L so tired all the time?
WORN OUT: Tiredness can be due to lifestyle or a medical condition might feel tired and unrefreshed by sleep. You might gain weight, despite having a poor appetite and suffer with constipation. Sometimes skin and hair become very dry and hair may start to thin or fall out.
It’s really common to feel cold all the time and to generally feel “slowed up” in your thinking and functioning. If hypothyroidism progresses and is left untreated for many years, it can become serious.
It’s routine for a GP to check your thyroid function if you are suffering with significant tiredness and blood tests are usually all that are needed to make the diagnosis of hypothyroidism.
Treatment involves taking a daily dose of thyroid hormone as a tablet. Follow-up blood tests are required to make sure you’re taking the right dose. It can be harmful to take excess thyroid replacement, therefore blood testing is imperative. An overactive thyroid gland tends to make you feel “speeded up”, twitchy, shaky and irritable. Despite this speeding up, you can feel excessively tired. It can be hard to concentrate or sit still and you can lose weight unintentionally. Sweating, palpitations and sleep disturbance are also common.
You might develop a thyroid swelling in your neck called a goitre, or thyroid eye disease where eyes become uncomfortable, appear to be bulging and vision can be affected. It’s usually due to an autoimmune condition called Graves’ disease but can also be caused by non-cancerous tumours in the gland, called nodules.
Treatments include drugs to ease symptoms and anti-thyroid drugs to slow thyroid hormone production.
Sometimes a radioactive iodine is given to destroy the gland and finally surgery to remove all or part of the gland may be offered. CHRONIC FATIGUE Also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), this is a poorly understood condition where fatigue becomes extreme, lasts more than four months and interferes so much with daily life that those affected are unable to live a normal existence. We don’t know what causes it, whether it’s triggered by genetics, an infection or whether the immune system is to blame. It’s an area needing more research and sufferers and carers are desperate for answers. Along with the feelings of tiredness, you might experience headaches, muscle pains and bowel symptoms. It’s not unusual to feel dizzy or have problems balancing and an oversensitivity to light or noise. Sleep can be fitful and unrefreshing.
Exertion is followed by increased tiredness and a sense you’re “paying for it” for days afterwards. Recovery from chronic fatigue takes time but is possible. Treatment focuses on sleep management and periods of rest.
Therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise therapy can help but must be supervised by a trained therapist. Medications can also make you feel tired. Health conditions such as diabetes, coeliac, kidney and heart disease are all linked with tiredness. It can be difficult to know how much fatigue is normal and acceptable.
See your GP if your tiredness is interfering with daily life and nothing helps it.
Extracted from Sorted: The Active Woman’s Guide To Health by Dr Juliet McGrattan (Bloomsbury, £16.99). To order with free UK delivery, call The Express Bookshop on 01872 562310, send a cheque/PO payable to Express Bookshop to Express Bookshop, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ or order online at expressbookshop.com