Fatigue & depression

[mfh]

Potty1 - I've started a new thread rather than hijack the roll call one. I'm sorry to hear about your daughter.

My son does get depressed when he's very tired. This seems pretty natural to me. It must be very frustrating for children and teenagers not to be able to attend school and be with their friends - he has been out with friends only about twice in the past four years.

I do find it hard to cheer him up. How do you help your daughter when she feels like this? Does anyone else find that their children, particularly the teenagers, become frustrated with their illness/condition?

Hi mfh - generally speaking I just try to be with her, but when you have other children too you feel pulled in other directions don't you? And if I'm perfectly honest sometimes it drives me up the wall. She has a couple of good friends who are understanding and are happy to come here and just chill out with her, but I know that she gets fed-up when they are off at dancing classes, after school clubs and such. She has done well to pretty much stay in school but often its to the detriment of her weekends which are spent recharging the batteries. And that has a knock on effect on the rest of the family because we aren't able to do stuff together. Your son seems quite badly affected by his fatigue and its pretty poor that you've had to arrange his home tuition yourself

Dd is a little tired at the moment and I find it difficult to encourage her to do enough to stop her feeling isolated but not too much that it 'finishes her off' IYKWIM. Only this morning she voiced her frustration that it was such a beautiful morning but she didn't feel up to getting outside.

Hi there, I hope I'm not hijacking your thread now but I wanted to respond to what you both said but didn't want to on the last thread for the same reasons. I was interested in what you said as I felt that my DS had some kind of fatigue problem after a virus which also made him go from a strong vigorous 3 month old to a floppy low toned baby who just wanted to sleep all the time, up until he was about 16 months old. He developed absence seizures which also would have made him tired but he only ever had about 2-3 wakeful hours per day. I know we had no diagnosis but I guess it's hard to tell with a baby, presumably they can get ME too. I read something about ME/CFS being linked with post polio vaccination - wonder of you had heard of anything like this? I took DS to a homeopath when he was 16m old and the homeopath said he had the polio virus (coincidentally)in his gut and treated him for it, he has been fine since then in terms of his health, though he has developmental delay. I feel sure he was completely fine pre-virus.

Fairly controversial I know, and I do apologise if this is taking the thread in the wrong direction, if so please ignore me, but I thought I'd mention the homeopathy incase it is of any use to you. The homeopath came highly recommeded btw, wasn't cheap, but there was a real change in DS in terms of his health.

I'm glad you joined in Pages. I've never heard of a baby having ME, but have heard of cases in children as young as 7, so I don't see why not.

I've also read about the link to the polio virus. There seems to be little agreement about what causes ME.

Other people have suggested homeopathy, and I've also had shiatsu (spelling?) massage recommended. The problem is a hunking great teenage boy, who sneers at anything cissy! I think I'd try anything once, just in case it worked.

Potty, I know exactly how you feel. It's hard for them to find the right balance of activities and rest.

There are several causes for ME, most common of which is a viral infection which fails to fully recede. Physical trauma can also initiate it, as can emotional stress. Candida/leaky gut are also suggested. My own ME was triggered by several factors, mainly a difficult delivery with interventions when J was born, followed by a number of viral and bacterial infections in the following few weeks. In short, I have been ill since J was born.

I can see no reason to exclude a baby from having ME but know of no evidence to support this, although I do know several families with primary school age children suffering from the condition. It is common for it to occur in family clusters with parents and children having it. Perhaps you might find more info on the ME Association website.

Before I was diagnosed my homeopath also mentioned polio virus, suggesting that I might have contracted it from changing nappies after J had had his polio vacc. Who knows, and she was never able to treat me effectively anyway.

Hope you get to the bottom of this, it sounds worrying.