Is it normal to always wake up feeling shattered

[fghjb]

When I wake up I never feel refreshed. I feel like I need more sleep and have no energy even though I average 7.5hrs sleep per night.

I'm tired all day, too tired to work out and just look forward to bedtime or squeezing in a day sleep if possible. (Weekends)

I don't know if this is just life in general is tiring and if everyone else is the same, or if there could be something underlying.

Buy some Vitamin D spray (not the tablets. They don't work.)

And some plant-based iron supplements, like Feroglobin or Floradix capsules (Feroglobin is cheaper.)

Take those once a day in the morning with a bit of fresh OJ. Drink 2L of water or fruit teas a day. Do this for a week and see if there's any change.

I have stopped using frozen foods unless they are vegetables. No frozen meals any longer and cook all from scratch. Enough home cooked for two days as ds eats different meals from me. That way only cooking once a day. I expect this will help me no end as last weeks blood test shows nothing is wrong.

I vote go to the GP for a full blood test. Don't self medicate. To take an obvious example- low iron levels cause fatigue, so people often decide to take over the counter iron tablets without any medical advice. But fatigue can also be caused by your iron levels being too high (hemochromatosis - very common but very under diagnosed - too the Go over a year to work out that's why my DH was shattered all the time).

Too much Iron (‘ferritin’j is also a problem, symptoms can look similar and include extreme fatigue. Get a blood test.

Interesting. I'm like this. In the week I sleep 8 hours a night and still struggle to wake. At the weekend 9 hours is my normal sleep sometime 10 hours. I'm 37, size 10, run 5 days a week, do yoga, eat well. All bloods normal. Lead a busy life but it's crippling. I've been known to nap on my lunch break as I can't get through the day. I'm also constantly starving hungry.

@Oilyoilyoilgob

Yes I’m the same. Did a Medichecks ultimate at home woman test which showed low vits b12 and d. They recommended a serum MMA test for the b12, this shows up a deficiency which can be there even if your b12 is at the low end of ‘normal’. Having looked online I can already see I’m too low so started a high dose of b12 after my blood test yesterday.

I got my MMA done as a walk in at Doncaster hospital, this cost £127 with Medichecks but meant I didn’t have to wait for a gp appointment and if it flags a deficiency I’ll be able to go through my gp or bupa with all of my info to hand.

I promise I don’t work for Medichecks 😂 but we use them at least once a year to keep an eye on things for peace of mind. Goid luck if you do go for blood tests, worth finding out issues as soon as you can.

Weirdly, I was also looking at Medichecks today as it seems like quite a comprehensive set of tests, covering thyroid/menopause/iron/b12 so all the usual suspects. I doubt I'd get all of those done at a GP.

Did you get advice back with your results?

Are you waking up naturally or with an alarm/outside factor?

It might be that you need more sleep, 7.5 hours is a little below average for an adult and some people's ideal will be higher than the average.

It might be that your been woken up at the wrong point in your sleep cycle which is causing you not to feel the benefits.

It might be that the hours you're sleeping don't work for you, night owl vs early riser, these can shift about to some degree but when you eat meals/do strenous activities etc mean you'd be more refreshed by going to bed earlier and getting up earlier, or staying up later and sleeping in later.

It might be nothing to do with the hours but the sleep quality (various people have already suggested things) or the circumstances you wake it - a dark room will still feel like night and make it harder to transition to full wakefullness than one with natural light etc.

@wink1970

Too much Iron (‘ferritin’j is also a problem, symptoms can look similar and include extreme fatigue. Get a blood test.

I didn't know this.

Don't start the vitamins until you have blood test as it may affect results and you need to know the cause. It could be a number of things, I've recently started supplements as a result of blood tests so hoping to see the difference soon.

You might be low on vitamin D. You may need 8 hours sleep rather than 7.5. You may just need longer to wake up.

I feel this way. Had all the blood tests done and all were fine except slightly reduced vitamin D levels which apparently most people have in the UK anyway, take supplements now but don’t feel better for it. I’ve overhauled my diet this year and I exercise a lot more but still don’t feel well rested. I have a Fitbit and according to that I don’t get very much REM and I’m mostly in a light sleep, also ‘awake’ for at least an hour every night. Guessing that’s why, the quality of sleep just isn’t great. No idea how to fix it, meditation probably.

Firstly go and get your bloods checked. It might be something really simple.

It was for me, I was massively deficient in Vit D. I had felt exhausted for ages. Started feeling a lot better after a couple of weeks of a Vit d supplement

Then I realised I was also peri menopausal, so as soon as I was able I went on HRT.

Both of those things have been game changers.

@Cuck00soup no i haven’t had my MMA results back as they can take up to 10 days. Interestingly, the doctors report you get with your Medichecks said that even if you are marked low end of normal in b12, you can still be deficient-hence their recommendation of the serum MMA check. Which I bought last Friday and it was through my door by Saturday.

I booked the walk in option at Doncaster hospital and was done in 5 minutes.

We've used Medichecks for the last year as it tracks your results once taking the same test more than once, and I used them for separate fertility bloods before ivf.
We like it as we can do the tests when it suits us, and we aren’t having to wait for a gp appointment then beg for a blood test!

I’m already very low on b12 so won’t be shocked if it shows I’m deficient. I’m a veggie but had the eye off the ball on getting b12 in and wasn’t using a high supplement. I’m now on fortified cereal, back to a tablespoon of yeast extract and on a 1mg supplement from the pharmacist. I’ll then see if I can go through my gp or ups for jabs if needed, but if I get nowhere I’ll buy them to do at home.

I thought it was life/ivf dragging me down mentally and physically but having gone very depleted since my last Medichecks last may, I realise I’ve been riding a wave of deficiency 🙁

I always wake up shattered even when I think I've been asleep most of the night.

It turns out, via a sleep trial thing at the hospital, that I have restless legs and I wake myself up every 45mins. This means I never get to have any decent sleep.

Obviously it takes a while for a sleep trial to be sorted so in the meantime I would suggest buying a cheap cctv camera thingy and train it on you whilst asleep. I do this so I can check back and without fail I still wake up every 45minutes.

No suggestions for stopping it, but at least it stops the why am I so bloody tired thoughts.

I have sleep apnea and felt like this before I got my CPAP machine
It was life changing when I realised the difference it made to me

I have sleep apnea and am like this. I have recently had an operation to widen my nasal passages but as yet it hasn’t helped.

I don’t know if it’s normal but I’ve been like this all my life. I’ve spent the last 25 years going to doctors on and off, having tests done and being told there’s nothing wrong with me. So I just try to live with it. I am constantly tired and wake up tired every day. It’s rubbish.

For the people that have mentioned sleep apnea, what symptoms did you have? Did you go to the doctors thinking that was what it was or did they diagnose you? How do you get tested and confirmed for it?

@anotherperson1

For the people that have mentioned sleep apnea, what symptoms did you have? Did you go to the doctors thinking that was what it was or did they diagnose you? How do you get tested and confirmed for it?

DH has sleep apnoea and has to sleep on a Cpap machine. He used to frighten me to death when I woke in the night & he wasn’t breathing. He was referred to the sleep clinic at the hospital and they attached a monitor to him for him to wear over night. It showed stopped breathing dozens of times for a few minutes. They have since said that if he doesn’t sleep on his Cpap he will lose his license as he would not be fit to drive!

OP Just to say don’t take any vitamins until you have spoken to the GP because if they are doing blood tests it will skew the results.

I use to wake up and think ‘I can’t wait for bed time’. Turned out to be an underactive thyroid. There was no way I could stay up beyond 9/ 10pm and sometimes fell asleep on the sofa whilst DH was cooking dinner.

Later low Iron, vitamin B12 & Vitamin D deficiencies caused the same feeling though so there can be plenty of reasons for feeling tired.

It does seem worth talking to your GP tho re tiredness, given that you appear to be getting quite a decent amount of sleep. Obviously the quality might be an issue, but the hours you're getting seem quite good.

You may have sleep apnoea - try researching that.

Thank You Oilyoilgob I've also broken two nails today which was the final push I needed to check my vit D levels. I've booked the well woman test for tomorrow and hope it gives me some answers.

@Cuck00soup you’re very welcome and I hope the nails aren’t too sore! Wishing you the best results for your test, when I have mine I’ll post back on here.

My husband bought me a 28 day rainbow pill box from Amazon which is amazing as my supplements are now all to hand! I read a good tip on a doctors website of taking them in the morning to get the best from them-I’d been taking all mine at night 😩 and then a couple of nights a week forgetting. So now I have my pill box next to my fortified cereal, and take them with breakfast-I’m hoping within the next month to start feeling a bit perkier!

I honestly believe we should all be given a full bloods check annually like an mot, but even then the nhs guidelines have numbers often much lower than what we need, so lots of people are told they’re in the normal category. If I’m told this I’m going to buy the intramuscular b12 to do at home. Actually I think I’ll buy them whatever they say and get jabbing 😉

I have sleep apnoea and was extremely tired every day, would wake up frequently during the night to go to the toilet, and wake up with a headache most days. There is something called the Epworth sleepiness scale which might be worth having a look at. It might not be that, but if you have blood tests and they come back normal it would be worth mentioning it to your GP.
Once is started CPAP I went from sleeping most of the day to working full time!

I feel like this most of the time. In term time (teacher) I sleep around 7 hours a night, plus 8-9 hours at weekends (maybe longer or have a nap one day) and I am just constantly exhausted. School holidays I can get 8-9 hours in every day and the difference is immense. I think I am a person who just needs more sleep. Clearly I’m
Not cut out for work 😂 Perhaps you’re the same OP? Can you get to bed earlier/lie in longer?