by Linda Shrigley

Created on: September 21, 2008

Symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome

There are millions of Canadians that suffer with chronic fatigue syndrome. More people suffer with chronic fatigue syndrome than there are people who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, or any other type of arthritis. Those that suffer with this dreadful disease knows what we go through with chronic fatigue syndrome; where people that do not have this disease can't even imagine the pain that is involved with chronic fatigue syndrome. They can read about the symptoms, but they won't understand them unless they have the disease.

Someone that has chronic fatigue syndrome will agree with me when I say that I feel like there is a house sitting on my shoulders. The feeling of heaviness is the worse feeling you can have. All of us have had days where we feel under the weather; we have days where we feel like the weight of the world on my shoulders. Well, people with chronic fatigue syndrome, does have that weight on their shoulders, our bodies feel like we are carrying a ball and chain around our neck. You may think this is weird, but it is the truth.

Besides being weighed down, chronic fatigue syndrome's main symptom is feeling tired all the time. There are not enough hours in a day that people can sleep, to get rid of the feeling of tiredness, caused by chronic fatigue syndrome. You get up in the morning feeling as if you did not sleep at all, yet you have slept pretty well. With chronic fatigue syndrome, you never sleep through the night, without waking up to move around a little to ease the pain in your body. The muscles and joints HAVE to be moved to relieve the pain, or they just keep tightening up on you.

I used to be a waitress, many years ago, now. After I went to the doctor and found why I was always in so much pain that it affected my job, I was told I had severe chronic fatigue syndrome. I had no other choice but to quit. I loved being a waitress; I got to meet new people, do something I loved to do, and made a little money to boot. By the time I went to see the doctor, my feet felt as if they did not belong to me anymore, they hurt so badly. At the end of a six hour shift, I could hardly walk anymore, and my hands could hardly hold a pen. I had never thought of anything like chronic fatigue syndrome before that, and by the time I did go to a doctor, it was already in the severe chronic fatigue syndrome stage; I'm stubborn, so I didn't go to see a doctor for a long, long, time after I started having problems,

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