Symptoms Of Fatigue In Inflammatory Arthritis
Just like there are many causes of fatigue, there are also many symptoms that may indicate what you have is inflammatory arthritis-related fatigue. Its very subjective and not quantifiable with a lab or measurable outcome, which is why fatigue can feel so frustrating and overwhelming, says Dr. Cohen. You cant quantify it, but you know its not normal.
Heres a look at some of the key symptoms to discuss with your health care team:
Extreme tiredness
Dr. Khattri says that while symptoms of fatigue and feeling tired do overlap, fatigue is often at the extreme end. You feel like you have no control.
With normal tired you know sleep can fix it, says CreakyJoints community member Lel. Fatigue decides when its over youre just a helpless bystander.
Change in energy levels
While some patients wake up feeling fatigue, others experience sudden, overwhelming changes in energy levels and simply hit a wall.
RA fatigue stops me in my tracks. I feel myself fading out suddenly, then I have to rest . It feels like sandbags dropped on me, says CreakyJoints community member Kristina H. It hits me around the same time every day, or sometimes I wake up knowing its going to be a low energy day.
Increase in flares
Poor sleep
Research shows that poor sleep can make the symptoms of fatigue worse, increasing sensitivity to pain, irritability, and making it that much harder to concentrate, says Dr. Cohen.
Brain fog
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Treatment For Muscle And Joint Pain
In case you dont have any other symptoms that would indicate having one of the conditions described below consider using some homemade treatments to ease the pain.
Here is what you can do to relieve muscle discomfort:
Never Ignore Chronic Body Aches & Fatigue
Chronic body aches and fatigue can affect anyone- no matter what your age- and can be a quite stressful experience.
Some of the most common body aches include neck/back pain, muscle pain, headaches, and joint pain. In addition, there is neuropathic pain, which is a condition that results in a malfunction of the nervous system.
Chronic body aches and fatigue can be a serious medical condition that needs medical attention and should never be ignored.
Following are some of the most common causes of body aches and fatigue that you should be aware of.
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Damage To The Cartilage At The Back Of The Kneecap
Knee pain that feels worse when you go up or down stairs could be a sign of a damaged kneecap, called chondromalacia patellae.
This should not cause any redness or heat around the knee.
The cause is not understood, but it can be linked to overuse of the knee.
You can treat this problem yourself with anti-inflammatory medicines, such as ibuprofen, an icepack and rest.
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Rheumatoid Arthritis And Fatigue
Symptoms: Fatigue, morning stiffness, joint pain, inflamed joints
Rheumatoid arthritis , a type of inflammatory arthritis, is another cause of excessive fatigue. Because joint damage can result in disability, early and aggressive treatment is the best approach for rheumatoid arthritis.
Medications that may be used early in mild RA include:
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
- Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs
Other drugs used in more serious forms of RA include the anti-cytokine therapies , as well as shots and other forms of treatment.
Other autoimmune disorders, such as lupus and Sjogren’s disease, may also cause fatigue.
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Fact: A Companion Can Help During Long Road Trips
For long road trips, itâs best to bring a companion â if possible, someone who can share in the driving. Pull over and switch seats about every 100 miles or every two hours. Whoever is not behind the wheel should stay awake and talk to the driver. The passenger can also keep a watchful eye for signs that the driver might be nodding off.
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What Causes Your Fatigue
Many physical and mental illnesses, as well as lifestyle factors, can cause your fatigue, and that can make it hard to diagnose. In some cases, it might be something simple and easy to fix, like having caffeine at bedtime. But other causes, like heart disease or COPD, are serious, and you may need to start long-term treatment right away.
Your doctor can help you sift through your health issues, as well as diet, exercise, and other lifestyle habits, in order to zero in on the cause and help you on the road to recovery.
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Sleep Disorders And Fatigue
Symptoms: Chronic fatigue, feeling exhausted upon awakening, snoring
Sleep disorders are a group of conditions that disrupt or prevent restful, restorative sleep. That can take a toll on your health and quality of life, so its important to look out for signs and symptoms.
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Sleep apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders. If you or your partner notices loud snoring and you wake up tired and stay that way, you could have sleep apnea. More than one-third of adults in the U.S. snore at least a few nights a week. But if the snoring stops your breathing for seconds at a time, it could be sleep apnea. Learn more about the best sleep positions and see if sleeping on your stomach is bad or not.
Obstructive sleep apnea causes low blood oxygen levels. That’s because blockages prevent air from getting to the lungs. The low oxygen levels also affect how well your heart and brain work. Sometimes, the only clue that you might have sleep apnea is chronic fatigue.
Your doctor may prescribe a medical device called CPAP that helps keep your airways open while you sleep. In severe cases of sleep apnea, surgery may help. The surgeon will remove tissues that are blocking the airways. If left untreated, sleep apnea can increase your risk of a stroke or heart attack.
But sleep apnea is just one of many sleep disorders that cause fatigue. Other common types include:
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> > > Erase Joint Pain Without Surgery Or Injections
Anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen and Tylenol are available over-the-counter to alleviate joint pain. The same medications can be prescribed by a doctor. If you are experiencing more severe joint pain, you should see a doctor as soon as possible. If your pain is caused by an injury, you should seek medical attention as soon as possible. You should be aware of the symptoms and make sure that they are not caused by a serious condition.
Severe Muscle And Joint Pain With Fatigue Inflammation can lead to joint pain. Inflammation can lead to joint damage. Your doctor can prescribe medication to stop the inflammation. While over-the-counter medications can help relieve the pain, they have side effects and should be taken only as directed by your doctor. Your doctor will discuss your treatment options and advise you on any side effects that may occur. If your joint pain is chronic or doesnt respond to these medicines, you may need to see a surgeon.
Besides over-the-counter medications, doctors can recommend joint-related surgeries to treat joint pain. This is a serious problem and may require long-term treatment. Surgical treatment can be life-saving for patients suffering from chronic joint pain. Your doctor can also recommend physical therapy and help you manage your condition at home. If youve tried all of these methods and still have joint pain, you may need to consider surgery. In severe cases, the surgery can relieve the pain and prevent future problems.
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Talk About How Youre Feeling
Fatigue can make you feel low or depressed. Talking about how you feel can really help. Dont keep your feelings to yourself. Try to talk to a member of your healthcare team, members of a support group, your family or friends.
There are things that can help if youre feeling low. Your healthcare team may recommend a talking therapy, such as cognitive behaviour therapy also known as CBT. You can do it as one-to-one or group sessions.
Talking therapies aim to help people change the way they see their condition and any negative feelings towards it. Sessions, led by trained therapists, can help people change the way they react to and feel about their condition by making positive changes to the way they think and behave.
NHS England has a dedicated programme called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, known as IAPT. It aims to connect people with anxiety and depression to local talking therapy services. You can refer yourself to this service by visiting the NHS England website and searching for IAPT or ask a health professional to refer you.
Health services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland dont currently offer a self-referral service, but you can ask your doctor to refer you to a local NHS therapy service or group.
Joining a support group for people living with similar conditions can help you talk openly about your problems with people in similar situations. They may also be able to share tips on how to get around some of your problems.
Which Comes First Sleep Loss Or Depression
âIn people who have bad insomnia and bad depression, it is often very difficult to tell which came first,â says Mark Mahowald, MD, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Hennepin County. âSleep deprivation can impair mood, and impaired mood can result in impaired quality and quantity of sleep.â
According to Auger, the relationship between sleep and depression is not entirely understood. âBut there is a well-established connection between lack of sleep and mental and physical health,â Auger says. âSleep is as important an aspect of health as exercise and nutrition. Sleep is non-negotiable.â
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Seeing A Sleep Specialist
A sleep specialist will conduct a thorough evaluation and sleep study, in which you are monitored while sleeping, and then develop a treatment plan.
Your better sleep treatment plan may include medication as well as good sleep hygiene techniques â ways to prepare your body for sleep. Avoiding caffeine after lunch, not consuming alcohol within six hours of bedtime, and not smoking or using any type of nicotine product before bedtime are some sleep hygiene techniques. Experts may also teach you relaxation techniques and cognitive therapy, in which you learn to replace sleep worries with positive thoughts.
âWe also use a very powerful technology called âstimulus control,ââ says Auger. Essentially, stimulus control is a behavioral technique that limits the time you spend in bed.
It teaches people to use the bedroom for sleep and sex, and to leave the bedroom after about 20 minutes if they canât fall asleep and engage in a relaxing activity,â he says. âIt can be as powerful as medications and possibly more powerful in the long term.â
How Does Fatigue Change Your Life
Fatigue is different than normal feelings of tiredness. People describe it as being overwhelming and uncontrollable. They feel worn out and drained of energy, and sometimes even lose all interest in anything.
It can increase the need for sleep and make it hard to concentrate or do anything. Constantly feeling exhausted and not being able to maintain an active lifestyle can affect your mood too: Many people who have rheumatoid arthritis also feel depressed, irritable or anxious. These feelings can be hard for others to fully understand.
The severity of rheumatoid arthritis symptoms may vary a lot over time. This can make it difficult to plan ahead. You don’t know how you will feel the next day or whether the symptoms will get better or worse. This means that people with rheumatoid arthritis feel like they have lost control of their lives. If they are too exhausted, they may not have enough energy even for simple everyday activities or for playing with their children or grandchildren. Appointments may need to be rescheduled, and some people give up their favorite activities if they prove to be too demanding.
And at work it may be difficult to accept that you can’t do as much as you used to. You might need more breaks, or certain tasks might need to be reassigned.
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Nerve Conditions Which Damage Muscles
Conditions affecting nerves tend to lead to true muscle weakness. This is because if the nerve to a muscle fibre stops working, the muscle fibre cant work either and it will become floppy and eventually shrivel.
Neurological conditions: muscle weakness can be caused by cerebrovascular disease such as stroke and brain haemorrhage and spinal injury. Tumours in the brain can also lead to muscle weakness. Muscles which become partially or completely paralysed lose their normal strength and will eventually waste. Some recovery is possible but it will be slow and may not be complete.
Spine-related conditions: when nerves are damaged as they emerge from the spine , weakness can result. When the discs slip out, they press on nerves headed lower down in the body. The weakness affects only the muscles served by the irritated or compressed nerve.
Other uncommon nerve conditions:Multiple sclerosis : this is caused by damage to nerves in the brain and spinal cord and can cause sudden paralysis. This can recover partially but does not always do so.
: this is a post-viral paralysing disease which causes weakness and loss of muscle function from the fingers and toes upwards. It may last many months, although complete recovery is usual.
Other Sources Of Fatigue
Your fatigue is not always directly related to your arthritis disease activity, inflammation or pain. In fact according to a 2017 study published inCurrent Rheumatology Reports your fatigue level probably has more to do with other contributing factors, including obesity, physical inactivity, sleep disturbance and depression. Several of them may work together to cause your extreme tiredness, but identifying and treating even one of these factors can provide relief.
Managing Pain
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Rheumatoid Arthritis: Living And Dealing With Fatigue
People with rheumatoid arthritis typically have several permanently inflamed joints. The inflammation inside the body can lead to general physical weakness, drowsiness and exhaustion. This feeling of extreme tiredness is also called “.” Some people find this to be the worst symptom of the disease.
Other typical symptoms are joint pain and swelling, and also joint stiffness and physical weakness later on. Non-specific symptoms like exhaustion often start earlier on in the disease. But the symptoms and course of rheumatoid arthritis can vary greatly. People also deal with the disease in different ways. Although people experience their symptoms differently and cope with the disease in different ways, there are some things that many people with rheumatoid arthritis have in common.
Understanding Chronic Fatigue Syndrome And How It Affects The Joints
Everyone feels a little tired or exhausted from time to time, but this feeling is nothing compared to chronic fatigue syndrome. This condition is marked by severe fatigue that lasts for six months or more and isnt a side effect of another medical condition.
It most commonly affects women in their 40s and 50s, but teenagers can also develop chronic fatigue syndrome much earlier in life.
Since chronic fatigue syndrome is closely tied to joint pain, here is some information about what this condition is, what causes it, its symptoms, and how it is diagnosed and treated. Chronic fatigue syndrome is one of the most misunderstood medical conditions, but it is estimated that it affects up to 2.5 million people in the U.S. alone.1
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What You Should Know About Muscle And Joint Pain With Fatigue
Body aches are a common symptom of many conditions. Although muscle and joint pain with fatigue can be a common symptom of body aches, this condition can be because of other health conditions. There is a possibility that these indications are due to lack of exercises or because you walk or stand for long periods. Whichever is the reason, it is always better to consult your doctor to avoid worsening the present situation. Moreover, having supplement like protein nutrients will help you boost your immune system to improve the performance of your body. You can visit this website to purchase your food supplements.
Genetic Conditions Affecting Muscles
Muscular dystrophies: these are inherited diseases which affect muscles. They are rare disorders but the best known and most common is Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This occurs in children and leads to gradual loss of muscle power from toddler-hood.
Some rare muscular dystrophies: these can present in adulthood and include Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome and the facioscapulohumeral dystrophies. They also cause gradual loss of power and function in muscles. Those who have these conditions may become wheelchair-bound.
Sarcoidosis: this is a rare disease in which clumps of cells form in skin, lungs and soft tissues, including muscles. The condition usually goes away after a few years.
Amyloidosis involves deposits of an unhelpful abnormal protein called amyloid throughout the body, including muscles and kidneys.
Other rare causes: direct damage to muscles can occur in rare inherited metabolic conditions. Examples include:
- Glycogen storage diseases .
- Even rarer, mitochondrial diseases which occur when the energy systems inside muscle cells dont work properly.
Myotonic dystrophy: this is a rare genetic muscle disorder in which muscles become extremely tired. Myotonic dystrophies are passed down through families and they tend to occur earlier and become worse as they move through the generations.
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