Get that sleep study
When discussing the various causes of fatigue and unease, I very seldom hear people talk about sleep.
I’ll talk about it more another time, but a couple years ago I crashed onto the realization that I had a nasty vitamin B12 deficiency. It was treated, but I still had an exhaustion and anxiety that wouldn’t fade. My family has a history of sleep apnea, so I decided to give a sleep study a try. This was the kind of test where if you have an episode of apnea, they’ll hook you up to a CPAP machine to see how you fare. I didn’t get woken up, and I was pretty upset that that wasn’t “the thing”. I came home and slept for another 16 hours (I don’t know if I’ve ever slept that much). A few days later I got to discuss my results, and it turns out I was kicking a lot in my sleep. I got prescribed Gabapentin (which my partner and I call my kitty girl pills since it’s what you give anxious cats to go to the vet). Pretty immediately, I started waking up with an alertness that pierced through the veil of exhaustion I had become accustomed to. I was still tired, but there was a distinct feeling of feeling “alive” that perhaps could also be described as “actually sleeping”. I’m thinking about this today as I take my pills. I came to that inevitable point when you’ve been on a med that’s been helping where you think okay but maybe I don’t even need it and had some trouble getting it filled (thanks Walgreens). I slowly felt more and more anxious, could walk shorter and shorter distances. I had my first pinch attack in a long time. A few days back on and I can feel the color returning to the world.
All to say, if you’ve resigned yourself to horrible fatigue, maybe consider a sleep study. My sleep doctor was uniquely excited to help me feel less exhaustion. A great combo of “that’s not normal” and “I have some tools to try to fix that”. It’s not going to work for everyone, but I’m surprised at how infrequently it comes up in chronic illness circles.
A word to the wise: just take the single ambien they give you. I don’t think anyone can naturally fall asleep with all the nonsense that gets affixed to you.