lifetime lethergy

even if there is no current liver damage - the only treatment is to drain blood, and therefore dilute the iron level, otherwise they continue to build and cause all those problems .... life's little spanners! at least i now have an answer, but am angry at the waste of the last 40 years spent in an exhausted haze, and the demoralising caused by being classified as lazy or a layaround slob.

hubby didn't say much last night - i think he might have been feeling guilty over all the times he would say "get with the game" and basically force me into activity when i pleaded tiredness - or - when he'd brush off my plea of exhaustion with flippant comments. i have read that being undiagnosed can be just a tough on the partner with the exhaustion, crankiness and mood swings etc.

anyhow - i am supposed to be painting the laundry that i haven't done all week!
 
Without sounding preachy and ignoring the moral reasons most people like me do it, have you looked into a vegan diet? It's not as drastic as it sounds and I've heard of people making remarkable recoveries or improvements from all kinds of medical conditions by cutting out or heavily reducing their animal product intake - not just meat but dairy too (and no, iron isn't a problem as many people mistakenly presume. You'll never have too much and you can easily control what you intake, which sounds important for your condition).

The health benefits are substantial. Just throwing ideas out there for you as I get the idea you're a go-getter who may be willing to try things to test if they improve your condition.

Best of luck with it. I hate blood tests too so can totally relate to your fear there.
 
I have good veins. Nurses love my veins and always comment on them.

My uncle is a nurse. By extension his girlfriends are ALWAYS nurses. So at family get togethers at Christmas (which is usually hot and I'm usually in a t-shirt) there's always some strange woman sitting next to me who HAS to comment "oooh, what lovely veins" :mad:

So, it could be worse.

I had my iron levels routinely checked and they came out at fractionally above the centre of the normal range - you would have had the same test when you had Junior - and someone online told me they won't flag anything wrong unless you're over 500somethingsperlitre. The normal range is like 40-150 somethings a litre, and I'm pulling these numbers out of a hat because I can't remember them but if you rang up a 450 you wouldn't have raised any alarm bells. Do you still have any of your old test results from Junior lying around, or in the doc's system?
 
I agreed with all that Player wrote about why not post soemthing in the open forum for all t o see etc and his suggestions.

re allergies these are important. I know a guy who travels around australia doing very quick , simple and thourough allergy testig that can really make a difference to however a health issue is showing for you, whether its tiredness or excema or headaches. It takes 20 minutes and prints out a huge list and how allergic you are to each item. if you stay away from them for 6 months even your body gets stronger

wheat various allergies and even fruit can make me tired with things like candida or allergies.

alot of women especially as they get older apparently dont do well on grains or fruit they do better on mostly protein and veges otherwise they can feel very tired.

Thyroid is important but very hard to detect properly some tests are more accurate than others or may have to be redone. I think its a saliva test that is most accurate but costly. Even slight imbalances can really throw you out. My doctor uses kinisiology also as a testing tool which can be very helpful especially with things like thyroid that can be so hard to detect apparently.

I have been lucky to see a doctor who uses many different forms of diagnosis and treatment, conventional and complementary, from all the latest knowledge and techniques eg vitamins, vitamin drips even, qx machine, vega machine, and kinisiology. She can use kinisiology( muscle testing, simple and helpful) to test up situations and needs and that can really be a huge help.

I was exhausted for years, but there WERE huge stresses and workload causing it. when some of my kids moved out my health suddenly improved while before then anything i tried didnt help enough.

When i saw this new doctor, she did all the latest research and methods with thyroid, hormones, allergies, diet, supps,
as well as vitamin drips and qx machine . I had a very sick daughter at the time, and i knew i should be waking up feeling like a mess, but i wasnt, my energy had improved immediately and very noticably with this doctors supps, qx machine, and vitamin b and magnesium drips, and some sort of b injection.

currently though i do notice i do well if i do manage to have a quick doze off in the middle of the day, or stop and take a break when i start to feel more tired or start getting a headache. a short rest can really help.

I read a book where it listed all the things to tackle in order to solve energy issues
such as thyroid, hormones, allergies, diet, supps, sleep, stress, digestion, adrenals,

Adrenal supports can help if it is adrenals. some people are born with deficient adrenals if they were born to parents who are burnt out.

I have the notes from 2 books i read on fatigue by famous expert doctors, and took notes from on the topic if you are interested, but after reading them and taking avid notes i realised my doctor was already doing all those things. However one of these doctors has supps they had developed including something called corvalen, and he writes that some people just dont improve without this corvalen. I ordered it from the us together with his energy supplement which has various things in it so that instead of taking several vitamins, his contains alot in it already. His book was called from fatigued to fantastic and unsure what his website is that has his supps and i can send you notes from his and another famous doctors book on the topic.

I've read if you wake up tired it could be dehydration, liver or thyroid, but it can be more things than that.

for dehydration some of us the water we drink goes straight through us. there is a simple method called 'reset' that is taught all over the world and is very easy and can help with many issues, including dehydration and energy and helping the water we drink to stay in the body longer and not just pass through us. also apparently putting a pinch of salt in the water helps it to be retained by the body instead of just passing through

I do find regular massage does in that one hour instantly pick up my energy . so its good to learn what works for you and do it regularly.
GOOD LUCK. others who dont live with deep fatigue just dont understand which can also be stressful. I have learnt to do as much as possible by phone, courier or fax to conserve my energy.
 
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A useless bit of information that's totally unhelpful, but haemochromatosis was the 'mystery' illness on House the other night! I'd never heard of it until you started this post, then saw it on TV!

Things come in 3's so they say, so I wonder where I'll hear of it next.
 
saw that too ... although would've been nice if the patient had some of the actual symptons instead of just going full blown - although, i suppose "most" of the sympton don't show until later in life when the buildup is severe but the lethary can be lifetime.

yes - that is a side effect. i won't be able to eat raw shellfish anymore, and i do looooove raw oysters. i guess very very lucky that i haven't been stuck down before. basically there is a virus that lives in shellfish that can be fatal to those with iron buildup ... it also means i shouldn't walk barefoot on the beachuntil my levels are right down again incase one cuts their foot on a shell. just as well summer is nearly over.

on the bright side - wow - if i have achieved what i have over 40 years of living in a hazy fog, imagine what the next 40 years will be like in the clear!
 
will be interesting to see how much better you feel after straightening out your iron Lizzie.

if you aren't keen on needles, you could always start a leech farm, and let a dozen or so of the suckers have a good nosh every second day :)

anyway, we all have our cross to bear, some heavier than others for sure........I've had a genetic predisposition to gout unmasked.....so should be consuming less of the stuff that so many think makes life worth living.

keep in mind it is how you 'adapt' to life's challenges that is your measure, not the challenge itself.
 
Savanna, Apparently those machines are very noisy which then disturbs partners. Have you found this to be the case?

The old style ones were apparently a bit noisy but the modern ones are completely silent. The only noise it makes is a slight whistle when the weather is cold and there is condensation in the tubes but they supply a flannel "blanket" to wrap around the tube to stop this so it isnt a problem at all.

It will be interesting to see how the machine goes through a Canberra winter. They are supposed to be kept in rooms no colder than 5 degrees but I'm sure my bedroom would be almost zero degrees on a bad Canberra night (we never sleep with the house heating on all night).
 
First post...better be a good one!

I am also tired all the time, although not to the extent you seem to be, Lizzie. I have had a sleep test with all results normal. All blood tests normal aswell (but no iron test).

I have experience in blood tests...I worked in a Pathology Lab for 6 years and the role included taking blood about 10 times a day from patients, including 1/2 litre units. However...day one on the job while being taught how to take blood I fainted, the first and only time I have! (My biggest fear after spiders was blood tests). I thought I would be sacked within the first hour :( But after taking blood over and over again I got so use to it that I started teaching others how to take it and donated my own arm to trainees...I would watch it go in and tell them to move it around when they missed :eek: So my suggestion for you, if you have to have regular blood taken, is to just ask a local blood collection centre or even dr's clinic to watch them take blood...after watching a number you will realise there is not much to it as the needle only goes just under the skin and shouldn't be moved around at all (if they are good at their job!)

Goodluck :D
 
fuzz - ask your doc to take some further bloods tests.

common genetic conditions (and severely under diagnosed) that cause tiredness are coeliac (1/100 people), heamocromotisis (1/200 people) and type2 diabetes (1/20 people).
 
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