Chronic Fatigue at Young Age, How Do These Results Look?

Hi Everyone,

I am a 27 year old male and I have been suffering from chronic fatigue for around eight years. I have went to multiple doctors throughout these years and have basically been turned away since I am young, relatively healthy, and at a decent weight. I have always been very tired, regardless of the amount of sleep I get. Driving is very tiring and always a struggle. In past years, I would be able to last about three or four hours driving before I would be unable to stay awake and would have to stop or turn over driving to my wife. My symptoms have been getting much worse. I am now getting to the point when I can barely stay awake at work unless I am working on something incredibly mentally stimulating. I only have a 15 minute drive to work, but have caught myself in the past couple months drifting off at stop lights. I've started to gain more weight in the past year since I have practically no energy at the end of the day. I allow myself plenty of sleep at night. I'm very lucky to have a job that allows me to be flexible with my hours. I typically sleep eight hours at night but still wake up exhausted and end up taking at least an hour to get out of bed. My sex drive is virtually non-existent. The wife and I only this sort of fun every couple months.

I've finally found a doctor in the past two years that has taken interest in my symptoms. First she thought it could be depression and anxiety, but the medication only made my fatigue much worse. She moved me to Wellbutrin which helped, but left me more anxiously stimulated and scatterbrained depending on how rested I felt. She tested my thyroid later and found that I was slightly hypo. She also tested my testosterone and found that it was at a low level for my range, but still in range (320 ng/dL). My B12 was fine, Vitamin D was slow. I have been medicating my Vit D and Hypothyroidism for about a year and a half.

In the past five months, I have grown much more tired, to the point of feeling exhausted all day no matter how many hours I sleep (sleeping 8-10 hours a night). New bloodtests showed that my thyroid levels are in an ok range, but my testosterone has dropped to 195 ng/dL, which is out of range. To make a long story short, other blood tests do not point to primary hypogonadism, so I have an MRI and many other blood tests scheduled for the first week on January.

My doctor did schedule me a sleep study last year, but I ended up cancelling the appointment because of budgetary reasons and since the Wellbutrin seemed to help me feel more awake. My wife also reports that I never toss and turn and that I rarely snore, unless I have drank. The doctor did question again last week about my sleep, thinking it may be a cause for my testosterone levels.

I got a fitbit earlier this year, and I've noticed some interesting graphs for heart rate at night. I bought a CMS50F last week in the hopes that maybe it will point to a sleep issue that would in turn cause my testosterone and tiredness. I would really appreciate it if any one here would take a quick look at my results. These are both from last night. I have visiting family and did not get as much sleep as normal (stayed up watching NetFlix ), but I recorded the questionable heart rate on both the FitBit and CMS50F last night.

Sp02 Assistant:


Sleepyhead:


Fitbit Heart:


Fitbit Sleep:


Sorry for the long, drawn out post, but i'm really at a loss. If the MRI and additional blood test do not show up anything, I plan on scheduling another sleep study. Please let me know if you see anything questionable in my results. I do not see any big drops in Sp02, but the events that are logged seem to correlate with the heart rate. I have assumed that these transitions in heart rate may be related to REM sleep, but I cannot find any other similar pictures of other peoples results that could explain this. I know, none of this can be concluded without a sleep study .

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Apnea is responsible for thise symptoms in many of us, so, go for the sleep study.
If it is not apnea, your doctors will at least realize that you are SERIOUS about finding a cause for your fatigue.

SLEEP STUDY !

You may also want to review your diet...

Oxygen levels look good. Heart rate seems to fluctuate a lot but it doesn't look bad.

Hi manyquestions,
I'm new to all of this as well, but not new to fatigue. None of my doctors suggested/suspected sleep apnea, but I wanted a sleep study to at least rule it out. So much for ruling it out - AHI of 29. But at least I have some hope now that with CPAP I'll feel better. Like you, I have mild hypothyroidism, low Vitamin D, and have been on anti-depressants for years including Wellbutrin xl which also helps my energy. I also took Adderall for a while which helped a bit and I think could help you if you don't have apnea, but getting a sleep study done seems necessary. I've never been overweight, but have steadily gained more and more weight over the past 10 years and I know it's because I have no energy to do much, let alone exercise regularly. If my sleep study had come back negative I was definitively going to try Provigil. I'm sorry you're struggling. I think my husband has it too. He's next up for testing. We both have small jaws, and both had permanent teeth pulled as tweens solidifying our small jaws for life. We both have deviated septums, etc. Our sex drives have both gone down the tubes. After years of crushing fatigue, I hope the CPAP can bring me back to life.

Thanks everyone for the input. As I said before, I plan on setting up a sleep study if the blood work coming up doesn't show something specific. I'm getting iron, cortisol, testosterone, and thyroid tested the first week of January. I believe the next logical step would be a sleep study. I'm hoping the Dr. will also be open minded enough to take a look at the same data I've supplied here.

My diet could improve. One big issue is my wife and I eat late (probably 8:00 pm everynight) because of her work schedule. I plan on adjusting this, or just eating much less at that time.

I expect that something like Adderall would definitely help, but I'm worried it would increase my anxiety I sometimes have which would hurt me in the long run. I really struggle with focusing sometimes, but I suspect that is just because of whatever is the root of these issues.

Thanks

Your testosterone levels could explain much of your symptoms. It's pretty unusual for a person as young as you are, but I would encourage you to get a referral to an endocrinologist. It would be easy to simply supplement T, but keep in mind it would make you exogenous (dependent on external sources of androgenic hormones), and most likely sterile. There are other approaches that can stimulate your production of testosterone, but they require a pretty bright doctor, not one of the "boner" specialists (pardon me).

I think a sleep study is in order, and you can get a home study inexpensively that would at least give you screening information you can present to your doctor. Your T levels are something you should pursue now, and is an obvious source of chronic fatigue, depression, lack of motivation, sex drive etc. Take care of it.