Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is as hard to treat as it is to diagnose. Usually when a person goes to the doctor complaining about fatigue they are put through a battery of tests. The first thing the doctor wants to check is your blood work. They are mainly looking at your thyroid function and to see if you have anemia, among other things. If those tests are normal then they run down the list. I had a sleep study and pulmonary function testing. If those come back normal then it is common for the doctor to assume the cause of the fatigue is depression. Of course I was depressed. I couldn’t function any more. You would be depressed, too.
I was prescribed anti-depressants, or should I say I was prescribed different anti-depressants since I had been taking them for years. While I waited for those to work it was suggested that I begin exercising. I thought that was funny. Here I was complaining that the walk from my couch to the kitchen was wearing me out and they wanted me to run a marathon. It seemed to me that they didn’t understand the extent of my fatigue.
I attempted to try walking every day. The first day I had to turn around after walking about 5 minutes. I just couldn’t do it. I bought an exercise machine and attempted to use that. Before long it sat unused in my living room, taking up space that was needed so it was sold.
I was also advised to see a counselor. I searched for a long time before I was able to find one that would take my insurance and then went to see him weekly to talk about how tired I was. He would make suggestions on things I could do, like taking a shower daily, and when I couldn’t I felt even worse.
So far I had done everything that was suggested to me. I was eating healthy and gave up junk food. I quit smoking. I took anti-depressants and saw a counselor. I took handfuls of vitamins. And I didn’t get better.
So what finally helped? For me it was just time. I don’t know if it was a culmination of all the things I was doing or if I would have eventually gotten better anyway. It definitely wasn’t sudden. Just gradually I was able to do things like the laundry or the dishes. I was able to get dressed every day. Some days I felt well enough to meet with friends. I even started looking into going back to school with the hopes of being able to go back to work.
That isn’t to say I am cured. I am still not very energetic even though last summer I was able to ride my bike almost every day, one day for 2 hours. I still have days when I have a hard time getting moving. I fight giving in to the fatigue but some days I lose the battle. Because Chronic Fatigue is just that, chronic. I may have some good days and some not so good days but it never seems to go away.