Severe Fatigue - Management/Recovery Time

I went through a 10 year period of full blown chronic fatigue syndrome (ie 3 flights of stairs wiped me out), so I’ll throw in my two cents worth (disclaimer - this is not medical advice, just what I learned over the years). There is a blurring of lines btw over training syndrome (or UUPS - unexplained under performance syndrome) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/CFS (or ME - myalgic encephelomyelitis (sp?)). I had the latter, possibly caused by the former, or maybe from Gulf War service, who knows? I would: start with rest and see if the symptoms improve; see your doc and have TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels checked - if it’s high (like >3.5), it may be a symptom of something larger; a lot of athletes w/ UUPS respond well to rest and Prozac (or for me Wellbutrin), even if there is no depression component. If all that fails, then you may need to look more at at adrenal stress and/or CFS/ME. There’s a company in Austin called Neurogistics that has a home test kit for neurotransmitters; they will recommend treatment based on the results. If that fails, possibly test for re-activation of childhood viruses such as Roseola, Mono and (if I recall correctly) a human form of Parvo (about 40% of CFS patients have reactivation of a virus; I had mono and roseola). Also, if possible, test for inflammatory markers like cytokines and interleukins (all of mine were 2-3 standard deviations above normal); you can also look at natural killer cell activity that would indicate a virus. Another problem can be metabolic - a graded exercise test w/ gas exchange can reveal a problem w/ your aerobic metabolism (for example, I was hitting anerobic threshold at a HR of 107, so I was not burning fat at all and was constantly glycogen depleted). Hope that helps. Keep us posted on your progress

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