Are you feeling tired all the time?

by Dr. Harold Gunatillake

Were you been active in life interested in your work, enjoying nature and the birds, spending time with your family, now suddenly lost interest, feel tired and not motivated to do the things you did before?

You should not neglect your feeling of tiredness and take it for granted, hoping you’ll feel better soon.

You may be too stressed at work and more pressure from your superiors and having sleepless nights can all make you fatigued and tired.
If the condition does not improve with time, with your daily routine and participating in activities with your family and relax, you may have an underlying cause and need to see your family doctor.

Anaemia can bring about tiredness. With fewer red blood cells in your blood for transporting oxygen through the blood stream to the tissue can bring about tiredness. Lack of iron could be the reason. Vegans do sometimes lack iron, as most of the iron is obtained from meat sources.

A blood test done by your doctor can find the cause and could be easily corrected with medication, including iron tablets.
When you are over sixty years or more tiredness can be brought about by heart disease. Early signs of heart disease are breathlessness on walking and chest discomfort in addition to tiredness. Your doctor will organise a stress cardiograph and a chest x-ray to rule out any heart disease.

Sleep apnea is a common cause of tiredness. This occurs mostly in obese subjects with broad necks. When you sleep your neck muscles relax and breathing could be difficult. Those who take alcohol the condition can progress to apnea in addition to the snoring. In sleep apnea you stop breathing momentarily and that causes lack of oxygen to your heart muscles. When it happens every night at sleep you may be a candidate for a heart attack. You will not know it happening in your sleep, but your partner can detect it. Snoring without apnea you do not have to worry too much. If you are tired and feel lack of sleep in the morning you are sure to suffer from sleep apnea.
See your doctor and he will prescribe a device which helps you to force-breath during apnea. You need to lose weight and minimise your alcohol consumption.

Another condition that wakes you up several times in the night is an irritable bladder or an enlarged prostate. Either of them can disturb sleep enough to leave you feeling tired the next morning. See your doctor and he will refer you to a genito-urinary surgeon specialised in such fields of medicine.

Medications: Certain drugs prescribed for blood pressure, statins for high cholesterol, anti-depressants and anti-histamines can cause tiredness. Read the label that comes with the drug and study the side effects detailed on the pamphlet.

Cancer: Early brewing up of cancer in your blood, gut or other organs can manifest itself with early tiredness. There are certain blood tests the doctors do to check up whether some inflammatory process is brewing up in your body. C reactive protein (CRP) is a common blood test doctors do to check up any situation like that. C reactive protein is manufactured in the liver and the numbers increase with any chronic disease process. It is a very reliable test to check up whether any disease is brewing up in your body.
Cancer fatigue and tiredness is different from ordinary tiredness- the kind of tiredness you experience after a busy day, or when you have not had sufficient sleep. It’s persistent whole body tiredness.

You could be tired for low-grade depression and anxiety and needs help from a psychiatrist.

Sometimes thyroid disease (hypothyroid state), diabetes and excessive alcohol drinking could bring about tiredness.

There is a syndrome called fatigue syndrome. If you are struggling with this condition your doctor will do certain tests to rule out other causes of your fatigue. One has to learn the difference between sleepiness and fatigue. In sleepiness, you desire to sleep, but in fatigue syndrome there is more to it- such as exhaustion, heaviness of limbs, low energy and so on.

If there is no cause for your tiredness, a walk, playing a game with friends, joining a club and meeting people- all help. Sometimes just frequent cups of coffee may be a solution’

Good advice by Dr harold