Fatigue symptoms, remedies and treatment

Fatigue is defined as a lack of energy and motivation, both physically and mentally. While it is not the same as tiredness, fatigue generally causes an increased desire to sleep. Sufferers of extreme fatigue feel exhausted and run down as well as experiencing other physical and emotional symptoms.

While everybody experiences tiredness, this can usually be solved through a good night’s sleep and some rest. However, if this tiredness is excessive and isn’t solved by sleep and rest, you may suffer from fatigue.

Fatigue is not simply feeling tired or drowsy. When you’re feeling fatigued you lack energy. You may experience difficulty concentrating, lowered stamina or dizziness. While being tired may be a symptom of fatigue, it’s not the same thing.

Fatigue can cause many physical, mental and emotional symptoms. The main symptoms of fatigue include:

Everyone who suffers from fatigue will experience it differently. To some fatigue may be mild and not interfere with their daily lives, while for others it can have a very disruptive effect.

Fatigue can affect the way that you think and feel. You may have difficulty concentrating, impacting your work and your leisure time. You may become impatient with those around you, or avoid socialising because it is too much effort.

You may experience a whole range of physical, mental and emotional symptoms.

Feeling fatigued is a common symptom of many medical conditions. When you see a doctor they will try to identify the causes for your fatigue; initially the doctor will attempt to rule out any physical health conditions that may be the underlying cause. Examples of these conditions include:

Many mental health conditions can also cause constant tiredness. Studies have shown that conditions such as anxiety and depression are common causes of fatigue.

If you suffer from any of the following conditions, this may be a cause of your fatigue:

An honest analysis of your lifestyle is often the first step towards reducing constant fatigue. Your activities and other lifestyle choices may be the cause of extreme tiredness. Fatigue can result from:

Adults typically need around eight hours of sleep every night. Getting too much or too little sleep can add to your feeling of extreme fatigue. It is important not to rely on naps taken during the day.

Try to settle into a routine of good quality sleep. Where possible, eliminate any disturbances such as noise or light, and ensure you have a comfortable sleeping environment, to improve the quality of your sleep. Keeping a log of how much sleep you are getting and when will help you identify what changes you need to make.

Long hours, excessive physical exertion, irregular work or night shifts can all contribute to fatigue. A stressful job, or one that disrupts your natural sleep cycle, can have a severe impact on your body.

Working too hard can lead to burnout, and can have an impact on your social life and personal interests. Financial pressures, repetitive tasks or boredom can also cause undue mental strain. If you feel that your work is having a negative impact on your sleep or health in general, try talking to your manager or HR department, or examining opportunities to change.

Due to the wide range of causes, it can be difficult to understand exactly why you’re feeling tired all the time. Medicspot offers a comprehensive blood test to identify physical causes for your tiredness.

For most people where there is no physical cause, fatigue will get better over time on its own or by making some simple lifestyle changes. Increased exercise, reduced stress and a healthy diet can all help reduce the effects of fatigue.

However, if constant tiredness is a symptom of a wider medical condition, curing your fatigue will generally mean resolving the underlying cause. Thankfully, many conditions which cause fatigue are easily treated.

It is important to actively plan your day when you are suffering from fatigue. Try to be realistic about what you can do so that you don’t exhaust yourself. Allow yourself time to rest and to do the things you most want to do.

We all know the importance of a clean and tidy home, but it can prove difficult to keep your home as you’d like it while suffering from fatigue. Tasks can add up when you can’t find the energy or motivation to complete them.

It may help to spread your tasks out over the course of your week, doing a little bit each day rather than attempting the whole task in one go. You can also make chores easier by sitting down to do them where possible, using a wheeled shopping bag when visiting the shops, and using anti fatigue mats, long-handled dusters, mops and dustpans.

Leaving the home can be challenging when suffering from fatigue. If you find that you can’t, ask friends or family to do the shopping for you. Another option is shopping online and having it delivered. However, getting outside for a walk is good for your cardiovascular health and mental health too.

If you can leave the home but still find yourself lacking energy, there are steps you can take to make shopping easier.

The laundry can easily be forgotten when low on energy or motivation. To make things easier for you when suffering from fatigue, follow these steps:

Healthy eating habits can help ease your recovery from fatigue, so it is important to keep cooking where possible. However, there are many easy tips that can help to ease this along:

Looking after your family can be hard at the best of times, but fatigue can make this even more difficult. Extreme tiredness might make you feel like you’re letting your children down or can’t spend enough time with them.

Thankfully, there are simple steps that you can take to help make child-care easier for yourself:

Fatigue can impact the amount of work you can do from day-to-day, or whether you can work at all. It can help to talk to your employer about fatigue as you may need some time off due to illness or treatment. Your doctor can help you with a fit note that will inform your employer of any adaptations that they can make to ensure you can still work and stay healthy.

Don’t push yourself to work if you’re too tired as this can make your fatigue worse. However, if you do want to keep working, you can make suggestions to your employer that could support you:

Poor dietary habits and being overweight are significant risk factors for fatigue. Dietary habits that can lead to fatigue include eating too much junk food, lacking vitamins or minerals, or eating foods that you have an intolerance of.

There are a number of simple steps you can take to help reduce the risks of your diet causing fatigue:

It’s important to keep active even when you feel like you don’t have the energy to do so. While too much exercise might make you more tired, so will too little. Try to find the right balance for you.

Light exercise such as walking has been shown to reduce fatigue and aid sleep. Where possible, try to build some light exercise into your daily routine and monitor how it affects your sleep.

While fatigue may make you want to sleep all the time, it is important to maintain a normal sleeping pattern even when you’re ill. Good quality sleep may help fight fatigue as well as reduce your need to rest during the day.

If you think that irregular sleep may be causing you fatigue, try the following tips:

It is very important to find time for relaxation if you suffer from fatigue. Stress can use up your energy and make you feel even more tired.

Try to find the right form of relaxation for you. This may be talking to friends, meditation, light exercise, or practising mindfulness and breathing exercises. Experiment to find the method of relaxation that works for you.

You may find it difficult to talk about fatigue, especially as the condition can negatively affect your mental health. However, discussing your symptoms honestly and openly with a doctor is essential to getting the right treatment. You should never feel embarrassed as your care and wellbeing is their priority, and they understand how the physical, social and psychological elements of your life are strongly linked.

You may also want to attend local support groups or talk to other sufferers of fatigue. Accepting and moving past the stigma of the illness will help you to find solutions that work for you.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a long-term condition of extreme fatigue or tiredness that does not pass and cannot be explained by an underlying medical condition.

Also known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) or SEID (systemic exertion intolerance disease), chronic fatigue syndrome can affect anyone, including children. However, it is more common in women and usually develops between your mid-20s and mid-40s.

Everybody suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome is likely to have their own experience of the condition, and this may be determined by the type of CFS that they have. While severity often changes over time, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) defines three levels of CFS.

People suffering from ‘mild’ CFS are able to carry on with everyday tasks such as work or education, but these activities become more difficult. Because their spare time is needed for rest, they may give up hobbies or sacrifice their social life.

People suffering from ‘moderate’ CFS struggle to move around easily and everyday tasks become difficult to complete. They may give up work or education, sleep frequently in the afternoon, rest between activities and have trouble sleeping at night.

People suffering from ‘severe’ or ‘very severe’ CFS experience mobility issues and may require the use of a wheelchair. They may spend most of the day in bed and find themselves unable to leave the house. They may also suffer sensitivity to noise and light.

People suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome experience extreme tiredness. However, other symptoms include:

While it isn’t known what exactly causes CFS, there are a number of explanations. Chronic fatigue syndrome may be triggered by an infection, while certain factors may make you more likely to develop the illness.

Problems with the immune system, viral infections, bacterial infections, hormonal imbalances, mental health problems, such as stress, and genetics may all contribute to chronic fatigue syndrome.

As there is no specific test for chronic fatigue syndrome, your GP will diagnose you based on your symptoms. CFS has many symptoms that are similar to other illnesses, so your GP will ask your medical history and may organise some tests to look for other causes.

As there is no cure for chronic fatigue syndrome, treatment aims to relieve your symptoms. The treatment offered to you will depend on how CFS affects you.

Treatments for CFS include cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), graded exercise therapy (GET) and medicine to help with your mood, control your pain or aid sleeping problems.

Most sufferers of CFS get better over time, although some don’t make a full recovery. Your symptoms will likely vary in severity over time. Children and young people with CFS are most likely to recover fully.

It can be difficult living with CFS. Physical symptoms and extreme fatigue can impact your daily life, maybe forcing you to make some lifestyle changes. CFS can also take its toll on your mental and emotional health and impact your self-esteem.

It is important to turn to your family and friends for support, as well as other people with CFS.

Charities such as the ME Association provide information, support and advice for people affected by chronic fatigue syndrome. You can also find a support group near you on their website.

Medicspot offers comprehensive blood tests designed for those who feel tired all the time, fatigued or low on energy.

Medicspot’s Fatigue Test includes an extensive set of tests to help pinpoint the cause of your tiredness:

There are clear guidelines available to help doctors diagnose chronic fatigue. This may involve a doctor asking you about your medical history and performing an examination. Your doctor may offer you specific blood tests to help rule out conditions such as an underactive thyroid gland or anaemia.

Medicspot offers same-day private doctor appointments at hundreds of locations across the UK.

The Medicspot diagnostic station allows doctors to remotely listen to your chest, measure your oxygen levels, and take your temperature to effectively diagnose your health condition.

Dr Abby Hyams grew up in Manchester and did her medical training in Bristol. She has been a GP for over ten years, many of them as a partner in an NHS practice in Hemel Hempstead. Dr Hyams loves being a GP because of the wide spectrum of people she encounters every day.

Dr Adam Abbs qualified as a doctor from Hull York Medical School in 2010. He started training in hospital medicine but then retrained as a general practitioner. Following leading the development of urgent care services in North Manchester, he joined Medicspot in April 2019. He has a special interest in urgent care and also volunteers for numerous children’s cancer charities.

Rajan Mistry qualified as a pharmacist from The University of Hertfordshire in 2014. He completed his pre-registration with Boots and managed the store in Stanmore, London. Rajan has worked in both community and hospital pharmacies, giving him exposure to clinical governance and dispensing. He is particularly interested in minor ailments and infectious diseases. Rajan joined Medicspot to help make pharmacies the first port of call in primary care and broaden their clinical services.

This article is for general information only and should not be used for the diagnosis or treatment of medical conditions. Medicspot Limited has used all reasonable care in compiling the information but makes no warranty as to its accuracy. Consult a doctor or other health care professional for diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. In the event of an emergency, please call 999 for immediate assistance.