Chronic fatigue syndrome - symptoms and treatment

Energy is an important life resource.
She's like fuel for a car. You can’t go anywhere without it and you won’t go anywhere. People often say that they wake up already tired. They want to lie on the bed and do nothing. So that no one would touch them, no one would call them anywhere, no one would demand anything. This is a clear signal that the human body has low energy levels. There are many reasons for its absence. Let's look at the most common of them.

Diseases, lack of vitamins in the body

When we are sick, we have little energy and no strength to do household chores. This is fine. The body spends its energy to heal us and get us back on our feet. At such a moment, you need to help him. Lie down, rest, don’t strain too much, take pills as prescribed by your doctor. If you force your body and carry the disease on your feet, it can drag on and develop into something more serious.

We also feel weakness and apathy when the body lacks vitamins. Vitamin deficiency affects productivity and mood. Therefore, if you are irritable, you constantly feel sleepy, it is better to check whether your body has enough.

Weakness and dizziness

Dizziness quite often occurs against a background of general weakness. A combination of these symptoms may occur in the following cases:

• anemia;
• cerebrovascular accidents;
• a sharp increase or decrease in blood pressure;
• oncological diseases;
• stress;
• in women - during menstruation or menopause.

Least favorite job

Imagine. You get up in the morning thinking that you don’t want to go anywhere. You don’t want to see your boss or colleagues. You don’t want to do your job, responsibilities, you don’t have the mood or interest. This takes a colossal amount of energy. You don’t like it, but you get over yourself and do it anyway. Because you need to earn money, feed yourself or your family. You ignore your true desires, but your body doesn’t thank you for it.

Do you think it is possible to succeed in a business that you don’t like and just thinking about it causes irritation? Of course not. It will only hurt you. And you won’t earn much money, because you don’t have much desire. And if you do what you love, you will have sparkling eyes and a desire to run to work. And you know that in any business the main thing is desire.

Your favorite activity will not deprive you of power, on the contrary. It will fill and energize. So find what you love and monetize it. After all, only doing what you love can bring you big money. And a huge plus for them will be happiness, the desire to wake up in the morning and inner harmony.

“People are happy when they do what they love.”

Treatment

Help before diagnosis

If weakness is caused by natural causes, it is enough to normalize your lifestyle. Patients are recommended to get a full night's sleep of at least 7 hours, avoid night shifts at work, and minimize stressful situations and conflicts. A change of environment helps to cope with fatigue - a trip to a sanatorium, a vacation at sea. It is important to provide a nutritious diet high in protein foods, fresh vegetables and fruits. It is advisable to completely avoid alcohol. For prolonged weakness, combined with other symptoms, the doctor selects treatment.

Normalizing your lifestyle is the first step towards combating loss of strength

Conservative therapy

The main treatment for general malaise is therapy aimed at eliminating the cause of symptoms: taking antihistamines for allergic reactions, cardiotropic drugs for cardiovascular diseases, hepatoprotectors for liver damage. For weakness after food poisoning, a diet excluding spicy and smoked foods and extractive substances is recommended. Symptomatic medications are used that improve overall well-being and restore performance. The most effective are:

• Adaptogens
  . Concentrated plant extracts of ginseng, eleutherococcus and other medicinal plants tone and invigorate, increase the activity of metabolic processes. Medicines are taken for a long time, they have virtually no contraindications or side effects.
• Nootropics
  . The drugs stimulate blood circulation in the brain and ensure the delivery of nutrients to neurons. Nootropics improve cognitive functions of the brain, increase memory and concentration. The drugs are used for encephalopathy, the consequences of head injury and encephalitis.
• Antidepressants
  . Specific serotonin receptor agonists as etiotropic therapy help with depressive disorders. In minimal doses they are indicated for chronic fatigue and malaise caused by severe diseases of the internal organs and endocrine glands.
• Vitamins
  . For peripheral neuropathies and other neurological disorders, B vitamins are prescribed. To improve general well-being and normalize metabolism, ascorbic acid and the antioxidant tocopherol are used. Vitamin preparations are combined with essential microelements.
• Sorbents.
  Preparations based on activated carbon are effective for ailments caused by poisoning. The products bind and remove toxins from the gastrointestinal tract. In case of severe intoxication, parenteral administration of infusion saline solutions is necessary.

Physiotherapy

To reduce weakness, various methods of hydrotherapy (Charcot's shower, contrast shower) are useful, which have a general strengthening and tonic effect. A similar effect is observed after using acupuncture and electromagnetic therapy. To improve muscle tone and endurance, a general massage is prescribed and an individual exercise therapy complex is selected. People suffering from depressive conditions require long-term psychotherapy in several areas: auto-training, cognitive behavioral therapy, gestalt therapy.

Stress, negative emotions

A lot of energy drains when life is filled with stress. It not only destroys a stable emotional state, but also takes away strength. To experience less stress, you need to learn to relate to various life situations more simply. Try to calm yourself down, look for positive moments.

The game “But” is very helpful for this. For example, I can’t find a job, but I have a lot of time for myself and my family. My car broke down, but now I will walk more, and this is good for my health. Look for the positive in negative situations.

Conflicts

When you argue with your family, parents, partner, children, it is exhausting and draining. The brain stops working. Mood worsens, energy decreases.

Relationships with people are work that requires patience, attention, and care. To prevent conflicts from arising, it is better to talk straight away about what you don’t like. If you keep everything quiet, there will probably be an emotional explosion at some point. Therefore, make it a rule with your family to discuss problems, rather than hush them up and accumulate grievances.

Loyalty to your decisions is an obstacle

Most people are confident that loyalty to the life decisions made at one time characterizes them on the good side, and stability and perfectionism are traits of a strong personality.

If you've already got down to business, give it everything! Other people depend on you! You can't quit halfway! I am a person who always works harder than everyone else and better than everyone else! I started a family - now I need to get down to business and make it perfect! I will make unhappy parents happy! My kids will do every activity under the sun! I started improving my body and now I’m doomed to spend my whole life in the gym, otherwise it’s all in vain! I started this business, gave it ten years of my life, it doesn’t matter that I mostly work for my employees, and not they for me, I will continue to bear the cross! You have to endure for the sake of friendship, or money, or family, or career, or fame, or love!

Perfectionism is the favorite child of imbalance! We make enough such “vows of fidelity” with ourselves, substitute your own version.

To maintain outdated forms of oneself, serious energy overexpenditures are needed, because in order to remain the same, one has to force oneself a little - or a lot.

To overcome the obstacle of fidelity, you must have the right to change your former self or your old image, that is, become a person who has changed priorities. Talking to a therapist can support you in the process of gaining the power to change and move away from outdated choices.

Toxic environment

It happens that you have to communicate with toxic people. They can drain energy from you with their constant complaints, whining, and negativity. There is even such a thing as energy vampires. These are people who feed off your energy if you allow them to. They come in different types:

• victim;
• controller;
• narcissus;
• critic;
• aggressor.

You will constantly hear whining and dissatisfaction with everything around you from the victim. They feed on the energy of the pity of others. The controller loves to dominate, to teach, he feeds on irritation. The narcissist tends to brag, exaggerate facts, and constantly talk about himself. Such people absorb the emotion of envy. Critics are always ready to point out all your shortcomings, rejoice at other people's failures, and suck the energy of humiliation. The aggressor is always ready to throw a scandal, usually leading to an emotional breakdown, fueled by the energy of quarrels and scandals.

If you recognize them as someone you know, try to limit contact with them. Be indifferent to what they tell you. If you don't react to their words, vampires don't get the right reaction, the right emotions and energy. In this case, these people themselves fall away from you.

The Ideal Trap: Your Best Self Is a Dangerous Illusion

“We must strive for the ideal, for the best version of ourselves,” my clients often repeat these phrases they heard in childhood. With their help, parents can force their child to redo homework or get a better grade at school. We must strive for perfection, for the version of some neighbor whose grass is greener and whose legs are longer.

This is a good option for childhood: you really need to somehow neuroticize children, so that they not only play and mess around, but also strive for something. But for an adult, an ideal can become—and often becomes—a psychological illusion, a trap that prevents a review of one’s priorities. The ideal trap is a big problem for many people, the core of a huge number of different neuroses.

The ideal in modern Western culture is a psychological illusion: it lies in the fact that it is necessary or even possible to achieve.

For example, in the topic of energy balance, the desire to find an endless source of strength and become Superman, who manages to do everything, will be illusory. But energy is not an infinite amount. Buddhists count inhalations and exhalations, chemists study antioxidants and telomerase length, psychologists look at satisfaction with oneself and life: we consider them to be a very accurate indicator.

A well-calibrated ideal, which you consciously and without self-deception chose, corrected by reality, ceases to be an ideal and turns into a plan - it often becomes the result of working with a psychologist. But the unattainable ideal looming before your eyes not only does not help you figure out what to do in life, but also does not make it clear what kind of person you are, what your energy balance is in principle at this stage of life, what you are capable of and what you are not ( or capable only in extreme conditions).

In other words: the ideal doesn't work.

You don't have to completely abandon an ideal; you can develop a respectful attitude toward it, give it a place of honor in the Pantheon of personal philosophies, and continue to motivate your children with it to try harder. But it’s better to choose realism for everyday use.

A realistic view of yourself implies a professional attitude towards your own needs and limitations: if you need to sleep 8 hours and no less, sleep. And people who sleep 6 are different people with their own problems.

Stuck in the past

If only. It happens that a person often turns to the past, concentrates on various situations, and thinks about:

• how could he have acted differently;
• why did he say that;
• I should have remained silent.

Thus the energy flows away. You can't live in the past. That’s why it’s the past, because it’s already passed. It's all over. You can sit, twist the same scenario, which cannot be changed, or you can let go, feel yourself here and now. Start creating your life in the moment, enjoying today.

Live in the future

This is the opposite extreme. Sometimes it’s useful to pull yourself out of the here and now, shift your attention to the future, and dream. This gives a new impetus to action, a feeling of anticipation and anticipation.

But if we constantly think: “When my salary is higher, then I will live. When my husband earns money, then we will go on vacation. When the children grow up, I will be able to devote time to my hobby,” there is a loss of vital energy. When we already overdo it with dreams and don’t live in the present at all.

“Dreams are wonderful. But don’t forget to come back from them and live your moments.”

When should you see a doctor if you feel weak?

If weakness does not go away within a few days or, moreover, lasts more than two weeks, you should definitely consult a doctor.

You should not hesitate to consult a doctor if weakness is accompanied by symptoms such as:

• dyspnea;
• cough;
• fever, chills, increased temperature;
• stomach upset;
• sudden weight loss;
• mood changes, apathy, depression.

Unrealistic goals

We all need to dream, have a life plan, set goals. But if you initially set an ambitious goal with an unrealistic deadline, then this also leads to a lack of energy in a person.

For example, you earn 30 thousand, and by the end of the year you set a goal to earn 300 thousand. At the same time, you have no strategy, no thoughts on how to do this. Then the end of the year comes, and you have not reached the level that you set for yourself. Such a goal is obviously unattainable and unrealistic. It leads to depression when a person does not achieve it. Therefore, set goals with a time frame that can actually be achievable for you, based on the situation here and now.

Causes of weakness

Weakness can be caused by a number of reasons, including:

• avitaminosis. Weakness is often caused by a lack of vitamin B12, which is essential for making red blood cells (RBCs) and preventing anemia, and is also important for cell growth. Vitamin B12 deficiency leads to the development of anemia, which is considered the most common cause of general weakness. Another vitamin whose deficiency leads to weakness is vitamin D. This vitamin is produced by the body when exposed to sunlight. Therefore, in autumn and winter, when daylight hours are short and the sun does not appear often, a lack of vitamin D may be the cause of weakness;
• depression;
• thyroid diseases. Weakness can occur with both increased thyroid function (hyperthyroidism) and decreased function (hypothyroidism). With hypothyroidism, as a rule, there is weakness in the arms and legs, which is described by patients as “everything falls out of hand”, “legs give way”. With hyperthyroidism, general weakness is observed against the background of other characteristic symptoms (nervous excitability, hand tremors, elevated temperature, rapid heartbeat, weight loss while maintaining appetite);
• vegetative-vascular dystonia;
• chronic fatigue syndrome, indicating extreme depletion of vitality;
• Celiac enteropathy (celiac disease) is the inability of the intestines to digest gluten. If at the same time a person consumes products made from flour - bread, pastries, pasta, pizza, etc. – manifestations of indigestion develop (flatulence, diarrhea), accompanied by constant fatigue;
• diabetes;
• diseases of the cardiovascular system;
• oncological diseases. In this case, weakness is usually accompanied by low-grade fever;
• lack of fluid in the body. Weakness often comes in the summer during hot weather, when the body loses a lot of water, and it is not possible to restore the water balance in time;
• some medications (antihistamines, antidepressants, beta blockers).

An attack of weakness can also occur in the following cases:

• trauma (with large blood loss);
• brain injury (in combination with neurological symptoms);
• menses;
• intoxication (including infectious diseases such as influenza).