Dear fellow redditors,
TLDR: Was the most energetic person I knew 5 years ago, was a natural bodybuilder (worked out 7 times/week), diet on point. Suddenly got really tired for a few weeks before it got better. First blood test done, came out perfect. Got a bit better. Year later, fatigue came back but was a lot worse. Accompanied by lightheadedness, insomnia, dry mouth and most importantly depression (from being tired or was I tired because of depression?). About the depression: Had some family-related issues but even today I am not sure if that would be enough to cause it. Then I had multiple blood tests done spread over a few months , all clear. Hormones were OK. Fatigue got so bad to the point that I was almost bedridden. 50 meter walk would get me feeling as if I would faint (tired, dizzy, sweaty). Last half year (internship) of uni on hold to work on my health. Was prescribed 5 different anti-depressants before I tried a psychologist. No personality disorders and consults were going nowhere so decided to quit. At this time I noticed persistent widespread muscle fasciculations (mostly in my calves, 24/7 present there). After these six months I Finished my degree even though health didn't improve, as I felt that my situation wasn't going to change any time soon so it would be better for me to at least not waste time. Went for 20h workweeks. Did this for a year. No improvements. Went to a neurologist. Muscle fasciculations made him want to do an EMG to rule out serious neurological disorders. First EMG: Scary results. 3 Months later: Second EMG: No regression so OK. Diagnosis was BFS (Benigne Fasciculation Syndrome). Nowadays I have a decent full-time job, can manage relatively easy workouts but am still tired all the time. Some days are better than others. Walking a couple of miles still makes me lightheaded and I noticed small things such as difficulties talking/texting after the walk. Home initiation test for sleep disorder shows high probability for mild to moderate central + obstructive sleep apnea (to be confirmed in a later sleep study in an actual lab). Family-related stress still going on.
Opinions?
I have been feeling exhausted for the last five years now. The level of fatigue is enough for it to interfere with my daily life (or at least make a lot of things a lot more challenging).
Five years ago i was a natural bodybuilder(yes, natural, I never took any drugs or supplements other than whey protein powder - so that's ruled out). I got a decent instagram following from it and absolutely enjoyed what I was doing. I couldn't really think of anyone with the same energy levels as I had. It happened quite a few times that people complimented me on my incredibly hard work in the gym (lots of weight, many exercises, high reps). I felt like I could just keep working out with heavy weights without getting tired. My diet was on point (176 cm, 73-79 kg depending on cutting or bulking, 2300 kcal when cutting / 2800-3300 kcal when bulking, working out hard 6-7 times a week for about 1-1.5 hours).
Then I started going on a cutting diet and I got in the best shape of my life. It was also back then when my issues with exhaustion started to show (could have been coincidental, but I am still not sure up until now - was i overtrained?).
I then went to the doctor for the first time to get a blood test done. Results showed I was a perfectly healthy man, so the fatigue must have been in my head. I upped my calories to maintenance at this point too to make sure that what I was experiencing wasn't due to eating too few calories for too long.
I felt a bit better after about 3-4 weeks and continued what I was doing for another year. It was at the summer of 2016 that things got a lot worse. The fatigue came back harder than ever and I had a lot of other unusual complaints that I never had before: Contstant lightheadedness (as if I had a constant flu and had a slow understanding of what was happening around me), a dry mouth, difficulty concentrating,... And most noticably of all: depression, even though I had always been a super happy person before.
As time passed, I went to get my blood checked every other month because the exhaustion and my overall health didn't seem to improve. Had my hormones checked but nothing seemed off. But i felt really off. Something was wrong and it was worrying me, a lot. At one point I was so exhausted and the accompanying complaints such as the lightheadedness got so bad that I stayed home for half a year. Please note that at this point I would get extremely dizzy and sweaty just from walking 50 meters. I looked like an athlete but felt the opposite. I sometimes had difficulties speaking, as if it was harder to get out the words or something was trying to keep me from doing so.
Six months had passed and the doctors couldn't figure out anything. I was still very depressed (and up until today I am not sure if the fatigue was caused by depression or if my depression was a result of the fatigue and the lack of results that explained where my fatigue was coming from). I was in my last year of uni and decided to take a break to work on my health. At that point I was at an internship and I just wasn't myself anymore. I was really vulnerable, felt weak and felt like crying all the time. So i stayed home for 6 months and went to a psychologist (for your information, I had already been prescribed about 5 different anti-depressants before ever seeing a psychologist). When I started my consultations, it became clear quickly that I didn't have any underlying mental disorders and after 4 or 5 consults, I decided not to go back because it really wasn't going anywhere (apart from being prescribed another 4-5 different anti-depressants).
It was at this point that I started noticing some really weird muscle fasciculations/twitches (involuntary movements) especially in my calves. I say especially my calves, because that's where they were present 24/7 for over a month now. But other than that, they basically occured everywhere throughout my entire body, just occassionally. They were often to be found on my triceps, back and abdominals.
After 5-6 months of staying home, I went to work part-time (20h work-weeks). This was really hard at first as I had a hard time understanding things at this point and was still constantly tired and dizzy/lightheaded.
At this point I just decided to accept that I wasn't feeling right. The doctors couldn't find anything anyway so I just decided for myself that I had to live with waht I felt. So time went on and after one year working a 20-hour work it really started bothering me again that I was so limited: I couldn't even exercise lightly (as in doing 10 push-ups or going for a 1 mile walk) anymore without feeling as if I would faint and most importantly, I couldn't even work full time and pursue a carreer that I had always had planned. So I continued going to doctors to find out what was really wrong with me (at this point it had been three years).
I then went to a neurologist who did a first EMG-test after seeing my muscle fasciculations. The results were pretty scary as they were so far off from what's normal. I then was told to supplement with magnesium and vitamin D (which I had already done in the past anyway, so I knew in advance that this wouldn't save me and my long list of physical complaints). I also had to wait three months for my second EMG-test, which would possibly rule out serious neurological disorders such as ALS - IF my EMG-results wouldn't turn out the be regressive. Scariest three months of my life.
You can understand how incredibly happy I was when the three months had passed and the results showed that regression wasn't the case. But happiness subsided quickly when I realised that I still didn't progress really from where I was before going to this doctor: I was still really tired, lightheaded etc. I however did get some vague diagnosis of 'Benign Fasciculation Syndrome'.
I just accepted it again and decided to work with the limited tools that I had, instead of giving up I just kept working hard and I now have a pretty decent full-time job. I can manage some very light workouts but am overworked really easily. It's definitely a much harder challenge for me to take on daily tasks than it would be for other people. Fatigue is still present (even though to a lower extend), muscle twitches are still 24/7 in my calves (even though I notice now that they are stronger when I slept shorter than usual or had alcohol on a night out) and the lightheadedness hasn't faded ever since it first started. I still wake up feeling unrefreshed even though I work really hard to make sure I do what's best for my health (staying active as much as I can without overreaching, having a great diet and getting my 7-8 hours of sleep a night). I can manage a 4-5 mile walk but will feel more lightheaded towards the end, I will have difficulty talking and notice that small things like texting will become harder.
I recently did a brizzy-test, which is a new test to be done at home as an initiation to finding out whether a person might have a sleep disorder (especially sleep apnea here). Turns out I might have ( as I only did the home test, the actual test in the sleeping lab is still to be done later) both central as well as obstructive sleep apnea (even though its a fairly mild form: 11.5 events/h). Now even though I realise some of my physical complaints (such as the fatigue) could be caused by an underlying sleeping disorder, everything seems really weird when I look back at my whole story: From feeling tired to feeling a bit better to feeling tired and depressed, to having a weird EMG with BFS as a diagnosis to this...
What are your thoughts? Anyone else had a similar experience?
Thank you all for your help
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