Sick and tired of being sick and tired?

I sure am!  It’s been 18months since I was diagnosed, and while I am much much better, I am still unable to exercise or even go a day without taking a nap.

Here are a few tips on how to deal with ongoing fatigue:

Listen to your body
It’s trying to tell you something! It may take time and trial and error, but you will be able to learn signs of impending tiredness, and then stop before it becomes worse.
Every body is different, so everyone may have different signs. They could include:

Liver/spleen – in the earlier stages of my illness, my liver would start aching if I was pushing myself too much – quite handy!

Eyes – now I’ve learnt to look at my eyes – if they are dull, I know to be careful on that day.

Nausea – if I am feeling sick and not wanting to eat, I know I need a good rest.

Emotions – if I am feeling unneccessarily angry, upset or sensitive, I know I need some physical recovery time.

Weather – not what you’d typically think would make a difference, but you may be surprised! When the weather is humid and/or hot, I feel more tired and drained.

Reduce & Avoid Stress
Mental and emotional stress will drain you of your precious energy. Even if you are feeling alright physically, mental and emotional stress will make you more tired. This is good general advice for everyone, but even more important for sufferers of these illnesses.
I’ve had to learn to relax and take a ‘bigger picture’ perspective to not get so stressed about daily things at work, school and family.

Create checks and balances
Since my energy has increased, I am more tempted than ever to go out into the world and live!
But this is a trap, as bodies take time to heal fully.

Things you can do to make sure you don’t push too much, include:
- not scheduling too many things into your day, eg plan for resting periods
- don’t commit to too many things, because you will feel guilty and obliged to do them even if you are tired
- when going to a social event, tell yourself and others upfront that you will be leaving at a certain time. Get an understanding friend to tell you to leave, even if you feel like you have the energy to stay a little longer
- rest a little, even if you feel you don’t need to. This will ensure you have a longer period of energy, rather than using it all up and then having to rest a lot to recover.
Healthy eating
Good for everyone to do, imperative for us to do.
We need to give our bodies as much help to fight this illness as we can! Do so by giving it plenty of healthy, nutritious food and eating a broad variety of foods to keep up the vitamin levels.
Drinks lots of water and fluids as well.

Have the courage to say no
This one’s tough!
Have the courage to say no and rest. Even if others don’t understand. Even if they think you are being lazy.
This is hard because it seems like our society is programmed to be active and resting is considered lazy and bad. Just turn your tv and this message is constantly given; pay attention to ads for cold and flu medicines – rather than telling you to go home and rest, they tell you “don’t let the cold keep you from being active”.

I know it may be hard for family and friends to understand, especially months and years into the illness. Their patience may be running low and they may say things like “are you still sick? But it’s been so long”. Yes, you’re telling me!
Share your experience
Writing and talking about your illness will help.
It will help with you dealing with the illness and maybe even drawing some meaning from it. I’ve learnt many things from this illness and am very grateful.

You could write about the illness, plan your future for when you are healthy again, or affirm to yourself that you are getting better every day.
I drew little cartoon characters of my body’s cells fighting the virus cells. It kept me entertained and reinforced to myself that I am getting better.

What do you think?
Do you have any other things that help you deal with it?

Alright, you’ve been diagnosed, you’ve had it for a while, you know it will take time to recover. So you know that you need to take it easy and not push yourself too hard.

So how do you know if you have accepted the reality of your condition, or have resigned yourself to a life of small amounts of energy?

Good question…. What do you think?

Perhaps the answer lies in your approach. Perhaps ‘acceptance’ is making peace with the fact that you cannot give 110% energy as often as you would like, but that it’s ok. I think this is easier to feel, the more energy you have.  Then maybe ‘resignation’ is done with an air of giving up, of hopelessness.

I think this questions touches on a deeper question of control. There are some things you can control, and others that you can’t. Our job is to figure out which is which.

In regards to the glandular fever, personally, I believe it is better to be hopeful and keep looking to the future. You WILL get better. Maybe sooner, maybe later, but it WILL happen. If it doesnt, isn’t it better for you mentally and spiritually to believe that it is?

My, so many questions! What do you think?

This is something I was not prepared for. I was told by the dozens of doctors I saw that I will feel tired and may get a bit depressed. THAT’S IT!

Mentally

Something that made the experience very hard for me was that the mental fuzziness that came with the illness. I couldn’t concentrate on things, I’d forget what I was saying midway through a sentence, and simply forgot a lot of things that were told to me. This was hard because I am normally quite mentally active and was unprepared for this ‘symptom’.

I often felt that I would have preferred a broken leg or similar, because while I would be bedridden also I would at least be able to be productive and contribute to work and do school work at least.

 All I can say is don’t worry, it WILL pass. Sooner or later for some, but it will happen. I remember the first day I didn’t have the mental fog – it was amazing! I had been foggy for so long I had forgotten how glorious it is too be mentally clear.

What did you experience?

How long did it take for you to get better?

Ah yes. The ‘outside’ consequences of these illnesses on life, such as school & work etc.

 I have heard stories about some wonderful organisations that have held job positions for months and those that allow shorter hours and work from home. I applaud you!

 Then there are those that seemed not to care and worse, not even try to.

Some organisations have illness allowances or special consideration (schools & universities) for this sort of thing. This is great. However, we have to jump through a lot of hoops to get the paperwork done.

 For example, work will give you leave if you have a doctor’s certificate. So we need a doctors certificate – easy, right? NO. We can barely get out of bed – do you know how much energy it takes to go to the doctor? More than we have! And then it will take us a week to recover from the visit and completely slows down the process.

Ok, now we need to fill out the institutional form – easy, right? NO. Form filling out requires decision-making. We are too damn tired to hardly move, let alone think clearly.

So now we’ve filled out the form. All we need to do is hand it in – easy, right? NO. Some institutions require us to physically hand the form in. HELLO! What do you think is wrong with us in the first place!?

 But, to be fair, it may be hard for organisations to truly appreciate what these illness are like, especially if some ‘leading experts’ say CFS doesn’t exist. And perhaps there are scammers out there trying to capitalize on actual suffers, who knows?

So what do we do about it?

I’m writing about it and providing a place for people to share their story. If enough people want to help, we can change this.

 What can you do to help?

This is something I was not prepared for. I was told by the dozens of doctors I saw that I will feel tired and may get a bit depressed. THAT’S IT!

Emotionally

This is hard. Even now, this is the hardest to write about. I guess that therefore might make it the most important.

One of the most obvious reactions is frustration. Frustration that you got sick in the first place, frustration that your lifestyle is now completely changed and frustration that there is no cure or definite ‘end time’.

As a person who likes to plan and prepare, this was particularly hard for me. While broken limbs are no fun, at least there is a usual 6week recovery period. And during those 6weeks you can at least still do school, work and socialize.

In our case, it is our energy that is broken. This is harder to deal with and harder to fix.

Sadness & Depression. This is the lowest I have ever felt. It seems like a vicious cycle because you are depressed and therefore want to curl up and cry and are not motivated to do anything. Not doing anything is depressing though, so then you get even more depressed. What sucked was that I could not even escape into the sweet relief of sleep, because I had trouble sleeping (quite torturous really – being too tired to even move, but not being able to sleep; like being stuck in horrible limbo).

From speaking to others who have had Glandular Fever and Chronic Fatigue, we agree that sometimes it is worth not resting and doing something like hanging out with friends. While you may spend the next week recovering in bed, mentally and socially you feel better and, let’s face it, everything is easier to handle when you are happy.

This is where friends and family are critically important. Their support and understanding means the world – I cannot even begin to express my gratitude.

I have seen sites where people say they have been suffering from Glandular Fever for many years, and even some that say to just accept it and put up with mediocre energy and health.

I cannot comment on their experience or point of view, but I can tell you this: to keep from spiraling into a hopeless depression, it is better to be hopeful and optimistic. Have faith that you will recover. Realistic or not, I feel better when I believe that I am getting better.

 What about you? What was the hardest part for you?