Chronic fatigue in women: what to do?

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Extract from the article: After a bout of flu, a bout with Covid or another illness, chronic fatigue can set in. This type of fatigue is more common in women, especially in cases of stress or overwork.

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After a bout of flu, a bout with Covid or another illness, chronic fatigue can set in. This type of fatigue is more common in women, especially in cases of stress or overwork.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a condition that combines persistent and unexplained physical exhaustion with diffuse pain, sleep disorders, neurocognitive and neurovegetative disorders. « It's a syndrome that has been described for a long time. This entity was codified and structured in 1994 as chronic fatigue syndrome, then as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS). The new American classification of 2015 includes an important criterion, the notion of exhaustion or post-exertional malaise, and a new name for this syndrome, systemic exertional intolerance », explains Professor Jean-Dominique de Korwin, Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Lorraine and the Nancy CHRU in the « Revue de Médecine Interne », published in December 2016.

Causes of chronic fatigue

Chronic fatigue syndrome often follows a viral infection such as influenza, infectious mononucleosis or even Covid-19 at the present time.The infectious episode may be the trigger and the illness persists. Normally, when cells are attacked by a virus, they shut down and then resume their activity when the virus is eradicated.Certain risk factors have been identified.As with many inflammatory diseases, this syndrome is predominantly female.There is also a genetic susceptibility to the disease. There may be an association with functional colopathy or fibromyalgia. Overwork and stress are vulnerability factors, but the cause of the syndrome is not psychological.

Symptoms

The signs of chronic fatigue syndrome are fatigue that has lasted for more than 6 months, with unrecoverable sleep. This is a disabling chronic fatigue in which people can no longer do the things they used to do. « In addition to this fatigue, there are neurovegetative and neurocognitive disorders, including orthostatic intolerance, i.e. when people stand up, they don't feel well, and cognitive disorders, memory disorders and attention disorders », explains Professor Jean-Dominique de Korwin.

Who should be consulted?

The first step is to consult your GP.He or she holds the key to the diagnosis and follow-up.He will carry out tests to find the cause of the chronic fatigue.It may be physiological fatigue caused by excessive activity, pathological fatigue caused by excessive alcohol consumption, sleep disorders or apnoea, inflammatory or endocrine diseases, depression or cancer.

Raymond DZAKPATA