I’m waiting for my health insurance paperwork to be processed so I can see a doctor about this. I went to a free clinic a few months ago and they tested me for deficiencies that are commonly found in vegetarians & vegans (I don’t eat meat and have virtually eliminated all dairy products and eggs) except for iron deficiency curiously. Anyway, at that appointment they determined nothing was wrong and suggested a brand of vegan supplements as opposed to the Walgreen’s brand of vitamins I take. I haven’t been back to the free clinic because they only offer two free appointments before you have to work out a payment plan (the clinic is very expensive otherwise, I imagine that’s how they fund the free part). I used the second appointment for birth control (I guess I could have asked testing for iron deficiency then, but they’d kept me waiting for 3 hrs and I needed to get going).
All that aside, I have been feeling incredibly exhausted and unmotivated. Tired as in I had my groceries delivered to me because I was out of food and too tired to go to the store. I can sleep for 12 hours and barely feel rested. It’s hard for me to care much about work. I’ve stopped riding my bike, but part of that is weather related.
I am also hungry all the time****. I’m at a normal weight, but need to be constantly eating because I feel as if I’ve eaten nothing even if I just finished a meal. I don’t have specific cravings and try to eat a balanced diet minus animal products. Sometimes I feel shaky and nauseous after eating so I make sure I’m getting some sort of protein, not just carbs. Sorry for the TMI, but I am also in the bathroom constantly as I have the world’s smallest bladder.
My job keeps me very busy- I’ve worked up to 70 hrs a week- so I have no idea if this is all caused by stress, especially since the symptoms are so vague. I’d like to rule out a physical cause though just in case. This is just really bothering me because it’s so hard for me to function at work. I’m getting over a bad cold which made all of this feel a million times worse. I’m going to ask HR tomorrow for an update on being added to the company’s health plan. I didn’t get a response when I emailed about it.*
*I should note that nobody’s said anything about my work performance, I just feel like I’m doing a crappy job and last night was really bad because I was so sick from my cold. I worry that they haven’t added me to the plan because they are planning on letting me go, but nothing negative has been said to me at least.
Just imo, but if you’re working long hours AND doing shift work, you really aren’t a good candidate for veg*nism. If you’re even marginally on the grain-intolerant side of the bell curve, the combined stress on your GI tract could very easily cause problems. I’m not a nutritionist or physiologist, and have strong paleo leanings, so caveat emptor and YMMV.
Tired, unmotivated, hungry all the time, running to the bathroom a lot? Did they check your blood glucose? I had a lot of those symptoms (plus a few more really weird things, like sensitive skin/rashes) before I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. It’s probably not that - it’s rare - but it’s an easy test and then you could rule out at least one thing.
A sound and varied vegetarian diet would not cause those symptoms. My wife has been a vegetarian for a very long time and she is very active and walks a good six miles every day.
What Athena says, and these symptom are also a match for type II diabetes, which is becoming very, very common. The same bloodwork could rule that out. If your blood glucose wasn’t checked with the other lab work, this needs to be done. A one-time elevated fasting BG isn’t diagnostic, but it is indicative of a need for more testing. Please get tested - by the time type II diabetics start showing some of the symptoms you describe, their blood sugar is very badly out of control, at least three times what it should be.
No confusion. A few months ago I felt achy and sick with neck pain, a headache and sore joints, but no fever. It went away after about a week and I didn’t see a doctor.
My mom has Type 2 diabetes so a nurse at my campus health center checked my blood glucose a few years ago when I was in college and went for a routine checkup- she said it was fine.
It’s possible I’m not eating as varied a diet as I should be. I’m a pretty picky eater. I am normally active though- up until Christmas when I started feeling really tired (and the weather became really awful) I biked 16 miles a day. It’s not like I’m eating tons of junk though or eating all the same thing all the time, plus the doctor at the free clinic didn’t have any diet suggestions for me considering that I (apparently) don’t have any vitamin deficiencies. I would like to become better at planning different meals though-I’ll do some research on easy vegan recipes.
I’ll definitely keep that in mind as my mom has it. She didn’t know until she started having seizures. Even that went unnoticed initially because she has epilepsy.
You could easily have developed something now that you didn’t have a few years ago. Like I said, it’s probably nothing, but if your mother is Type 2, she probably has a glucose meter you can borrow. Test right away in the morning if you can, before eating anything. Wash your hands first. If it’s higher than 126, go see a doctor.
If you can’t do it right away in the morning, just wait 3-4 hours after eating to take it. Not quite as good of an indicator, but decent enough, and doable without a doctor’s visit.
Good idea. Unfortunately my mom lives in Virginia and I live in New York. I don’t know anyone up here with diabetes who could let me use their glucose meter. But I’ll bring it up to the doctor when I’m able to make an appointment. Presumably they’d want to test me anyway because she has it.
Interesting you said they didn’t check for iron. You sound exactly like me when I was pregnant and anaemic. Get that checked ASAP, so easy to fix! I felt better after a couple of days of supplements.
I bought an iron supplement at the grocery store, but decided against actually taking it since iron overload is far more dangerous than lack of iron. I am prepared though if I do ever need them.
I hope you’re not using the second sentence as supporting evidence for the first. For some people, some of OP’s symptoms could be caused by common components of vegetarian diets, especially if lifestyle factors contributed.
CatherineZeta, after a quick search and in light of family history, Diabetes has to be a concern. The Mayo Clinic list of symptoms bears some resemblance. Good luck with the health plan, and I hope all works out well for you.
Of course, some research indicates that avoiding gluten may be a prudent strategy for diabetics as well. Again, YMMV.
Thanks for the input telebob****. I am curious about your earlier statement though regarding working odd/long hours and veganism- how would that impact my GI tract?
I have looked at the symptom list for diabetes. The only other clue is that I’ve dropped a pant size at the brand I normally shop at, but I chalked that up to a change in how they determine their sizing/ my existing pants from them getting stretched out.
But a clue pointing toward anemia is my nails are weak and the top layer tends to peel at the tip, so I keep them very short. This is not new though, I’ve had this problem for years and my Grandma has the same thing.
Is this when the tiredness started? Could it be some random virus that is taking a long time to recover from fully, given your work/stress levels? Could it be something like mono?
It happened at around the same time, but has gotten much worse recently. Feeling hungry all the time and possibly losing weight happened before that though (I weigh myself once a year at my mom’s, so I have no idea if I actually lost weight or if I just have poorly made pants). All of it has gotten much worse in the past month however.
If this is a virus I don’t think it’s mono because I had that when I was 5. I haven’t had any symptoms of it and don’t think I can get it again anyway.
I only asked because my wife had similar vague symptoms (fatigue, headaches, but no gain in appetite), as well as a sore neck and some mild confusion and it ended up being menengitis/encephalitis which can be very hard to diagnose. They would only look for this after ruling everything else out first though.
That makes sense. I suppose all this could be from a virus- I’ve read that fatigue can cause one to feel hungry. Maybe I’m going to the bathroom constantly because of the amount that I’m eating? I don’t know if digestive systems work that way. Again, apologies for the TMI, but unless I have to hold it because I’m busy, I usually have to go once an hour.
Been tested for Lyme? I had similar symptoms; unfortunately, I also had a GP who pooh poohed my concerns about Lyme because I had no bulls-eye rash and continued to tell me I was stressed, depressed, middle-aged, needed counseling - pretty much every way of suggesting that I was a whiny female and it was all in my head.
Two (untreated) years later I finally went to a specialist. Guess what? Lyme-o-Rama. 18 months on antibiotics. Might as well get screened for that if you’re getting bloods done.
OK, sorry for what seems to be a bit of a highjack, but it may still prove useful. I’m not an expert in this stuff and I’m going to say some general things without providing citations. If you get interested, please seek out more reputable sources of information (Like an actual MD, although that’s no guarantee of reputability).
In my brain, the connection goes like this:
[ol]
[li]Stress and sleep pattern disruption are connected with a range of maladies, including GI problems (and fatigue).[/li][li]The ability of people to digest grains appears to vary widely, from “no worries” to celiac disease.[/li][li]Vegetarians and vegans (veg*ns for short) often eat grains (usually combined with legumes, which may or may not have their own problems) to fulfill their protein requirements.[/li][li]For mildly grain-sensitive people, the combined stress of lifestyle and diet may cause a person to move from asymptomatic to symptomatic[/li][/ol]
I use “grain-sensitive” because it’s not entirely clear if gluten is the only culprit and some people seem to have difficulty with grains that don’t contain gluten, per se. I think many might not understand that problems with grains don’t always manifest as IBS or similar digestive disorders. Inflammation of the gut lining could lead to other issues, from anemia to autoimmunity. I confess there was probably some unconscious “gotcha” in there, and I apologize for that, but I stand by the idea that for someone with a stressful lifestyle, it’s not a great idea to stress it further with foods they have difficulty digesting.
Iron deficiency and diabetes are easy to check, though expensive without insurance (hope you get that sorted, and soon!), so do that first. If either of those pans out or if your interest has been piqued about what I’m saying, check out Mat Lalonde, Robb Wolf, or Mark Sisson (Descending order of nerdiness.) I won’t provide links, that might be spamming. In fact, it might be spamming anyway. I’ll accept the decision of the mods.