How do you decide when tiredness is worth seeing a GP about

[BetweenTheThoughts]

I’m curious how other mums judge when everyday exhaustion is actually worth speaking to a GP about.
It feels incredibly easy to blame everything on broken sleep, work, children, and generally having too much to do. But things like persistent tiredness, headaches, dizziness or just feeling completely unlike yourself can sometimes carry on for weeks before you think, “Actually, perhaps I should get this checked.”
Do you tend to wait and see if things improve, or are you quite good at booking an appointment when something doesn’t feel right?
And for anyone who has gone to their GP about ongoing tiredness, was there anything in particular that made you realise it was more than normal parental exhaustion?
Interested to hear other people’s experiences not looking for diagnoses, just how other mums decide when it’s time to seek proper medical advice.

persistent tiredness, headaches, dizziness or just feeling completely unlike yourself can sometimes carry on for weeks
Absolutely go to the gp. This isn't normal.

I went quite recently. The tiredness started before DC2 but became much worse after. After an accumulation of a few concerning symptoms I made an appointment and got some blood tests done but everything was fine. 🤷‍♀️

I had other symptoms to go along with fatigue, but fatigue was the worst, after about three months I went to the doctors. After some blood tests and a MRI I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, auto immune disease,medication has helped massively,

This was me this time last year. I had a 3 year old, worked 30 hours per week, house, admin etc and was tired, cold and just didn’t feel right but put it down to being a busy Mum. I managed for about 3 weeks before making a doctors appointment. The one thing that made me decide to make an appointment was falling asleep before my son at 7.30/8pm and sleeping all night until 6am and still feeling tired. One Saturday, i had four naps during the day and still slept all night. Went doctors, had bloods which found i was low on B12 and folic acid but also my thyroid level was low. Had B12 & folic acid tablets for 4 weeks, back for more bloods after and those levels were fine but thyroid still low. Ended up on tablets and diagnosed with hypothyrodism, tiredness is one of the main symptons.

The general rule is that if you have had a symptom that is unusual or bothersome for you for more than 2 weeks then its worth a trip to the GP.

I went to the GP about this recently. Was referred for a blood test. I asked the nurse what test I was actually having and she said, “Oh, you’re having the Tired All The Time test”! It’s such a recognisable syndrome they have a defined test (or battery of tests I expect) for it. So you can feel confident that you’re not wasting your or anyone else’s time. As it happens, I had nothing wrong with me, so just knackered I suppose!

I got so used to being tired I didn't realise I was tired all the time until I had a routine medical check up when I was in vocational school and found out I was incredibly anaemic, if my haemoglobin had been just 1 point lower the doctor would have ordered a blood transfusion! As it was, I got two iron infusions and realised what it feels like not to be tired all the time. Since then I've started to feel fatigued again, dizzy and out of breath easily, so went back to the doctors. Not going to ignore fatigue again.

Yrsrs ago i bexame really exhausted.
i went to the GP after I had taken an iron supplement for a few months.

Stopped all alcohol, reduced caffeine, ate well, made sure I did some sort of exercise every day.
Turns out I have hypothyroidism.

I saw maternity triage when I was 35 weeks pregnant because I couldn't stay awake. They kept me in for 3 days whilst they ran some tests. They didn't find any obvious causes other than the liver issues they were already aware of. I was on 4+ naps a day.

This was a year ago and I'm still struggling with fatigue but now only needing one or two naps a day or 2 lie downs. I have a low tolerance for activity. I have been seeing GP on and off since October. They have tested everything and they had done advice requests to haematology and endocrinology. I have my first endocrinology appointment today. My ferritin is on the low side and dropped substantially on OTC iron supplements, it has stabilised on prescription iron. My transferrin is also low and this is the protein your body releases to tell it to absorb more iron so that explains why it's only moving slowly. I have a borderline low thyroid both for T4 as the hormone that regulates your thyroid and makes it pick up when the T4 has dropped is also low.

I'm a medical mystery right now. It is hard to keep going back because I know there isn't a lot they can do and they have taken so much blood trying to see if something has changed. I tend to go back when it's obvious that it's really impacting my day to day functioning

Listen to your body - please don’t delay!

Yes please listen to your body! It is obviously telling you something. I would say if the tiredness is relentless despite a good nights sleep etc and you feel like you could fall asleep anywhere it’s probably time for a check up. Especially with other symptoms. Could be anaemia/thyroid etc but definitely get it checked out x

How broken is your sleep? I don't think I really recovered in terms of tiredness from having my first baby until when my second one was 3, so 5 or 6 years. It was because for most of that time I was being woken 2+ times a night and the odd night away here and there made no difference in terms of recovery. I was worried about my memory but in hindsight it's obvious when I look back, and now that I'm getting a full night's sleep, that if you're being awoken twice a night (or many times more) every night, that's going to have a big impact on you. I don't think there's any harm in going to the GP and I'm sure they would be happy to run tests but I also wouldn't worry unduly.

I had this and gp put it down to working full time in a stressful job with 3dc. I asked for a second opinion because I had the job and dc for a few years at this point and no amount of sleep helped. I like being busy but the brain fog and tiredness was another level. Female gp took me seriously and checked my ferritin - should be over 100 or at least close to 100… mine was 6. I had an iron infusion in May and oh my goodness, I finally feel normal again (levels now 152).

Why wouldn't you? My tiredness came on gradually and I just thought it was normal for me until a blood test for other reasons showed low B12.

About two to three weeks, turned out my iron and vitamin D were very low as hadn’t really recovered after pregnancy. Saying that before ordering the blood test the doctor did tell me to do a pregnancy test even though I was on contraception as it’s not unheard of for it to fail.