Busy Canadians complain about feeling tired on a daily basis. But many of us can't imagine what it feels like to be diagnosed with the condition of chronic fatigue syndrome.
More than one per cent of the population in this country has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue; that's more than 420,000 Canadians. Thousands more likely go undiagnosed.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complex disorder marked by profound fatigue that is not improved by bed rest. Patients often report various non-specific symptoms, such as weakness, muscle pain, insomnia, impaired memory or concentration.
The condition most often affects people in their 40s or older, and affects women at four times the rate of men
What makes the syndrome difficult to diagnose is that there is no specific laboratory test for the illness.
"You have to make the diagnosis by excluding every other thing that causes pain and fatigue," says Dr. Alison Bested, the author of Hope and Help for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & Fibromyaligia.
The severity of symptoms varies from patient to patient and may vary over time for an individual patient, says Bested who has been treating chronic fatigue sufferers for 16 years.
Many sufferers will be able to wake up in the morning, have a coffee and a shower and then find themselves so exhausted, they have to go back to bed.
"Most sufferers have an energy level 50 per cent of normal and many people become chronically disabled from the condition and be unable to work," says Bested.
In some cases, CFS can persist for years. Or it can gradually improve over time, though older sufferers have more trouble.
"A lot of people improve but a lot of people do not recover," says Bested.
The most frustrating aspect of CFS is that cause or causes have not been identified and there is still no specific treatment. But research continues.
"There is a genetic propensity, we know that now," says Bested. "So there is some genetic testing being done and they can show that people with chronic fatigue syndrome are different."
People with CFS have different genes that deal with energy use and the body's ability to cope with stress, such as trauma and infection. Other research has found abnormalities in blood pressure, blood volume to the brain and immune-cell activity in CFS sufferers.
Until a cure or a medication can be found, all that patients can do is to re-arrange their lifestyles and manage each of the symptoms.
"A lot of it is having the patient pace themselves, their activities, to listen to their bodies and not to crash, to get better sleep and to take care of their symptoms such as pain," says Bested.
"I talk about something in my book called sleep hygiene," says Bested.
"It just means getting your sleep space ready for sleep...getting the cat out, going to sleep the same time, dark room, comfortable clothes, etc. I also suggest people try herbal teas, relaxation and meditation."
