Always ill. What am I missing? What supplements do I need? What other action can I take?

[Dogsgottabone]

I am on my fifth illness since September.

A very heavy cold which took a month to go.

A very short cold which looking back was lots of high sneezing and could have been covid (again, Third time)

Three heavy peri periods in 6 weeks in the autumn which has necessitated the iron and HRT detailed below.

A virus in December that was a bit like flu but wasn't and had me in bed for 4 days and I lost lbs.

A cough and cold that started just before Xmas, lasted for five weeks and has me wracked with coughs and which did nothing for keeping my prolapse safe. It was dry and tickly until the last few weeks where it cracked.

Now another horrendous cold, sinuses are throbbing, I haven't slept properly since Friday, my cough is raw and burning and my head is banging once the paracetemol wear off.

None of these coughs are easy to shake as I'm also asthmatic.

Its a bit woe is me really.

Things I already do:

Exercise daily, either hiit, yoga, swimming and then at least 10k steps

Eat 30 types of plant a week.

Take iron every 48 hrs for ferritin depletion, take bit v with it for absorption, take magnesium and iron on the days I'm not taking the iron.

Use HRT for peri.

Live in the countryside, no fumes or smoke.

What else can I do to stop this never ending feeling of being ill? What am I missing?

Because you're more likely to pick up viruses outsde your own home than inside it (especially if you all wash your hands as soon as you arrive home.) Touch a gate or stile, open a door or turn a handle that loads of other people have touched, press a button on a bus, train or lift that hundreds of others have touched, do a press up or downward dog on a patch of floor that other people's trainers have walked on etc etc. Then come home switch on a light, open the fridge etc and you have transferred potential infections. If you wash hands on arrival home before you eat or take off make up or touch your face and transfer germs to your mouth, then you are less likely to get ill or pass illness on. A friend who is a nurse told me this when DC were small.

Hey,

I had something similar about a year ago where I was just always feeling ill and sluggish. Since I've started taking vitamin supplements i've felt a lot better (I think because I have various food allergies I struggle to get enough vitamins from my diet alone).

I usually get mine from Holland and Barrett, or I've been using some from a company called LYMA after I won a competition to win a bundle of them on Women's Health. They do help me to feel more awake and I feel as though I have more energy, so maybe that will help?

There's another competition for them on Red magazine I believe, as the actual supplement is ridiculously expensive. You can get some okay ones from H&B, but I don't think they're as good imo ( I suppose at a premium price you want premium quality!)

Here's the comp page: entry2.it/98198-forum

I hope you manage to get things sorted x

After a raft of infections, a very wise paeds consultant shared with my daughter that modern life is not good for health. Not necessarily what you would first think of though. But that our society does not allow for the body to recover post illness. Before we had fancy treatments, bed rest was the best cure. It still applies. Your body needs rest and recuperation as well as good food and exercise. Take an enforced rest. Do nothing for a week if you can. Retreats are apparently amazingly restorative.

@WinterFoxes I think I was confused by your use of “outdoors” as I think that to mean outside in the open air as opposed to just not in the house. (I don’t tend to touch much if I’m out for a walk/run). I can what you mean now.

As well as more rest and trying to decrease stress I would try to prevent illness in the first place by:

more hand washing (bar soap is far kinder to hands than liquid soap). Just water will not remove germs afaik.
avoiding ill people (inc. family members), ask them to sleep in the other room, wash hands after blowing nose etc
have own mug at work and even bringing in flask

Right then. I have ordered some much stronger vitamin D today and I didn't do any housework and rested since about 5pm.

And I will do my best to rest more before I go back to work on Monday. But I am mums taxi for the rest of the week so it might be tricky!

I will pay more attention to hand hygiene (mad that I have to think about this as in the lead up to covid I was handwashing all the time and took my own soap to work).

I can't really do much about the treadmill of life unfortunately, stuff will always need doing. But I perhaps need to ease off the exercise a bit.

I am also feeling a bit better than I was this morning, still hacking but on the way out of it I think.

Thank you all for your advice and input.

And @KnittedCardi i fantasise about going on a retreat!. Perhaps that could be my 50th birthday present..!

Could you get a cleaner?

I didn't express it well! I meant 'when you are out of the house'

I've ust read this post and it is so helpful. I've felt incredibly rough for a week. I always shake off colds within 24 hours and was whinging to DH about this one lasting too long. But it isn't a cold - I've just realised. It's spring allergies! Itchy throat and eyes, sinus and asthma problems, achey joints. Going to take some non-drowsy antihistamines tomorrow.

Our coughs all got worse for a few days after going outside with the cold air.

I honestly think it sounds like you are keeping control by being hyper focussed on doing the "right" stuff when what your body probably needs is earlier nights for a while and lots of telly and books.

One week. Think of it as a detox. Still do your yoga or a 5,000 step walk a few times but limit going out and slow down. This isnt a problem to solve, I think it will solve itself if you rest lovey

Are you me? Except for the peri this is me.

Well I have exercised a lot less recently with being ill but still a few times a week most weeks and usually do 10k steps minimum.

I have been absolutely floored by one thing after the other since September.

I'm taking krill oil
Vitamin D
B vitamins
Propylis
Collagen
Iron
Magnesium

• lots of fresh fruit and veg

What B vitamin are you taking? To me this sounds anaemia. I was anaemic my whole life despite periodic iron supplements from the GP until I started B12 injections. No one suggested this. But my B12 levels were always low even when I took pretty high dose oral vitamins. Without adequate B12 you can't manufacture enough red blood cells.

About two weeks after the first one I felt... a bit better. A few months later I had recovered from the constant exhaustion. (Massively worsened in my case by a bad birth and 3 litres of blood loss in a postpartum hemorrhage.)

Now I get them at Get A Drip, which has various locations in London. I think it's £30 a time, and I only need to go 3-4 times a year, so well worth it -- and compares quite favourably to the various expensive vitamins I was buying before.

I don't know anything about B vitamins.

But I know I'm not anaemic as I had bloods in November that showed I had non anaemic iron deficiency, hence i am now taking ferrous sulphate.

And I'm pretty sure my ferritin levels are going up as I'm not losing as much hair and my eyelids are pink inside and I don't feel like I'm going to faint at work all the time!

I was having flood periods which was the cause of the low ferritin.

So I will look at vitamin B too, but might start rattling soon with the vitamins V, D, magnesium and iron 😁

@RealBecca i can't go to bed any earlier than I do. I have to get DS ASD into bed at 9 which is a challenge some days and then I'm in bed by 9.30 and asleep by 9.31!

But I call my children lovey and so your post made me feel all looked after 😊which is not a feeling you often get as an adult!

@BeautifulDayintheneighbourhood DH wants us to get one, I'm not sure a cleaner could cope with the two lively labradors and the dog hair everywhere. And besides which I'd still need to tidy for the cleaner as everywhere is always cluttered.

Also I'd literally be at work full time to pay the dog walker and the cleaner!

Covid is causing histamine related issues for people (a % of long covid sufferers are possibly suffering from mast cell/histamine intolerance issues) and dropping progesterone in peri causes an issue because its involved in the receptors?

That's interesting, could that be why women have reported issues with their cycle after covid? I've been ill enough in the past to end up in hospital but no impact on my periods. Had covid, wasn't that ill but huge impact on my cycle.

As someone else who is asthmatic and tore their Achilles (March last year, still not sorted) and who is tired a lot, I'd say you're doing too much and need to relax more. You may be suffering long Covid or similar and if that's the case you can't rush it and it will take time.

A daily multi-vitamin can help if your diet isn't as good as it could be, but taking large doses of lots of additional pills could do more harm than good due to the fact that some can build up internally (or the ones that don't you're literally pissing away). Only thing I take is a multivitamin and magnesium (I think its why I have been getting migraines as I don't really eat anything with magnesium).

It could also be stress (and one of your posts does remind me of the book "I'm too busy to be stressed"), and that can exhaust your body, I believe that and a touch of long Covid / something wicked in my lungs that wont bugger off are the issues that are tiring me.

I'm trying to relax more through daily formal mindful meditation and the introduction of informal mindfulness. I was also looking at yoga, but dizziness put paid to that. I think I also need less screen time (as the constant input to your brain is mentally exhausting) and more time just being in the moment. I'm also going to get myself a bit fitter, but gently as I have a habit of overdoing it and paying for it (torn meniscus cartilage from Insanity).

Maybe give yourself a break and stop pushing yourself so hard and thinking its some supplement you're missing, when what you could be missing is time off. We push ourselves too hard these days.

Anyway, I'l bookmark this page and if I figure it out, I'll let you know.

...I'm sooooo tempted to start taking a daily histamine... must resist....

You sound stressed. Take a week off, eat ready meals and watch Netflix or do something mindless that you enjoy.

Maybe off piste but have you had your vitamin B12 tested. DD’s is really low and is starting injections X 3 a week (she is 35 and has Down Syndrome) but has totally lost her mojo, it was discovered in a routine test.

The funny thing is my DH is always telling me to stop doing things when I complain I'm tired. But I find it so difficult to just sit on a sofa and do nothing.

If I watch telly it's on my phone while I'm doing something else in the kitchen or ironing etc. I don't really watch much. I do read books, but I'm more inclined to listen on audible while I'm doing something else. I think that's why I guard my walking time as its the one hour in the day when all I do is relax and listen.

@FenghuangHoyan i sympathise. My achilles is bust at the moment too. I've been running and exercising for years so I was really surprised to injure myself - I wear new properly fitted trainers and do all the right things. I tried insanity once or twice and the thing I disliked is that I
had to compromise your form to keep up, not a good approach so I'm not surprised you tore something.

Why would you not take an anti-histamine?

@Sadlifter i could never do that. I get irritated and anxious on holiday thinking about all the jobs that will need doing when I get home, so actually being at home means jobs to do.

But the overriding message from all the replies is that I'm stressed. I just don't know how to destress. How do you stop doing things when things need doing?

@mumof2many1943 i am due a check up blood test on my iron and HRT next month so I will ask for my B vitamin level to be checked then, you are the second person to mention it.

You just..don't do them. I'm very happy to procrastinate if it means I get time on the sofa with a book, or watching a film I enjoy. I'm rarely ill, BTW.

Ha ha well done! I do admire the art of procrastination and bizarrely I can do it a work...!

Train yourself to your hands away from your face. I’m much less I’ll since I started doing that.

Keep

I have a SIL who's always ill with one thing and another. She's also an obsessive exerciser. I don't think it's always that good for you.