Chronic health issues: Struggling to get to the root of the problem?
You might have been feeling far from your best for a while now, maybe experiencing fatigue, gut issues, difficulty sleeping, pain in your joints, frequent illnesses, ongoing brain fog, and difficulty getting out of bed in the mornings?
You may have a chronic health issue that you need help with but are struggling to get to the root of the problem. It’s often a frustrating process for individuals to get the support and diagnosis they need from their GP.
In this article, we’ll look at possible symptoms you might be suffering with and offer some initial solutions to help.
At the bottom there’s also a link to my Free 15 minute 1:1 Expert Consultation to help you understand more about your symptoms and how to find personalised solutions that will help.
At this point if you’re looking for more help and advice on chronic health issues, most individuals will have already sought medical advice to rule out medical issues pertaining to fatigue. This might be anaemia, diabetes and thyroid issues to name but a few and have been given a diagnosis of chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia and often being told that this is something you are going to need to manage going forward as nothing specifically has come up in all the tests done by the GP.
Most people are well informed now and have tried cutting foods out of their diet to see if it makes a difference or have bought supplements from their local health store, but not really seen any improvement in terms of their major issues and that can be because these changes need to be targeted at the underlying problems rather than a generalised approach.
Taking things slower can help but again it needs to be in the understanding that you are dealing with the underlying possible causes of fatigue/CFS/ME and those are:
The important thing is to understand your symptoms but try to find out the source of them and the system imbalances which maybe at the route of the problems you are experiencing.
Typical symptoms you might be experiencing include:
Gut – constipation and or diarrhoea, bloating and wind, changes in appetite, reflux and indigestion
Fatigue – feeling unrefreshed in the morning, difficulty working, and needing a nap in the day and unable to socialise or cook due to fatigue
Pain – unexplained migrating pain, joint pain, fibromyalgia or headaches,
Inflammation – swelling in joints, stiffness or pain in muscles, anxiety and mood changes, sweating at night or feeling overly hot in bed
Food intolerances – difficulty eating certain food groups, inability to tolerate grains, knowing what to eat so as not to stir up symptoms
Cognitive problems – brain fog, forgetting words and people names, unable to concentrate for any length of time and lack of focus with difficulties in making decisions
Sleep issues – difficulty getting off to sleep, staying asleep, or general insomnia or getting up to go to the toilet frequently.
Reduce quality of life – isolating oneself as not having enough energy to go out and do things or having to give up work or reduce hours
What could help?
Diet- Gains can be made by focusing on your diet, increasing vegetables especially eating in a rainbow of colours with low sugar fruits and removing refined sugar, processed foods having good sources of protein from fish, poultry, legumes and grass-fed meat and healthy fats from olive oil, nuts and seeds. Carbohydrates should come from vegetables and fruits then grains. Try a pseudo-grain such as quinoa and buckwheat which don’t raise blood sugar as much as white refined grains.
Reducing stress – take time to review your current lifestyle looking for the areas that cause you most stress and thinking about what could be done differently, what can be put on hold for now and what you require help with to move things forward if you are stuck. Other tools for reducing stress are:-
Breathing Exercises, meditation and guided visualisations
Emotional freedom techniques/Tapping
Talking to others (friends/professionals)
Finding joy by being in nature
Sleeping – this is very important to improving health. Make sure you have a regular time to go to bed 10.00pm if you are fatigued. Wind down 30 minutes before going to bed and go to bed if you are feeling tired, don’t try to push through. Make sure the room is dark as light can keep you awake or wake you too early in the morning. Take a nap in the day if you need it/is possible (a power sleep of 30 minutes) this can often refresh you. Make sure your bedroom is free from tele’s and phones, all technology needs to be away from you when you sleep and your router ideally switched off at night
Avoiding the crash – this can make a significant difference to the length of time it takes to recover. Pushing yourself over what you think you can do, often results in a crash where you feel unable to do anything at all. This boom and bust process is important to get a handle on ie find a baseline of what you can achieve without crashing even if this feels like a small amount, as this is a platform from which you can improve.
As a brief introduction, I hope this has been a good start but each person is unique and has different symptoms that need to be addressed. For a limited time, I’m currently offering a free 15-minute consultation via the link below, where we’ll be able to discuss your case specifically.
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