These are my symptoms. What is wrong?

[MirabelM]

For as long as I can remember, I have very little energy beyond going to work as a teacher, sorting out my two kids, house and husband and general day to day stuff. I'm sick of feeling soooo tired. My exhaustion is now affecting my kids and husband.

Symptoms include: fatigue, exhaustion, never waking up refreshed, irritable, very low mood, tearfulness, slow weight gain, brain feels heavy sometimes and cannot juggle thoughts or tasks.

I've had blood taken recently and awaiting results but I'm worried. I'm worried there'll be something majorly wrong but at the same time worried there'll be absolutely nothing physically wrong so I cannot fix it.

Please help. I just feel like crying.

Good news the tests found something so fixable, OP. And shouldn't be long before you're feeing a lot better. Pleased for you!

I am feeling soooo hopeful. On one tablet once a week for six weeks to see what happens.

Good to got some info and identified the vitamin D deficiency.
Worth posting your ferritin number too (indicator of iron stores) as low D and iron often seen together.

Good *you got

OP what's your deficiency level?

I have Vitamin D deficiency and was put on 800iu x2 daily for 6 months. I can't remember my level but it wasn't "that" low and tbh I wasn't experiencing what you are when I was diagnosed.

What I will say is that I haven't been great at taking them, probably about 50% of the time and am now at a point where I can stay awake past 6pm and am very fatigued. Suffice to say that I'm now great at taking them.

I very very much relate to how you're feeling. It would definitely be worth taking them and getting retested so compare levels.

I didn't note it down tbh. I'll find out.

But the doctor said it was in the normal range.

Do get a copy of your results, MirabelM, and check all of your levels yourself. You don't want to be at the bottom of the 'normal range' in anything, you want to be at optimum levels.

OP, haven’t had a chance to read all the replies but I wouldn’t discount perimenopause. When mine started I got anxiety for the first time in my life, rage, headaches, crushing fatigue, feeling cold the whole time, night sweats, memory loss, thinning hair and brittle nails. My symptoms fitted peri or under active thyroid (they seem to really overlap). When I spoke to the GP about thyroid he said I was textbook but my blood test results came back as normal so nothing else was done. HRT has helped but it’s still not perfect. 41 is absolutely not too young to start peri and your GP should know that. There’s a really good menopause section where you can find out, amongst other things, how to get a reluctant GP to investigate peri. It’s not just night sweats and periods stopping, there are really weird things that seem to be caused by hormone fluctuations that you wouldn’t necessarily think were related.

Yes please do check your ferritin level… I can’t emphasise this enough. I had a vitamin D level of 44 and ferritin of 14… GP only noticed the vitamin D, suffice to say supplementing that wasn’t enough.
Ferritin needs to be nearer 70.
The NHS ranges for ferritin simply look for disease.
They are not concerned about optimum levels.
It is very important to have sufficient iron stores (ferritin) a) because we lose a lot of blood every month and b) because if you were to lose blood another way (god forbid) you would quickly become severely anemic.

@MirabelM great you have something that will hopefully help. I totally agree in checking the ferritin level, when mine had got down to 13 I had a lot of what you describe. The Dr didn't see it as particularly a contributing factor but once I was on iron tablets and my ferritin got up towards 30 I felt like a different person.

Thank you so much everyone for answering and helping out. Means a lot.

Aha same as me. Same symptoms pretty much and I had a blood test a fortnight ago. My Vitamin D levels are 30 though!! I have also just started daily tablets. My docs scale says above 50 is adequate though so on their scale you would be just below acceptable... but as PP have said, definitely not optimum!! I was pleased to hear it was vitamin D as so fixable. Hopefully a relief for you too!

@tiddletaddletat my ferritin level is 25 (had a blood test 2 weeks ago). I am within their acceptable range. Do you know of any documentation that explains what you said about needing to be nearer 70? Wondering if I need iron (in addition to the vitamin d I've been prescribed) but docs didn't say anything.

Sorry to jump on your thread OP... hole you don't mind the question!

@surreygirl1987 this is one open access paper highlighting sub 70ug ferritin being an issue www.oatext.com/iron-deficiency-without-anemia-common-important-neglected.php?fbclid=IwAR0K2OTJBp0sOpz_qqQSdYYGoUp-hQnKCLpDPVCVxuuWh9Moty3up8u_Dgg#gsc.tab=0

Highly recommend joining the iron protocol group on Facebook, masses of info and links to clinical evidence there. It can be quite complex to supplement effectively for iron deficiency so worth doing research before buying any supplements etc.

Oh thank you SO much!!!

@MirabelM, did you get told how long it will be before you feel better? I forgot to ask....

I'd get some calcium tablets too if you VitD has been low for a while.

This is me and I have an under active thyroid

If you have any possibility of ordering from a French pharmacy our vit D supplements are way stronger than the UK. We are advised to take this as standard minimum dose in the winter there a stronger booster but you need a prescription. It's less than 4€.

A great online pharmacy www.pharma-gdd.com/ but I don't know if they send outside of France.

OP I'm so happy for you that this is a very treatable health issue rather than anything scarier. Good luck!!

That sounds like my dad, vitamin b12 and vitamin d3 deficiency.

Still feeling so unwell. Have no energy despite 10 hours in bed asleep.

Borderline thyroid and Vitamin D maybe? Ask Sr what results mean and keep pushing for reasons and results, borderline thyroid often gets ignored but can have some real problems with .. look for thyroid support foods and supplements and take vit D regularly, i hope you feel better, i jad this a long time ago after i took steroids for allergies, it suppresses the autoimmune, best of luck..🙏

My vitamin D was 20 and my GP had ticked it as normal, I had gone in with all the same symptoms plus an existing thyroid problem.
I went on for a few years not knowing that I had almost no vitamin D, it makes you feel terrible when it is that low.