When You Are Always Tired

When you always feel tired and exhausted and you find your lingering tiredness constant that it limits your productivity, you must be suffering from a medical condition that is simply called fatigue (or chronic fatigue syndrome or systemic exertion intolerance disease). The symptoms of fatigue are similar to how you feel when you have flu or have missed a lot of sleep. You wake up in the morning feeling as if you did not sleep at all, you don’t function at work or in school and you are always unproductive at home. You may feel so exhausted that you can’t even cope up with or manage schedules and daily affairs.

Common clinical causes of chronic fatigue

1. Allergies (dust mites, pollen, and bites and stings of insects, like cockroaches or bed bug or “surot”), nasal congestion (allergic rhinitis), and seasonal itchiness (commonly called “tagulabay” that is brought about by the rainy season or the hot weather).

2. Anemia (when you do not have enough red blood cells). Feeling cold and irritable. It is the most common blood condition. In childbearing women, fatigue brought about by anemia can be caused by heavy menstrual cycles.

3. Depression (feeling of sadness, hopelessness, worthlessness) and Anxiety (excessive worrying, fear, panic, phobias). A condition called seasonal depression is present in some people when it is dark the whole day or sunlight is not visible from the sky (winter time or perhaps during continuous heavy rainfall). People who had experienced heavy flooding can have the feeling of being “always on alert” when the rains pour down.

4. Fibromyalgia (deep muscle pain, tender joints). People, particularly students and employees, who suffer from muscle aches, have hazy mental feeling (“lutang ang utak” or “fibro fog”) that makes them difficult to concentrate.

5. Heart disease and Hypertension. Underlying heart condition that can trigger high blood pressure or vice versa, can be a cause of fatigue even in an activity that should be easy.

6. Rheumatoid Arthritis. Painful joints and morning stiffness give you the feeling of tiredness even in the waking-up hours of the morning.

7. Sleep apnea (snoring) and Insomnia. You feel exhausted and you feel tired and sleepy during daytime. Being overweight and smoking are factors for sleep apnea. Psychological factors are related to insomnia.

8. Type 2 Diabetes (non-insulin dependent or adult onset diabetes) can increase your thirst, hunger, and urination. You may involuntarily lose weight and you always feel wasted and tired.

9. Underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism). This condition results to sluggishness, weight gain, and run down feeling.

(To be continued)