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February 3, 2012
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Fatigue

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Fatigue Causes

What Are Some of the Common Causes of Fatigue?

There are numerous potential causes of fatigue as a major complaint. They range from those that cause poor blood supply to the body's tissues to illnesses that affect metabolism, from infections and inflammatory diseases to those that cause sleep disturbances. Fatigue is a common side effect of many medications.

Some common cause of fatigue include:

  • metabolic or endocrine disorders (anemia, thyroid, diabetes, etc.);
  • infectious diseases (mononucleosis, hepatitis, TB, HIV, flu, etc.);
  • heart or lung conditions (heart failure, heart disease, asthma, etc.);
  • medications (some antidepressants, some blood pressure medications);
  • mental health conditions (depression, anxiety, grief, eating disorders, etc.);
  • sleep problems (sleep apnea, insomnia, etc.); and
  • a variety of other conditions.

Read more in-depth information about the causes of fatigue »

SOURCE: MedicineNet.com. Fatigue.
<http://www.medicinenet.com/fatigue/article.htm>

Fatigue Overview

Fatigue is generally defined as a feeling of lack of energy and motivation that can be physical, mental or both. Fatigue is not the same as drowsiness, but the desire to sleep may accompany fatigue. Apathy is a feeling of indifference that may accompany fatigue or exist independently. In addition, individuals often describe fatigue using a variety of terms including weary, tired, exhausted, malaise, listless, lack of energy and feeling run down.

Fatigue is common. About 20% of Americans claim to have fatigue intense enough to interfere with living a normal life. A physical cause has been estimated to be responsible 20% to 60% of the time, while emotional or mental causes comprise the other 40% to 80% of cases of fatigue. Unfortunately, fatigue can also occur in normal individuals that experience intense physical or mental activity (or both).

However, in contrast to fatigue that occurs with some diseases and syndromes, normal fatigue in healthy individuals is quickly relieved in a few hours to about a day when the physical or mental activity is reduced. Also, people occasionally experience fatigue after eating (sometimes termed postprandial depression) which can be a normal response to food, especially after large meals and this may last about 30 minutes to several hours.

In addition to the many terms attributed to "fatigue", there are further problems with the terminology used to describe fatigue. There are several "fatigue syndromes" that occasionally appear in the medical literature. For example, Epstein-Barr chronic fatigue syndrome, post viral infection fatigue syndrome, and adrenal fatigue syndrome are among the most commonly seen. However, many physicians do not recognize these as syndromes because the criteria used to define them as syndromes are too diffuse and many consider the associated fatigue (sometimes chronic fatigue) as either a symptom or complication of the underlying associated diseases. However, there is a well-defined chronic fatigue syndrome recognized by specific criteria. Basically, two sets of criteria need to be met to establish a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome:

1. Have severe chronic fatigue for at least six months or longer with other known medical conditions (whose manifestation includes fatigue) excluded by clinical diagnosis; and

2. Concurrently have four or more of the following symptoms:

Consequently, people and their health care practitioners need to spend some time together to clearly determine whether or not the problem or symptom is truly fatigue, and if it is, any associated symptoms that may accompany the fatigue should be explored.

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Dizziness Overview

Dizziness is a common description for many different feelings. The feeling of dizziness, or a "dizzy spell," may be very familiar to an individual, yet difficult to describe.

Vertigo is a medical term to describe the feeling of spinning, whirling, or motion either of yourself or your surroundings. This is the same feeling you might have after getting off a merry-go-round or spinning in place. Several diseases of the balance organs of the inner ear can cause vertigo, or it may be a symptom of a tumor or stroke.

  • Dizziness may be just mildly annoying or caused by something possibly life-threatening.

  • Reasons a person might feel dizzy include

    • fainting or near fainting such as "at the sight of blood" or with emotional upset,

    • fainting or near fainting from standing up too quickly or standing still too long,

    • weakness experienced...




Read the Dizziness article »


Read What Your Physician is Reading on Medscape

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome »

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disorder of unknown etiology that probably has an infectious basis.

Read More on Medscape Reference »

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