Sly Saint
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
readers letter
"
My daughter, now 40, had a traumatic birth six years ago — soon after she started feeling unnaturally tired. A private consultant diagnosed fibromyalgia, and she has ME. She has tried everything — acupuncture, counselling, reiki — but the fatigue is crippling.
Name and address supplied."
reply
Is severe tiredness 'chronic fatigue' or something else? (msn.com)
"
My daughter, now 40, had a traumatic birth six years ago — soon after she started feeling unnaturally tired. A private consultant diagnosed fibromyalgia, and she has ME. She has tried everything — acupuncture, counselling, reiki — but the fatigue is crippling.
Name and address supplied."
reply
I understand your concern, as your daughter has been unwell for six years. My feeling is that there is an unrecognised diagnosis in the background.
Fibromyalgia typically causes fatigue, poor sleep patterns, problems with memory and persistent chronic pain — the condition is the most common cause of widespread musculoskeletal pain.
The closest thing we have as a test for it is a physical examination to check for 18 specific points of tenderness in soft tissues.
In some patients, their symptoms of fibromyalgia are very similar to those of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also called chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
Like fibromyalgia, ME/CFS is an illness of unknown cause also characterised by fatigue.
In the absence of a test, doctors diagnose it by relying on experience and skill — though I’m afraid too often ME/CFS is given as a fallback diagnosis for those with long-term severe fatigue. Because of the overlap of symptoms it’s not unusual for people to be diagnosed with both conditions.
My thought is that in your daughter’s case, the issue may be either post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or protracted postnatal depression.
PTSD can be triggered by a single terrifying event — there is no doubt from your longer letter that this happened to your daughter in childbirth. Similarly, postnatal depression is a common but misunderstood and frequently ignored condition that can last for years, leading to general malaise, such as you describe in your longer letter.
I urge you to help your daughter see a consultant psychiatrist, who can assess her on the basis of a detailed appraisal of her history and symptoms.
Suitable treatment can then begin and there is reason for optimism. The first step is to ask her GP for a psychiatric referral.
Is severe tiredness 'chronic fatigue' or something else? (msn.com)