The Symptoms and Nature of CFS/ME

I have mentioned before that I would do a post on the symptoms of CFS/ME and I think today is the day! But I will also talk about the nature of the condition as I think that it all becomes confusing, and people make wrong assumptions.


So firstly, there's the fatigue thing. What does that even mean?
The fatigue involved in CFS/ME is very different from normal tiredness (in the last 9 months since my crash, I have maybe felt tired in the normal way maybe 10 times?). Normal tiredness comes from being busy and if your day has been productive, it can feel quite nice at the end of the day to be tired and sleepy as you head to bed.
That is why the condition is called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, rather than Chronic Tiredness Syndrome. The best description I have heard so far of what it feels like is that your muscles don't really work properly. You tell your legs to go up some stairs and they get stuck on the first one. It feels like the energy is simply not there, like when your car completely runs out of petrol. Other analogies include the feeling of walking through treacle.

What does this have to do with post-exertional malaise?
Post-exertional malaise (PEM) sounds fancy but all it means is that you feel HORRIBLE after any activity. That includes sitting upright in a chair, or cooking dinner. How a normal person may feel after a hefty work-out at the gym doesn't even come close, and I can say that from experience as I used to enjoy a good gym work-out.
The PEM worsens every other little symptom that is there in a CFS/ME sufferer.
PEM also causes a weird thing which has been likened to sunburn - very little effect at the time, but a major effect hours or maybe days after. So a sufferer could go for a long walk one day, and then be bedridden for the next 3 days. This looks rather odd to others as normally the ability to do something one day is indicative of the person's ability always, but with CFS/ME the opposite is the case.

Is there pain involved?
Luckily I have not suffered much with pain, but a lot of people with CFS/ME have crippling pain which, similar to the fatigue, is worsened by activity. I can only really speak from experience with this one as describing pain is tricky. Personally, I ache a lot, and when my muscles have been used too much (for me, that is) they hurt.

Dizziness leads to me being at least in a sitting position, if not lying down for most of the day.
If I close my eyes for a second, and then open them, everything spins for a couple of seconds before righting itself.
Standing or walking for any prolonged space of time (like more than 5 minutes) can lead to varying degrees of dizziness. Multitasking while standing or walking increases the severity of the dizziness and the speed at which it comes on. The number of times I've almost fallen over because the world has been toppling about...

Feeling nauseous doesn't help either.
Fairly self-explanatory I think. Not helped by the dizziness, mind.
I normally get this when I have really pushed it, you know, by maybe walking around the block or something.

Sore-throats appear to crop up.
I have heard of a number of sufferers, myself included, who seem to have some form of sore-throat at all times.

Concentration and memory problems.
Also known as brain fog. This appears to occur in conditions such as M.S. too, but with a different name. Imagine you on a bad day when you overslept and you're groggy. And maybe a bit hungover. That's brain fog more or less, but it happens all the time.

Not really helped by sleep problems.
Anything you can think of that could go wrong with sleep, goes wrong at some point: can't get to sleep, can't stay awake, keeping waking up, really vivid dreams, can't wake up in the morning. Mostly the problem is that it is unrefreshing, although the dreams have been getting weirder and weirder.
The tendency is to swing towards sleeping for 15 hours a day or so, to hardly sleeping at all. Not much inbetween.

And then just loads and loads of random stuff like:

• food and alcohol intolerances.
• sensitivity to sound, light and touch.
• difficulty judging distances.
• problems with body temperature regulation.
• difficulty focussing on objects.
• sensitivities to various medications.
• numbness and tingling.
• many more really quite random stuff.

The nature of CFS/ME.

• Not everyone gets all the symptoms, but all will have the fatigue problem, and high percentages of sufferers have been found to have all of the symptoms listed.
• The symptoms can be managed by careful rest-activity balancing. The worse the CFS/ME, the more the balance must sway towards rest - in severe CFS/ME you must rest virtually all the time.
• The rest needed for sufferers is total, as in lying in bed feeling relaxed. Sitting with friends watching tv counts as activity.
• Symptoms are not in a normal proportion to activity so you can't make predictions. They are also affected by mental activity and strong emotions so even being excited can wear a sufferer out very quickly.
• A sufferer will have good days and bad days which aren't always related to activity, although they can very roughly be correlated.
• It is present at all times, even when a sufferer appears to feel fine. Things can tip the balance towards more severe symptoms even once a person appears to be recovering. It's like the clutch pedal in a car - it can go down very fast, but has to come up slowly else you stall.
• It's not contagious.
• Stimulants like coffee have no effect other than maybe to make sufferers feel worse.
• It is totally different from having temporary insomnia, in that a few days of not doing much is nowhere near going to fix the issue.

I hope I have covered everything, if not at least enough for now. I don't mind answering any questions, however stupid they may sound, and if you've got this far, thanks for reading!!