One out of two French people suffers from asthenia. It has become a term in our common language. What if fatigue was hiding something else? Because yes, it is sometimes a warning sign not to be overlooked.
- Women are more affected by fatigue.
- Fatigue is manifested by morning weariness.
Doctors call this asthenia. Patients use a simpler word: fatigue. But in both cases, 55% of French people say they are tired, rarely, from time to time or often! Even more after the months of pandemic that we have just suffered. The figures are not yet available but it became the first complaint during a consultation with the doctor, in front of the pain.
Evil of the century for some. It is undoubtedly excessive, and it is enough to read Zola to realize that it had largely its place in the last century. In any case, today it is more of a social phenomenon than a simple symptom, because no profession, no social category escapes it.
Exhausted, exhausted, tired… When should this state be a concern?
Where is the line between pathological and normal fatigue? The doctor is often disarmed in the face of fatigue and he yields, a little too often, to the prescription of a tonic, to the easy “it’s in the head” or more serious, that is to say, to the systematic work stoppage.
However, fatigue in the same way as pain or fever, must be analyzed, because if in the majority of cases, it has no significance of severity, it can sometimes also be considered as a real warning sign.
Normal fatigue is part of life just like hunger or thirst. It becomes a symptom when it seems unjustified. Normal is when you feel tired after physical exercise, a short night, after a busy day of travel or meetings. In all these cases, a good night’s sleep should restore energy and enthusiasm. This fatigue corresponds to an alarm signal from the body which means that it can no longer “ensure” and that it needs to reconstitute itself. But if the fatigue does not yield to rest, if it persists, if you wake up in the morning exhausted, if it is impossible to concentrate, it is not normal and should be entrusted to a doctor.
What is this “bad fatigue”?
In 80% of cases, it depends on psychological factors. It is then up to the doctor to find the words to explain: overwork, unhappiness, nervous fatigue…
In 20% of cases, the problem will be more worrying. The warning signs, to differentiate these two types of fatigue? Well first of all, an appearance rather in the afternoon, a constancy from one day to another. It calms down at rest and worsens with exertion. It is all the more worrying when it is accompanied by weight loss, fever, pallor or shortness of breath.
Several causes
If it is true that certain cancers are revealed at the beginning by a state of extreme fatigue, the first suspicion in front of suspicious fatigue must be infection. This is why the doctor must, before any treatment of convenience, propose a simple blood test, which makes it possible to label the vast majority of these fatigues.
Iron deficiency, sleep apnea or simply growth in adolescence or menopause are among the causes frequently found before thinking of more serious illnesses. Stress can also be involved: indeed, if stressful situations are repeated and last, the body constantly mobilizes its reserves to cope and ends up being exhausted. Many diseases are accompanied by fatigue, so much so that we can say that all of them include fatigue among their symptoms. At the top of the list, infectious or viral diseases such as the flu, neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s, but also thyroid disorders or diabetes, two conditions that can go completely unnoticed.
When should a doctor be consulted?
If your fatigue persists for more than 15 days, you should therefore consult and not put it solely on the back of stress or the season. Because if it is true that we are more tired in the spring, after the colds of winter and in autumn, with the drop in temperature and the length of the days, any persistent fatigue must really be explored. But when nothing is found, the opinions are unanimous: all you have to do is review your lifestyle to get back in shape, that is to say apply the doctors’ credo: “sleep enough, eat properly and move for a long time” . All with, or without vitamins? Not everyone agrees, but a small cure of vitamin C, the anti-fatigue par excellence, group B vitamins, for tone and the nervous system, and trace elements can only help you to recover surface especially during seasonal changes.
