My husband is always exhausted. Is this normal?

[Wrenbirdwren]

I could really use some advice on whether I am being unreasonable about the level of exhaustion my husband is at.
Family set up. Me; 42. Freelance work that doesn't bring in much, but means I can do all school runs, no after school clubs, cover school holidays, no need for holiday clubs etc, manage mental load etc. I cook for myself and kids, housework etc. 2 kids, 5 and 11.
DH: 44, full time £90k job, 2 days communting, the rest from home. No evening hobbies. He is vegan, so cooks for himself.
I get up with the kids at 7 on school days and do breakfast, lunches, spellings, reading etc and get them off to school while he gets ready for work. He starts at 9. He takes an hour for lunch where he often eats and has a nap fpr 20 minutes. He finishes at 5, when he cooks for himself then gets smallest one to bed on some evenings. He goes to bed at 10. The little one still gets up in the night so we end up ferrying him back to be about 3 times. We take turns at this.
He is yawning constantly, big black shadows under his eyes. No energy or motivation. Waves of anxiety which he is getting therapy for, but to no real effect. On a weekend, he will go through the motions with the family but you can tell he just wants to be left alone. We will both have naps.
He gets time off every school holiday as I take the children to visit relatives for 4 days to a week. He is refeshed after this but a week later is exhausted again.
I don't know the solution. I'm quite low on stamina myself and need an awful lot of sleep, and get migraines around once a month so he covers for me then. I also get breaks when with relatives and at home when the kids are at school. I feel very guilty that he is so worn down. But,if I went back to work he would have to do more of the mental load and wouldn't cope. I'd like him to consider 4 days a week, so he could at least sleep on a day so it doesn't affect the weekends, but he's against that.
I'm concered it's long covid, or his diet, but he insists his vegan diet is healthy (he does it right, lits of lentils etc for protein), but he also has lits of food intolerances and IBS.
I must admit I'm ranting, he's excellent in so many ways, I just hate seeing him so tired and crabby and it's meaning we don't do as much as a family.

Does he exercise? Get fresh air and sunlight every day? As well as everything mentioned it sounds like he needs to get his vitamin d levels checked too.
Could you exercise outdoors as a family? Lethargy breeds lethargy, I feel very tired and lethargic if I dont exercise outdoors daily, it does wonders to improve mental wellbeing.

As others have said get a blood test for anaemia, thyroid issues, b12 and testosterone. When I was anaemic I would sleep all day and night if I could I was exhausted!

He"s 44. He really ahouldn't be like that yet.Yanbu.

I got like that at 58, when a single mum
Turned out I had bc. Once rid of the cancer, my old energy came back.

No reason to think he has anything serious but I'd persuade your dh to have a health check, with full bloods. And persuade him to take a daily multivitami . Is he getting enough sunlight? Is he low on iron?

Iron deficiency?
Lack of exercise?
I find I get really tired when I don't exercise. Getting physically tired helps my mental exhaustion.
Id encourage him to go to the GP and get a health MOT

Blood tests and carbon monoxide detector first checks

I would get DH to check his diet. While the headline message is eating Vegan is the healthy choice it can actually be very unhealthy and dangerous if the diet isn’t balanced and therefore not getting enough of all the essential protein, fats , vitamins and minerals.

`it is possible to eat a healthy vegan diet with sufficient nutrients etc. but it does need to be thought through properly and just eating ready meals / UHP vegan food substitutes will not provide the balance needed.

Does he do any exercise/sports? You said he has no evening hobbies so sounds like he has an unhealthy lifestyle as well as lack of nutrients. Good he's getting bloods done.

Lots of people leaping to diet first, blood test etc

id be looking first at sleep apnea. Does he snore? Do you even know this as you’re not sleeping in same bed that often.

My exh sleepiness took a massive increase over a period of 4 years. I knew he snored, but we’d slept in seperate beds since kids left home due to menopause and his snoring. I hadn’t realised how bad it got, till he’d fall asleep regularly in day, and then even while he was talking or eating. It took a year of pushing him and GP to do the simple sleep cap procedure and we found he had very severe sleep apnea

went onto a CPAP and after 3 weeks was a different bloke, mode improved, energy improved and he wouldn’t stop tlaking 😳🙄🤣🤣🤣🤣.

it is massively under diagnosed , it causes masses of symptoms that can be very serious.

so , whilst all other points on diet and bloods are valid, I’d also try to spend odd night with him to see if he’s snoring a lot, and then get him to either buy one of watch tracker things as first point to see if he’s snoring etc and or go to GP and push for testing .

ok I know CPAP machine aren’t great to use …but you do get used to and they’re literally a life saver

Could you let me know the brands you are taking I'm on the lookout for better B12.

OP I second sounds very like B12 Deficiency. I think he could possibly need B12 injections as its not very well absorbed in the gut. Def needs a chat with the GP. Also he should take a daily vit D

It sounds like the disrupted nights are the major issue. You say you’re tired too, OP, and understandably so. However, re his undereye dark circles, I had these (and IBS) and they were a sign of Non Coeliac Gluten Sensitivity. Since cutting out gluten, I feel much better in myself, my digestion has completely changed for the better, and my dark circles are much reduced.

So, focus on sorting the sleep but get your husband to have a wide range of blood tests including a coeliac screen, iron, folate, B12, Vitamin D, thyroid, etc. Push for the non-routine tests - they often omit them (coeliac and the vits).

It's the diet. Humans are omnivores and it is not healthy to base a diet only in vegetables.

He is vegan, so cooks for himself.

Mystery solved.

If he has IBS he's almost guaranteed to have some nutrient malabsorption issues & those are tricky, sometimes impossible to manage on a vegan diet. He really needs wider testing than the usual GP blood panel; thyroid function, testosterone & vitamins D & B12 for a start, it would also be a good idea to check for prediabetes/ type 2 diabetes - they're not just for the portly.
It's worth getting proper medical tests & advice, you can waste years trying to manage the wrong condition based on guesswork.
If nothing medical shows up then you're both reassured & can focus on finding a way to help your kid sleep through the night.

Edited for dyslexic spelling

Has he been tested for SIBO and tried the fodmap diet?

It’s his diet 💯

Could be a vitamin D deficiency. It doesn’t sound like he sees a lot of sunlight. He needs to get his bloods done.

get his ferritin tested. I went to the pharmacy as was having severe fog and tiredness. They said possibly low iron but actually my iron is really high and it’s quite common in people of Irish descent so something to get checked over before taking any supplements.

IBS suggests nutrients he is taking aren’t getting into him.

This was my first thought.
Iron
Vitamin D
B12
If you want to eat a vegan diet you have to really study nutrition. You have to plan meals and shopping. If he isn't doing that he is probably undernourished and malnourished. A lot of the pretend "vegan" meat and cheese products are very poor quality. I have a lot of friends who are culturally vegan and have generations of knowledge and experience in preparing nutritious food. It is an art form.

I have an underactive thyroid, took me two years to get GP to take it seriously and the only reason he did was I saw the nurse practitioner and cried and she said she thought she knew what it was and did a blood test. Next day I get a call from the surgery to say GP needs to see me urgently.

He never apologised for ignoring my issues, he insisted I was depressed, but said it would take a while to titrate me up to the correct doe but "You must have felt like swimming through treacle." Well that was quite a good description. I had to go out to my car at lunchtime at work to sleep for half an hour or so, did the same at the end of the day before I could drive home.

Going onto levothyroxine was like a miracle even on the low starting dose, when I got up to the full dose I just couldn't believe what normal life felt like.

It might not by this with your DH but it could be, could be low iron but whatever he needs blood tests.

I hope it gets sorted, it is a horrible way to live.

Blood tests should probably also check for coeliac, particularly as he has bowel symptoms. A friend of mine had exhaustion as her only symptom, and that's what it turned out to be. Her life is so much better now. If the blood test is positive it would need to be confirmed with a biopsy.

In my experience the NHS aren't great with sexual health and hormones.

DP went for a test for his male hormone levels and was told he was fine because he was within normal range. Normal range being something like 12-30, and him being 12.

That means somebody could basically have triple the level of testosterone he had, and still be within the normal range.

He ended up having to go private.

I had similar with some female health check ups despite suffering overwhelmingly with the symptoms, was told nothing they could do as within normal range despite being anything close to optimal.

I believe iodine deficiency can also be an issue with a vegan diet.

Could he take some kind of gut health supplement? My partner had a ‘diagnosis’ of possible IBS, but it’s pretty clear now that what he has an autoimmune condition. He gets the crashing fatigue if he doesn’t manage it. Although he’s seen improvements through various things. Gut health is heavily implicated in those, and fermented foods can help. In the absence of those though maybe a supplement

As a side note. I’m vegan and annoyingly perky. (And older than him).

This is a good question.

As above, full bloods are needed. It could be anything from malaise with family life, poor diet, chronic inflammation to kidney failure.

He is vegan - says it all.
This sort of a "diet" doesn't sustain an adult human being.
Full stop.