You mention about working on the organic basis of fatigue in these conditions? Are you doing some research? You basing it on your own experiences? The fatigue must be difficult to quantify in some people, seeing as some people’s fatigue is made worse by the hopelessness they feel with their symptoms.
Yes, like Dr Diana, I am researching, using my own body ‘comfort’ as a measure of success. I was studying my levels of pain and looking for ways of reducing it using better management, without having to take painkillers all the time (which didn’t work anyway, as they only addressed pain to a very superficial level). The pain I was suffering wasn’t just one pain, it was various types of pain, bone, joint, muscle, etc suffered concurrently, all triggered by different things and I was trying to isolate each of these and their causes, for better management.
Some pains I woke up with and needed movement to alleviate, some needed fluids, some needed stillness, some needed warmth, some needed joint support, some needed a correction in posture, some needed avoidance of particular action (like holding arms up!). I realised that any level of exertion triggered pain too (either at the time – or later!), whereas just remaining upright brought on a full body discomfort which was immediately alleviated by sitting down and I (or the scientist in me) needed to know why all of this was happening.
One of the pains I attributed to muscle fatigue, it was so bad that I could only use my exercise cycle for 30 seconds before lactic acid pain set in sharply in my calf muscles! I had to stop and wait for it to dissipate before continuing. Each time I continued, the length of time I could pedal got less and less. This test was repeatable and consistent. Using that as a benchmark I ventured into the realms of chronic fatigue.
I wondered if it was autonomic dysfunction causing it, or something more at cellular level, so started looking at mitochondrial function (or dysfunction, to be more precise). Anyway, I paid to get tested and you can see my results in the post titled “The Chronic Fatigue Element” (slap it in the “search” box above if you need to know more detail). Basically lots of things were happening (or not happening, as the case may be). So I am taking on board the recommendations bit by bit to see which brings a changed result.
Regards
Barbara
(UK)