People with ME and/or CFS

[LittleRedRidingHoodie1]

What are the symptoms of each? How did you know something was wrong? Did you think the way you felt was 'normal' until a doctor said otherwise? I just saw the other thread on here about these two conditions and would like to know more. I don't feel like I can ever catch up on energy. But is that just being weary? Thank you.

I don't know how doctors differentiate between these two conditions nowadays but I had what doctors labelled as chronic fatigue syndrome in the nineties and my main symptoms were complete exhaustion (however long I slept each day I had absolutely no energy, and at my worst I could barely walk to the bathroom and back), aching joints, palpitations, daily headaches, muscle weakness and brain fog (not being able to form sentences, remember words, etc.). So there's more to it than tiredness. The ME Association website has lots of useful stuff on it, but there are all sorts of other things that tiredness could be (e.g. things like anaemia, or thyroid problems?), so perhaps best to see your GP?

Thank you Edi.

ME or CFS are a lot more than just fatigue. You get lots of other symptoms like sore throats, raised glands, muscle pain, concentration difficulties, digestive issues, dizziness.
Mine started with an inner ear infection, and it just never seemed to go away. The sore throat and raised glands come back whenever I do to much even now, 24 years later. I definitely didn't think it was normal to feel so bad. I had days when my head was too heavy to hold up, had to lie down to eat even.

The exhaustion and symptoms in ME differs between suffers, some are able to work some are bedridden and have to be tube fed.

There are lots of other things that can cause fatigue, like aneamia, or hypothyroidism. These sound more like what you have and are diagnosed with blood tests and treatments.

Gingerbiscuit she's it fairly right I think: my dd has the following symptoms
Unmanaged pain - neuropathic, joint/ muscle, headache, stabbing, burning, pins and needles
Extreme fatigue - too tired to hold a spoon to her lips
Sleeplessness - sleeps about 3 hours in 36
Cognitive impairment - word finding, sentence forming, short term memory loss ( doesn't know my name or that of her dog or cat or her brother)
Can't walk
Hypersensitivities to light ( so in dark room always), to noise (so no TV or radio or audio books and we whisper), to taste and smell( so eating very hard - she has lost 3 stone and is dangerously low weight. Has been tube fed twice but always becomes intolerant of milk feed), to touch ( so can't be hugged, or wear clothes, or have bedding)
Cannot control temperature so she often has a very high temp, shivers uncontrollably,
Has sore throat
'Just' being tired isn't it but if course could be a symptom of lots of things eg thyroid problems, lymphoma etc etc

I hope you find out what it is for you. I hope you have something fixable - wouldn't wish this illness in anybody

scroll down to page 13/14 of the pdf (labelled as pages 7 and 8)