# IDing your bodies ailments



## squrts (Aug 14, 2000)

yesterday i think i discovered a difference between tiredness and fatigue.i mentioned ephedra as a pick me up,well it does seem to energize you,but if im right about this,it does nothing for fatigue.kinda leves you all"dressed up with no place to go".tell me what you think,when your fatigued your limbs feel like there made of led,and your body too for that matter.its as if gravity is pulling at you 10 times stronger.where as tiredness does`nt have that,its just a sort of"pooped for no reason"feeling.is one just more of the other,or are they two different things?


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## M&M (Jan 20, 2002)

Interesting. And I have no idea. LOL







I'll look forward to other's opinions!


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## weener (Aug 15, 2000)

I guess it's a matter of semantics. I'm not sure. I know that when I'm tired, I'm on the way to fatigued if I don't stop. I had one of those days yesterday where I sat down in the recliner and passed out. My body definitely feels heavy and picking up my feet and arms are a struggle. Opening up a can is a struggle. When I'm fatigued I tend to sleep a lot.


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## Susan Purry (Nov 6, 2001)

The way I see it, is that healthy 'normal' people get tired, people with Fibro & CFS are usually fatigued on a daily basis because that's one of the symptoms, and when the Fibro & CFSers are having a really bad time of it, we're exhausted!I have what I called 'tired days' which is the tiredness no healthy person has ever felt, but I manage to get on with stuff to varying extents, then I have the 'exhuasted days' when I need to lie down a lot and can't do anything apart from look out the window and maybe listen to Radio 4. I heard that tiredness is to fatigue what headache is to migraine. There's some interesting points made on fatigue at this website: www.cfids-cab.org/MESA/framework.html


> quote:ï¿½The term ï¿½fatigueï¿½ and ï¿½chronic fatigueï¿½ never existed in this entity until it was put into [the name] in 1988ï¿½The whole concept of fatigue has warped our understanding of this illness.ï¿½ Byron Hyde, M.D., The Nightingale Research Foundation, Ottawa, Canada





> quote:"This illness is to fatigue what a nuclear bomb is to a match. It's an absurd mischaracterisation". Laura Hillenbrand, bestselling author of Seabiscuit.





> quote:We hold that ï¿½fatigueï¿½ is too broad and inaccurate a term, and that there are more specific ways of describing the symptoms, using delayed recovery of muscle function, orthostatic faintness, and other more specific terminology than ï¿½fatigue.ï¿½ In 1921, Muscio suggested that ï¿½fatigueï¿½ should be banned from strict scientific discussion. The defining characteristics of M.E. can be easily outlined without reference to "fatigue." Fatigue may be a minor symptom of M.E. just as vomiting or numbness may be symptoms of M.E., but fatigue cannot be a defining characteristic because not all patients have it, just as not all patients have vomiting or numbness


Granted, the website is about M.E/CFS, but I think the comments on fatigue could apply to the experience of Fibromyalgia sufferers too.


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## ThisBearBites (Aug 28, 2002)

I have always said, "gravity sucks". My family has held on to our screwy thinking that gravity just pulls harder our genes more than most folks.


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