Fatigue Symptoms

Primary symptoms include exhaustion with physical or mental activity. In addition, someone suffering will not feel refreshed after resting or sleeping. Eventually, this process leads to an inability to carry out daily activities including work, household chores, and caring for others.

Signs and symptoms of fatigue can be physical, mental, or emotional.

Common signs and symptoms associated with fatigue can include:

• aching or sore muscles
• apathy and lack of motivation
• daytime drowsiness
• difficulty in concentrating or learning new tasks
• gastrointestinal problems such as bloating, abdominal pain, constipation, and diarrhea
• headache
• irritability and moodiness
• slowed response time
• vision problems, such as blurriness

Symptoms tend to get worse after exertion. They may appear some hours after activity or exercise, or possibly the next day.

What Causes Fatigue?

There are dozens of reasons why someone can develop fatigue. In fact, the difficulty in treatment is usually due to the fact that there are multiple causes.

Here’s a list of all the factors that can cause fatigue:

1. Sleep: Restorative sleep is essential for resolving fatigue. I will discuss the surprising causes of poor sleep and how to resolve them.
2. Dehydration: Most of us live in a state of chronic dehydration. Consuming enough water improves waste elimination and provides energy to the cells. I’ll discuss the amount of water you should consume, when you should consume it, and how to make sure you’re getting the cleanest water.
3. Food toxins: Foods can be good for you or bad for you, depending on how your immune system reacts to them. Food allergies and sensitivities can zap your energy and lead to fatigue. I know making changes to your diet is challenging; I will guide you through this process gently with lots of flexibility. I will discuss the food plan that I recommend to my patients and the one that I eat every day.
4. Lack of exercise and movement: Inadequate exercise and excess sitting play a significant role in fatigue and chronic disease today. Exercise elevates the mood and facilitates waste removal from the body. As humans, we need to move more— whether it's dancing, sports, or just taking the stairs. For people with fatigue, the last thing we want to do is exercise, and when we do, we suffer worse fatigue for days.
5. HPA Axis Dysfunction (Adrenal Health): The adrenal glands are small triangular glands that sit on top your kidneys and are responsible for producing cortisol. Cortisol is the hormone that regulates your response to stress, including mental, emotional, and physical stressors. Assessing your adrenal function is crucial for regulating circadian rhythm, sleep, blood sugars, blood pressure, and energy. We’ll discuss the real causes of adrenal fatigue, how you can test for it, and how you can restore your adrenal glands to optimal function.
6. Thyroid gland dysfunction: Despite experiencing fatigue and other symptoms of low thyroid, patients are frequently told that their thyroid function is “normal.” In reality, you probably have thyroid issues despite normal results on standard laboratory testing. I will discuss what tests to get, how to interpret them, what you need to do first, how to treat low thyroid, and even how to reverse your thyroid dysfunction.
7. Sex hormone dysfunction: Deficiencies or imbalances in progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone in men and women contribute to fatigue, and it’s not just because you turned  50! I will teach you what you need to do to bring your body back into balance with or without taking prescription hormones.
8. Nutrient deficiencies: Deficiencies in iron, B12, folate, magnesium, and vitamin D are notorious for contributing to fatigue. I will discuss the laboratory tests you need to order, what the optimal range is for you, and how to replace any deficiencies correctly.
9. Digestive Health: If you’re not stooling one to two times per day (preferably two), then you’re constipated. When you’re constipated, the toxins and waste products that you’re trying to remove from your body are instead being reabsorbed through the large intestine and back into the bloodstream. This increases the toxic burden in your body and contributes to fatigue. I’ll discuss the easy way to resolve this problem. Mold toxicity: Half of all the buildings in our country have water damage, and most of those are growing mold.
10. Mold toxicity is a huge problem for many of my patients. If your home has mold, you will not get better until you get it out of your environment and your body. I’ll tell you how to assess mold in your home and your body and how to remove it from both.
11. Heavy metals, chemicals, and electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs): Today, toxic substances pollute our air, soil, food, and water. I will discuss the best ways to assess what toxins you may have in your body and how to remove them.
12. Infections: Infections from bacteria, spirochetes, parasites, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms play a huge role in chronic fatigue. I'll discuss the art of assessing what infections you have, how to treat them, and what you need to do first.
13. Mitochondrial dysfunction: The mitochondria are the energy centers of every cell in the body (except red blood cells). They are damaged by many other causes of fatigue: heavy metals, chemicals, molds, and infections. I will discuss how to get your mitochondria back on track and making energy again.
14. Brain health: The health of your brain and how you operate it is a major determinant of: Your quality of life, your mood, resiliency in the face of stress, mental and physical performance, and of course energy levels. Even if your diet, exercise, circadian rhythm, and other lifestyle habits are perfect, if your brain is not working well, you are not going to have good energy levels. We will cover 3 primary reasons why our brains break down and how to start repairing it.

Fatigue Diagnosis

Diagnosing is difficult simply because there are multiple causes and reasons why someone develops it.

There are important questions to consider such as:

• the quality of fatigue
• patterns of fatigue occurrence including the time of day, severity and duration
• quality of lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise and rest.

In addition to answering the above questions, a physical exam is the best place to start.

While most people do not need special testing, our Austin chiropractic clinic will perform:

• Body Composition (body fat, muscle mass hydration status, height and weight)
• Digital Posture Analysis
• Muscle Strength and Reflex Testing
• Digital X-ray

All of these tests are appropriate in helping to diagnose this condition.

If our initial evaluation does not help to determine the cause, additional tests such as hormone testing, blood chemistry testing and vitamin testing will be ordered.

Fatigue Treatment

Treating this condition will ultimately depend on the actual cause. Considering that there are many causes, there are usually several different treatments simultaneously recommended to solving the problem.

Some examples could be:

• treating anemia
• addressing sleep apnea
• improving poorly controlled blood sugar
• addressing an underactive or overactive thyroid
• treating an infection
• treating obesity
• addressing depression
• treating an abnormal heart rhythm

Fatigue Treatment In Austin