Heart of Texas Women's Center - Georgetown Texas

Chronic Fatigue in Women

It’s no wonder many women are prone to chronic fatigue. It is very common nowadays for a woman to commute to work 40 plus hours a week and to zoom home to the demands of children, aging parents, and running a household. She is expected to remain on the go throughout the day and often is so tired at the end of the day has trouble getting a good night’s sleep. Fatigue has a way of mounting up rather than going away after a rest period. Ordinary fatigue turns into chronic fatigue, a condition that can silently undermine their relationships, work, home life and eventually their health.

Often healthcare providers will not take conditions of fatigue seriously simply because it is not a disease. It is also considered a normal symptom of today’s busy life style. But left unchecked it can lead to an unhealthy downward spiral which includes premature aging, compromised immune function and eventually, a heightened risk of disease.

Once any serious medical condition has been ruled out, chronic fatigue begins as a deceptively simple problem where the demands on your body are greater than the support it is getting. The pattern starts as mild fatigue, symptoms persist and usually worsen with time, and a good night’s sleep leaves you feeling just as tired as before. Recognize this pattern as chronic fatigue. Check out the ways to get your energy back and restore your love of life before the condition takes over. Symptoms of chronic fatigue tend to slowly worsen over time. Women, who are multi-taskers, often ignore their fatigue until it leads to other symptoms such as depression, binge-eating and weight gain.

Symptoms of fatigue can show in many ways. For many women these symptoms ebb and flow with their monthly cycle. With chronic fatigue, these symptoms last for weeks or more. Eventually the symptoms are nearly constant. They include: feelings of exhaustion (both mental and physical), being tired in the morning, feeling rundown or overwhelmed, inability to bounce back from being sick, stress headaches, joint pain, uncharacteristic muscle soreness after physical exertion, depressed mood, loss of energy, poor short-term memory, confusion, irritability, lightheadedness, strong food cravings (particularly for sweets or other carbohydrates), dependence on caffeine, sugar or alcohol (especially in the afternoon and early evening), and “second winds” after 6:00pm.

If you feel any of these for more than a stretch of ten days or so, call your doctor to have some blood tests run. This will rule out any serious secondary conditions like bacterial infection or a virus. Most likely your doctor will be concerned because many illnesses and diseases begin with symptoms of fatigue. Remember a healthy, balanced body and mind, given adequate food, sleep and water, should not feel tired for any extended period of time. Being tired all the time is not an acceptable part of any age or modern life.

Even if your conventional blood tests return as normal, don’t disregard persistent symptoms of fatigue. Chronic fatigue is complicated. Sometimes modern testing doesn’t reveal the true results. Holistic and functional medicine does. Discover what your individual body needs are. How do you begin to help yourself when it comes to fatigue? Correcting patterns of some of the common causes is the way to start. Things that should be considered and carefully looked into are your sleep, emotional health, stress, dietary habits, nutritional supplements, water intake, and your daily exercise or activity program.

About the Author: Dr. Matthew Romberg, a Round Rock OBGYN specializing in obstetrical and gynecologic care, is the President of the Heart of Texas Women’s Center. The Heart of Texas Women’s Center provides state of the art health care including surgical procedures, family planning counseling, complete prenatal care including high risk pregnancy management, in-house ultrasonography and well-woman services. For more information, please visit http://www.hotwc.com.

Labels: chronic fatigue, symptoms of fatigue, what is fatigue

posted by Heart of Texas Women's Center @ 1:06 PM