Is this level of tiredness normal?

[Muddledandmiddle]

I’m 31 and exhausted. Like completely and utterly bone tired all the fucking time.
ive been like this for as long as I can remember. Mum to two preteens. We’ve moved this week which was a stressful six months and I do work a really tiring job which does affect my ability to get a deep sleep at night as my brain is just always “on”

im married and DH does more than his fair share.

I am so physically and emotionally burnt out all the time. The kids do a lot of sports and I am always on the go but I look around and think isn’t this most mums?

I’ve spent an extremely rare day with a friend today and after a few days I was scared to drive home I felt so tired, my eyes were burning and I just felt like I could lay down and sleep then and there. I’m so tired of feeling this way. Bloods were normal at drs last week.

I don’t feel like I can keep living like this but I’m just trying to live a normal life. Am I just pathetic?

It’s quite common for people to see the GP for being tired all the time. You wouldn’t be wasting their time

You say bloods were normal, but they don't routinely test for everything.

For example a Full Blood Count doesn't include Thyroid Function Testing.

If yours didn't I would request a Thyroid Function test. Extreme tiredness like you describe can often turn out to be an underactive thyroid, easily treated with a daily dose of Thyroxine.

No you aren't being pathetic. Today is not the day to drive if you are feeling so very tired.

There may be lots of reasons. Have you had your bloods checked fully? Anemia? Thyroid problem? Vitamin D deficiency? You should explain to a GP and ask them to check. They will take you seriously.

I was exhausted in 2021. It came to a head when I fell asleep on the sofa as soon as I got home from school run, and my ds had to wake me up because he was hungry. It was when he said "Mummy, why are you so tired?" that alarm bells started to ring.

My appointment for a routine mammogram came the same day. I went along and was diagnosed with BC. Three years later I'm all sorted and back to full power, working full time etc. I'm not saying you will be the same. I'm saying you must get checked. Take care of yourself. Don't ignore it.

Did the bloods include b12? If you're under 300 on that I would be adding a B12 supplement in to help.

Taking b12 because it was 180 but dr said not anemic.
they won’t offer me anything further..

I feel sick with nausea at how exhausted I am 😞

Not sure if these mean anything to anyone. NHS app says intrinsic antibody something or other was negative too.

I have a newborn and a toddler and I'm not routinely that exhausted! I'd say there's definitely something wrong and worth pushing to find out what.

Have you had Ferritin checked (your iron stores?)

I was 36, officially anaemic is 15 or something daft and I was dead to the world. Royal College of Nursing has anaemia at 30 so I was very close.

Started taking iron and after a few months I'm back to normal. Hair has stopped failing out too.

Those bloods don't really mean anything in terms of tiredness, it just means you're healthy with no infections or auto-immune conditions.

Did they check B12? Ferritin? Iron levels? Other vitamin levels?

180 is severely low, no wonder you're exhausted! Can you ask for a loading dose of b12 and for further testing of your intrinsic factor?

Also, even if your bloods show your levels are normal, doesn't mean you can't struggle - it just often means they can't prescribe anything, but nothing is stopping you from buying OTC vitamins yourself.

Also throwing sleep apnoea into the mix. My husband and my boss have both been diagnosed; both have had to stop driving in the past to take a nap because they couldn't physically carry on driving.

OMG I feel same gonna go doctor on Monday. So many people I hear get extreme tired. What going on?

Absolutely very rare and only speaking from personal experience - Lyme Disease. Not saying that you have Lyme Disease per se but routine blood tests don't show up everything.

For four years I felt like death on a stick and all my bloods came back fine apart from a high level of something or other that I can't remember the name of which indicated that I was immuno suppressed or my body was trying to fight something off which was dismissed as possibly genetic (?) or could be down to anything. Cough, cold, bit of thing going round, no cause for concern.

I had "Depression and anxiety" then, "Functional Neurological Disorder" (real physical symptoms but caused by the aforementioned depression and anxiety.) Then I saw a neurologist who asked for a very, very complete blood test and I came back with a crazy high level of borellia and anaplasmosis and it was all systems go.

If I had listened to my GP I would never have even taken the blood test. He told me, "You can have the extra tests if you like but I guarantee you that they will come back with nothing. We still do not fully understand the mysteries of the human mind."

Then he wrote a scrip for gabapentine which made things worse.

*Disclaimer. All I am saying is that sometimes you have to be persistant. I am not minimising mental health problems or Functional Neurological Disorder.

Also, all of this happened in France which is often held up as the best health care system ever - and indeed - my mum had excellent care when she broke her wrist in a complex fashion which needed plates and god knows what but even the best system can drop the ball occasionally.

I also love my neurological team at La Timone and Clairval plus Agnes the Infectious and Tropical Diseases doctor.

I did not like the bastard who did my EMG test but that's a story for another day.

Hope you get to the bottom of it soon OP. x.

B12 tablets probably won’t do much. You need loading doses via injection and also you need to take folic acid alongside B12. Look at HealthUnlocked for advice, it’s really helpful. If you can’t do injections look for info on sublinguals which might work.
Also vitamin D needs checking.
GPs will tell you you’re fine even if you’re one point inside the range. My GP told me the same when I as struggling to walk and had “air hunger” typical signs of B12 deficiency. I was one point over the minimum so he dud nothing.

I'm 41 with a 2 year old and I'm not this tired either. I've recently been diagnosed with a borderline underactive thyroid that they found coincidentally when I was tested for something else - I haven't really got too many symptoms yet but am on the medication. I'd recently had a full blood count and everything was normal so echo the comments around getting tested for more conditions. I've been taking a daily multivitamin plus a high dose vitamin c for years and am sure this helps with my overall wellbeing.

Wish you good health 🌷

I understand how you feel. Not getting any help either. It's a horrible way to be all the time.

Get your thyroid tested too. NHS typically only tests TSH when you need T4 and T3 tested. Blue Horizon and Medichecks do blood testing. Medichecks do 20-25% discounts so worth looking fir a code
https://www.all4coupons.com/Medichecks/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADRN5Us6irSPdASsDO2MkRotBNl5w&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI04PKiKqWigMVgKVQBh14jwDHEAAYAiAAEgKJmfD_BwE

Worth also getting tested for coeliac disease even if you have no gut symptoms, especially if you have a low B12 - about 1 in 100 people have it, and about 7 out of every 8 people that have it are undiagnosed. It’s easy to deal with by being on a gluten free diet. I am coeliac, had no gut symptoms and had extreme fatigue and was euphoric 2-3 days after a gluten free diet (not everyone responds this well or as quickly though) but don’t try a gluten free diet before getting tested or you could end up with a false negative result. I hope you feel better soon!

Can you post the results (with lab ranges) for your B12, folate, ferritin and Vit D levels too please.

I’d say op, at your age, that’s not normal , no.

there’s no prizes or medals for soldiering on. Go and get checked out xx

Lloyds do finger prick blood tests you can order online and send off. I got my results back really quickly.

Go back to the GP, perfectly reasonable to! I had the same and was given x, y, z to try and nothing helped so I kept going back. Eventually they got to the bottom of it- it's affecting your day to day life fairly significantly by the sound of it.

It may seem counterintuitive but perhaps you need more exercise? Overworking and looking after children is not great for your health. Try to carve out some time to focus on you - maybe do a yoga class and something aerobic once a week.