Too Tired?
I sleep moderately well each night, even to the point of dreaming. I awake fine each morning and hit the ground running.... yet, everyday about 11:00 I get so tired I can BARELY keep my eyes open. I mean, literally. I take Vitamin D and B Complex daily, I have tried coffee, tea and things like that. Nothing seems to help. I have had my thyroid panels run - nothing suspicious, and my blood pressure isn't too low. It's becoming a bit of an issue considering I have had to institute a daily nap that randomly runs from 1 hour to nearly 3 hours... I have fallen asleep in the oddest places, such as: while reading a book at the Library (standing up), in the shower, driving and at my desk at work. =(
Replies
Well, if they haven\'t tested you for some form of narcolepsy, ask them if that\'s a possibility.
Some of your symptoms fit -- but others don\'t.
For about a year now, I\'ve had something very similar happen to me.
NEVER one to take naps -- I bet I\'d only taken about a dozen throughout the course of my lifetime -- what the heck!!!?
I was sitting there at my computer, about 1:00 in the afternoon, slept fine the night before (with my meds), when all of a sudden, I felt like I\'d been smacked on the head by a cartoon mallet!!!!
One second fine, the next I could barely make the two and a half feet to the bed, whereupon I slept for the next 5 hours!!!!!
And while I felt like death when I woke up, that part wasn\'t new.
The few times in my life that I had napped, I ALWAYS felt like crap afterwards.
So from then on, after that 5 hour nap, it became almost a daily occurrence, although almost never quite that long again.
My naps typically run 1 1/2 to 3 hours.
There\'s no fighting them. I\'ve tried to just tough it out and stay awake, but no go.
It hits sudden and hard. I fall asleep within a couple of minutes, if not instantly.
BUT!!!! *I* have never fallen asleep while doing those kinds of activities!!
THAT\'S the part that sounds like some form of narcolepsy.
Or a lot of other things, I suppose!!!
In my case, after whining to both my Pdoc and 2 different regular doctors, none of whom seemed not that concerned about it, a complete blood workup showed that I have Stage III Kidney Disease. (Sometimes it goes into Stage IV.)
And I had a severe Vitamin D deficiency.
That Vitamin D deficiency didn\'t show up at first because checking for that is not part of the usual, routine blood test that is commonly ordered.
It was because of my Chronic Kidney Disease and other \'weird\' symptoms that I was having that they ordered an ANA test and also tested my Vitamin D level.
I was put on prescription Vitamin D -- 50,000IU, once a week.
AND put on Ferrous Sulfate (Iron) because I was anemic, too.
The anemia is not uncommon when one has kidney disease.
After being on the weekly Vitamin D for 12 weeks, I had improved to the point that I only had a Severe Vitamin D insufficiency.
The doctor took me off of it, because it can raise the calcium level in the blood, something else that\'s a complication of Chronic Kidney Disease.
For what it\'s worth, as to the Vitamin D that you\'re taking, I saw my nephrologist Nurse Practitioner and expressed my disappointment at not being on the Vitamin D anymore, as I would have liked to get it up to a normal level.
She told me to buy some over the counter and take 1,000IU a day.
But she said to make sure to get the D3 kind, not just the plain \'D\'.
So if you\'re not already taking the D3 kind, why not ask your doctor if it\'s okay for you to try? Maybe it will work better.
Since being on the Iron and getting my Vitamin D level to a better level, I do not take those naps anywhere near as much as I did. They usually don\'t last more than 2 1/2 hours now.
So many things can cause that kind of fatigue.
In my case, even the Chronic Kidney Disease alone can cause it.
Autoimmune disorders (I might have Lupus and or Fibromyalgia and either could be causing my naps.)
My daughter has Sjogrens Syndrome (another autoimmune disorder) and she has bouts of fatigue, too.
Don\'t let the doctors put you off!!! Insist that the cause be looked for!!!
They kept minimizing my naps when I kept TELLING them that something was wrong!!!
I just looked up a Thyroid Panel and it doesn\'t look like it checks for Vitamin D.
There is an excellent site about blood tests.
Here\'s what it says about the tests you had:
http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/thyroid-panel/tab/glance
You might want to have a test that looks for anemia and a Vitamin D deficiency. (You may need more Vitamin D than you are now taking.)
Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, and a host of other illnesses can cause fatigue.
But it\'s not natural to be experiencing what you are.
Something is wrong and you should get to the bottom of it.
(Still kind of ticks me off that it was so hard for me to get even this far with my doctors. And no end in sight yet.)
Good luck!!! I hope that you find out what\'s going on, that it\'s no big thing and that it\'s easily treatable and curable!!!
(((((Hugs)))))