Dr MarcelleI am so worried, what is going on with me? I am just so fatigued and exhausted. I work hard, but I always did so why don’t I have energy?
Something must be wrong with me. Maybe I have cancer, maybe I am dying. If I have cancer how will I deal with this? If I am dying what will happen to my children if they lose their mom?
Does this sound familiar to you? Worrying in the morning when you have to push yourself out of bed or in the middle of the afternoon when your body is dragging. You don’t know how you will have the energy to finish your day let alone going home.
Or when you are trying to fall asleep, your brain is going around and around presenting you with desperate and scary scenarios. You are not alone. In today’s world, more and more people are experiencing exhaustion.
And for many, the word exhaustion is not enough. It doesn’t really portray the picture or the feeling properly. It is more like a total drain of energy. I used to say to medical practitioners, “I can’t feel my aura.” They looked at me like I was strange, but it was exactly that, I couldn’t feel my body emitting any kind of energy. It was a feeling of being totally drained and not having the energy to recuperate or to help myself.
Many Degrees of Fatigue
With time and research, I learned there are many degrees of fatigue. No matter where you are, if you take the time to understand what is going on and take it one step at the time, you can better yourself. Fatigue or exhaustion is complex, so let’s explore what is going on.
Could it be all coming from stress? Yes, stress could be the root cause of your fatigue. Remember stress can show up in many different forms. You could be experiencing toxic stress from the environment, relationships, something you ate or drank, work, family, money, etc. Stress can show up in many different areas of our life. So let’s dig to find out what may be going on.
Discovery:
- If I take the time to understand what is going on and take it one step at the time, I have a very good chance to get better.
- Fatigue could be caused by stress that I experience now or stress I experienced in my past.
- Fatigue, exhaustion, mental drain, and brain fog can be complex issues.
What kind of chronic diseases could be caused by stress and making me feel so tired?
There are many illnesses and chronic illnesses being rooted from stress which could cause your fatigue including:
- Depression, anxiety
- Allergies
- Anemia
- Fibromyalgia
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Food allergies, food intolerance
- Parasites, fungus, bacterial, virus overgrowth
- Microbiota imbalances
- Perfectionism
- Heart disease
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Sleep apnea
- Hypothyroidism
- Diabetes
- Chronic stress (work, relationship, loss of a loving one, moving)
- Lack of excitement for living
- Mitochondrial disease
- SNP’s in your genes
- Chronic destructive mindsets
- Auto immune disorder
- Cancer
This is why it is so important to analyze where your problem is coming from by looking at all aspects of your life. It is the only way to discover the-unique solution for your issues.
Discovery:
- Fatigue, exhaustion can be caused by many diseases.
- I need to look at all aspects of my life.
- There is a unique solution for me and I need to find it.
How do I know if I am suffering from a chronic disease or illness?
It is important to do some detective work on the history of your life, health and sickness and do an inventory of your life.
I know most people want to find a fast solution to help them, but often the quick fix is not a real fix. It is more of a poor quality band-aid which will start to let go after a little while.
You don’t want the root cause of your fatigue and symptoms to establish itself even more and cause more destruction in the background. So it is important to take the time, find the root cause and address it.
People believe the root cause is only one thing. Sometimes it is, but most often it is a series of issues entangled together to cause a debilitating weakness. The health of your body is at the mercy of a domino effect. When one thing goes wrong it can impact many other areas of your body and life.
This is probably what has happened in your own life. Hence, you need to take inventory of your life from when you were young. This is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Understanding where you come from, without judging it, will bring you to a faster solution. It is true for illnesses and for any goals you want to achieve.
The inventory of your life needs to include your (and your family’s) mental and physical health and environment from when you were conceived until now. Once completed, you can then bring all this information to a holistic or functional medicine health practitioner. With this information along with specialized testing, you and your health practitioner will be able to determine the root cause of your problem, the solution, and if you have developed some of the chronic diseases
mentioned above.
Before you start your investigation, read the next section to understand the depth which is needed to identify the root cause.
Discovery
- To find the root cause of my problem, I need to take an inventory of my life.
Why is my history so important? What can be in my history which could cause my fatigue now?
It is sometimes difficult to grasp the importance of reviewing your life.
Below are some examples on how it works as you you might recognize yourself or it may trigger further discovery.
Maybe you took a trip to the tropics, Africa, India or somewhere else very different from your present environment. While there, you may have encountered many different micro-organisms. Some of them may have caused an imbalance. You might have suffered from diarrhea, constipation, fever, headaches, vomiting, joint pain and fatigue.
Maybe these symptoms have subsided, but the encounter with these foreign microorganisms might have weakened the permeability of your bowel wall causing havoc on your immune system.
With more stress like being constantly busy at work, busy at home trying to be the perfect mother, eating unhealthy food, living through traumatic event or events, looking after a loved one who is sick, going through a divorce, moving etc. all of these individually or in group will continue the insult and bring your problem deeper.
As the domino effect continues, your thyroid could start malfunctioning, you could develop many sensitivities, brain fog, joint pain, or an auto-immune disorder like IBS, Crohn’s, arthritis, lupus, MS, Alzheimer’s and cancer could show up.
Your mitochondria (the furnaces in your cell that produce energy) most likely have been affected and are having issues producing energy for you to use. Therefore, you then suffer from exhaustion, fatigue, tiredness.
Your body is having problems finding the energy needed to heal. It will try to bring you back to homeostasis which is when your body and mind are healthy and balanced. But it has been tripped too much and can’t see its way back as it needs help.
Now you might say: “This is not me, I didn’t travel anywhere.” This is one scenario which can occur and there are many others. The same domino effect could arise from the following situation:
- Ear and/or throat infections as a youngster.
- Traumatic event like abuse, moving, divorce, or loss of a loved one or a pet.
- Turmoil or anger in the environment you lived in, even if it wasn’t directed at you.
- Very demanding parents pushing you to constantly achieve and comparing you to others.
- Toxic environment, emotional or physical.
- Hormonal imbalances.
- Toxic mindsets picked up along the way from parents, mentors, or peers.
- Over stress at work, home, with friends, with your children, or with your spouse.
- Wanting to overachieve and to be prefect.
All of this and more will cause imbalances which, if not looked after properly, can engage in a domino effect and produce extreme fatigue. And, amongst all of this, you might have some weaknesses in your genetic material which could be causing you some more imbalances.
Discovery:
- Events can cause a domino effect in my body toward health or sickness.
What is my next step?
You may be suffering from an illness or a chronic disease. Or maybe you are not quite there yet which would be great news. No matter where you are, you need to take this next step. Delaying may get you into more trouble.
Become pro-active for yourself. Don’t delay. It is too easy to delay. Empower yourself! Get a pen and paper or your computer or phone and start your detective work.
- Write down your history and parents’ history from when you were conceived to birth. You might have heard things or you might have a sense of something, Write it down.
- Next, write down what you remember and what you have heard about you, your parents/siblings, and your environment during your youth and as a baby.
- Then continue this exercise for your teenage years, young adult years, older adult years, etc.
- Give yourself time to reflect, write down what comes to your mind and then forget about it for some time. Later, review and add to it if needed.
- Be nice to yourself, but write down the good and the bad. Hiding won’t help you here.
- Once completed, look at the trends and assess what are you learning?
- Find a good personalized medicine health practitioner to help you examine your story and the root cause of your issues.
This root cause for your fatigue, tiredness, and exhaustion is most likely affecting other areas in your life to function less efficiently, therefore holding you back. When the root cause is addressed properly it will get rid of your problem and put you in a much better place to accomplish even more.
Discovery:
- Get proactive, don’t delay, and take inventory of my life now.
- The weaknesses which are causing my fatigue could be stopping me from being successful in other areas of my life.
- I need to address my root cause properly to be successful.
So let’s review what we have learned:
- If I take the time to understand what is going on and take it one step at the time, I have a very good chance to get better.
- Fatigue, exhaustion, mental drain, and brain fog can be complex issues and it could come from the stress I experienced in my life. Internal or external stress.
- Stress can come from all areas of my life.
- Fatigue, exhaustion can be caused by many diseases.
- I need to look at all aspects of my life.
- There is a unique solution for me and I need to find it.
- To find the root cause of my problem, I need to take an inventory of my life.
- Events can cause a domino effect in my body toward health or sickness.
- Get proactive, don’t delay, Take inventory of my life now.
- The weaknesses which are causing my fatigue could be stopping me from being successful in other areas of my life.
- I need to address my root cause properly to be successful.
Don’t delay, we all need YOU.
References
“Mitochondrial Disease.” Wikipedia, 8 Dec. 2019. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mitochondrial_disease&oldid=929824288.
“Causes of Extreme Fatigue and Exhaustion.” WebMD, https://www.webmd.com/balance/how-tired-is-too-tired. Accessed 16 Dec. 2019.
Kubzansky, L. D., and I. Kawachi. “Going to the Heart of the Matter: Do Negative Emotions Cause Coronary Heart Disease?” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, vol. 48, no. 4–5, May 2000, pp. 323–37. PubMed, doi:10.1016/s0022-3999(99)00091-4.
Taylor, Shelley E., et al. “Early Environment, Emotions, Responses to Stress, and Health.” Journal of Personality, vol. 72, no. 6, Dec. 2004, pp. 1365–93. PubMed, doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00300.x
Ghosh, Durga, and Premalatha Karunaratne. “The Importance of Good History Taking: A Case
Report.” Journal of Medical Case Reports, vol. 9, no. 1, Apr. 2015, p. 97. BioMed Central, doi:10.1186/s13256-
