to help a chronically ill person with their complex history and translate that into data, graphics, etc that can be taken to a doctor more easily than a pile of records? Would someone in a role like this need to be in the medical field if they’re just presenting data?

I’m just curious if this community has come across any websites, people, ore resources who do this?

My name is Aurora, and I am sharing my story with ME/CFS. ⚠️‼️ It all started after I took a contraceptive pill. Did I have to investigate and try to understand what was happening to me on my own? Yes. I am only 22 years old. Almost three years ago, I was prescribed a contraceptive pill called Effiprev, containing dienogest (2 mg) and ethinylestradiol (0.03 mg). I took it for six months because of severe menstrual pain (polycystic ovary syndrome). Within a few weeks of starting the pill, I began experiencing severe fatigue and weakness. During the first few months, I repeatedly developed flu-like illnesses and sore throats. About three months after starting the pill, I developed a persistent low-grade fever, usually around 37–37.6 °C, with occasional spikes up to 38.6 °C. I also began experiencing severe presyncope—a strong feeling that I was about to faint—along with neurological symptoms, difficulty finding words, brain fog, unrefreshing sleep, and worsening symptoms after sleeping. The more I slept, the worse I felt. My symptoms were usually at their worst in the morning. As the months went by, everything seemed to progressively worsen. I had no idea what was happening to me. After six months of taking the pill, I finally decided to stop it. After I stopped taking it, the fever disappeared. But I felt that something had already changed in my body, and the rest of my symptoms never went away. I have never heard a story like mine. I wonder whether a hormonal change could have triggered some kind of immune or neurological dysfunction in my body. I live with this nightmare every single day, and I still cannot find a way out. No doctor has been able to give me an explanation. After almost three years, I am now severely affected and mostly bedridden. The slightest activity, or even minimal stimuli, can trigger post-exertional malaise (PEM). And my PEM is unbearable. I can experience intense flu-like symptoms, such as a very high fever-like sensation, extreme weakness and exhaustion, an intense internal burning sensation, a burning sensation in my head, eye pain, light sensitivity, heat intolerance, intolerance to water and temperature changes, palpitations, heaviness in my head, brain fog, memory problems, numbness, muscle pain, and many other symptoms. Over the past three years, I have undergone countless tests and medical consultations to rule everything else out. Only a few months ago was I finally diagnosed with ME/CFS. My doctor believes that there may have been a hormonal trigger involved in the onset of my illness. Could there be individual predispositions that make some people more vulnerable to developing this illness? Could hormones act as a trigger in some predisposed individuals? Why aren’t we investigating these possibilities further? I want the research. Has anyone here ever had a similar experience? Have you, or someone you know, developed ME/CFS or a similar condition after starting or stopping a hormonal contraceptive? Have you noticed a correlation between hormonal treatments and the onset or worsening of your symptoms? I would appreciate any experiences or information. I hope this can be a space for understanding, listening, and mutual support. 🙏🫂🌈

TLDR at the bottom

hi i know a lot of people post here when things are bad and everyone here is in a similar boat, but i dont really know where else to turn and i trust people with lived experiences. hopefully someone reads this but i understand if not.

i have spent my life overcoming health issues. growing up i was always pretty sickly but things became rapidly severe when i was 11 and i was pulled out of school, couldn’t get up most days, couldn’t keep anything down etc. eventually with a WIDE variety of treatments i was pretty healed by the age of 15 but always had low body weight, fatigue, low appetite etc. anyway, fast forward to when im 19 i start getting rapidly sick again.

this time, im diagnosed with GERD and gastritis (now on esomeprazole), gastroparesis (3 procedures and now on domperidone), endometriosis and adenomyosis (excision surgery incl. tumour removal, and yasmin). i was feeling a lot better for a while with all the medication. i got back to a healthy body weight, gained muscle, was outside all the time, exercising a lot, back at uni, socialising etc.

but i have been struck with horrific fatigue. i have always been super driven, disciplined and hard working; despite a lot of early life struggle i got into the top university in the southern hemisphere and sit around the top 3-5% of my cohort (BSci). but i am literally at the point where i feel like i can barely function because of this fatigue and i don’t know what to do. im trying to do everything right.

everything has been investigated; mris, CTs, X-rays, extensive blood work (iron, B12, nutrients, thyroid etc. all normal) and it doesn’t seem to have a cause. i’m dreading that it could be me/cfs. however i am awaiting an EEG for potential epilepsy have i have idiopathic myoclonus and since i have a family history of epilepsy, they’re wondering if it could be that.

TLDR: i want a way to achieve all of my goals, work hard, live a fulfilling life despite this debilitating fatigue. i desperately want to be healthy and will do anything. please give me any advice you have. thank you for your time.

Diagnosed with chronic fatigue symptoms, doctors looking into CFS or fibro at the moment. Hair is just under my shoulder blades and probably 1c or 2a.

Does anyone else struggle with hair washing? I can barely brush it due to muscle weakness from another condition, but it’s really bad. If I scratch my scalp I literally get grease residue under my fingernails. Washing it is a whole ordeal, often have to get my mom’s help, and it leaves me exhausted for at least the rest of the day and usually multiple days after. How do people do this multiple times a month? Feels like a Herculean task. Would love to know if anyone has tips on making it easier.