Fatigue! Do you get it? I get it! No, seriously, I get it. I have meds for it.π Yes they are prescribed!ππ And they work! Most of the time π Sometimes tho, MS, just rears its ugly head and knocks you down! No rhyme or reason, you are walking through jello!
So how do you handle it? Are you on medication for it? Do you have tricks for those really bad days? (Like having that 20 bucks stashed for pizza)
I describe the fatigue as a blanket being thrown over my head. I feel like if I don't lay down, I will fall down. Scary feeling like that. I take meds too, but like you said it works most times.π
Sometimes I feel like I'm sleeping my life away. I've seen this particular MS fact before and found it too vague for me. I'm a technical person so I added more information to it. Here's my version:
It is much like someone who has walked 20 miles up a steep hill after 2 days of no sleep, carrying a backpack filled with 200lbs of rocks on the hottest day in history on planet Earth.
It is that moment that your legs can no longer carry you and every muscle and bone hurts and feel like goopy rubber. As soon as you sit down or, more likely, fall down, you are asleep within 5 seconds for 5 days and an F5 tornado, a cat 5 hurricane, and a 10 magnitude earthquake could pass by at the same time and not be enough to wake you.
Not on medication for it. I try to take breaks and drinking water and sitting for a short time helps. Cooking for two days and having left overs helps lol. Its hard because i feel that people who do not have ma do not understand the fatigue with ms and think it is normal and say they are tired too. π€¦ββοΈ
having to sleep more than want to and some times it is right in the middle of watching the morning news that and you have only been up for a half an hour ....terrible don't always know when or where it is going to hit ya...just take a nap or your falling down or going to sleep while driving ...it can be scary ...
It's when Amazon NOW or Fresh kicks in.....doordash....lol
I don't take anything for my fatigue, as I am prescribed Ativan for my vertigo, sort of cancels that out. I do sleep a lot though. I've learned to accept it is part of the trial and errors of M.S. Getting over another nasty round of bronchitis. So I've not left the house in almost a week.
I just sit there like duh! erash ! π Mind doesn't work, to tired to sleep, tell the dog to feed the cat and the cat to feed the dog! And hope for the best!πππ€£π€ππ
I push through as well and pay for it later. I only work part time. I work M, T, T, and F and only 9 - 2. Generally it's not to bad but today I wanted to shoot myself. Good thing it's the weekend. I have nothing but laundry tomorrow and church on Sunday. I think I can do that.
If it werenβt for Adderall, I couldnβt function. My neurologist recommended it as opposed to other medications specifically for fatigue as my insurance would not cover those. It worked out well though because I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2013 so I guess you could say it βkilled two birds with one stoneβ!
Now you're making me tired. For years fatigue was my greatest hurdle. It was my main focus for decades? I tried everything, from depression meds, to stimulants like Provigil and Nuvigil, did sleep studies.....on and on, up to and post "retiring". But it gets better. After I could stop pushing thru every minute of my 80 hour work weeks, the stress gone, the long days over, I could sleep all day if I wanted, and for a long time I did just that. Did it get better? It got worse! Far worse. I went "comatose" as I call it for years. Brain fog set in so bad, I may as well have been declared comatose. The body didn't work, the brain shut down too. I couldn't read, watch TV, nothing. I couldn't sleep it off. Wasn't tired. Just in a coma? Day after day, month after month, for years. So I've already told the story, how I came back from the dead. Stop eating! Literally. Start nutritious eating. Did so by only consuming juices fruits and veggies. Avoid all processed things some call food? Get off all the drugs called meds. It took years, but little by little I came back from the dead. I still use all the tips to conserve energy. But exercise is also a means of fighting fatigue. I wear a tracker and push for 10,000 steps/day. That took years of sore shoulders caning to get there. I still have much of the fatigue, like this morning, after a good nite's sleep, my legs were like Gumby's, ready to dissolve beneath me, leaving me stranded wherever I happened to be. But, I was able to push through it, and an hour and a half later, I'm good. I'm back to the level I was 20 years ago? When all this was still relatively new? Okay, there are still many, many things not right thanks to m.s..... But fatigue, physically IS better. I can walk like the best of them. Them being the 80+ crowd? Wait, I've met some 90+ that leave me in the dust. Okay, it's not great. I'm in my 60's??? And I can walk. Hey, that's a BIG achievement, from where I've come from with this m.s. thing! And once again, no cane!!! Now if I could only get enough energy to do 1/10th of what I could do...I could conquer the world? Yeah, I'd settle for any of the items on my to do list this week. Or is it this weak? But, I'll push through it! Got a great dinner planned, I remember? Now if only I could remember. Post it's are downstairs, I'm upstairs taking a break. I've been up for 2 hours, and....yeah time for a break? I remembered what's planned! Air Fryer Coconut Shrimp! It's Fish Friday, and shrimp are close to fish? That along with bone broth soup with Lots and Lots of tiny diced carrots, celary, peas, parsly....a salad, many organic mix less romaine, sliced pears, toasted walnuts, in snow,..blue snow?....it is going to snow today/tonite. Big storm coming. Pears and blue it is. Yes, I do cheese just fine, as long as it's not American, or comes in a can or foil wrapped blocks that you find sitting on a shelf unrefrigerated.
See, a break helps? Okay, that is enough?
Stop eating. Start juicing. Once you get out of your coma, slowly try re-introducing real food again, slowly. Then you can work on moving again. I burned through many canes for many years to get back to this.
Then YOU can ramble on and on and on like me? YES, I remember all too clearly first hand fatigue. I still fight it. But, that reminds me, a couple 200mg caffeine pills with my French roast.... and I'll be buzzing again in no time? Hope so!
Jesmcd2, you auto liked! I was still correcting the first typo/error and the like came up? Didn't know you could do that? Either that or you are a speed reader. No fatigue there!?
Sometimes, I am too tired to even remember what day it is. Wait a minute, it's Friday already? My to do list hasn't changed ~ where it my to do list? Oh well, there's always tomorrow
Yes, and it has gotten worse over the years. Dr. finally listened on Dec13 and wrote a script for Modafinil to try. The sad part was that the mail delivery service couldn't ship it until today, 27 days later! I hope it helps as my co-worker found me asleep with my face on the keyboard. If this or something else doesn't work, i'll be on SSDI.
I used to take modafinil for fatigue. I would all of a sudden feel overwhelmed and my arms and legs would feel like I had 50lb weights on them. The modafinil helped stop most of it unless I got overheated, then nothing helped. Now that I am on Ocrevus I have not had any fatigue and I don't need to take modafinil at all.
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