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Nurse in A&E: recurrent illness and fatigue, could stress justify sick leave?

2 replies

Orchid90 · 18/03/2026 15:51

Hi ,
my situation is that I have been ill constantly since October.
I work in a busy A&e as a nurse .
back in September/ October there was a big shamble for a band 6 position. Won’t go into much details but it did stressed me out immensely and I also came out it feeling massively undervalued. The manager has now left after all of that . I just didn’t want to go in anymore but I powered on. Every annual leave I have been falling ill .
in February I got ill again with some form of virus and basically this time I haven’t really recovered. I powered through as I had AL coming up in March and again I have been ill, coughing , temperature, beyond exhaustion.
in the last 4 weeks I have seen GP 4 times , had bloods taken , payed for a private GP and also payed for a private chest X-ray as I convinced myself I must had had “something” . I have been feeling so tired , lost my appetite , had pins and needles everywhere . Bloods ok, chest X-ray ok. Iron a little low .

anyway nobody knows what’s going on but they seem to have put it down as some form of post viral fatigue …
I was also working nights for 3 months straight , from December through February and kept saying I really needed some time off work.

I am now at the end of my AL and I feel like my appetite is just about slowly coming back , I’m hoping I will be feeling a bit better soon but I can’t face going back in yet , I just know it’s gonna drain me as I still feel I have very little energy .

could it have been all stress?, I’m sort of scared they’ll just say I have just been off for two weeks so can’t be work related stress, no excuse to not go back . They are always short staffed as well so I am dreading calling in .

do you think there is a chance of them signing me off with stress ? Feel awful but at same time I honestly don’t know where I’m gonna find the strength to go back in this time .

OP posts:
Theyreeatingthedogs · 18/03/2026 16:17

Why do you need it to be stress? You could be signed off with post viral fatigue.

sparklyblueberry2 · 18/03/2026 16:19

I feel you, A&E nurse here too. Please consider time out, whether that be signing off and getting a note from the gp. You sound like you are heading for complete burnout and that’s really hard to recover from….i know ive been there and im still not 100% and it’s been months now. This winter was harsh to put it nicely and the shifts relentless. One thing I’ve realised now is no one else will look after you and you are simply replaceable. It’s a harsh truth. Months of nights def take its toll, maybe ask occupational health for their backing to come off nights for a short while to help you recover. It took a very kind matron to take me off mine and I’ve never looked back. Changing jobs is not a feasible option in the current climate of the nhs clawing back money from every angle and I’m guessing you still enjoy the job on a good day.

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