Recently, more and more patients visit medical institutions complaining of fatigue. People feel tired as they are exposed to various stress situations in their lives. There are various types of things that make us feel tired, ranging from daily work, long-distance travel, relationships with people around us, to parting or bereavement. In addition, as the proportion of the tertiary industry that provides services has increased, the increased emotional labor, performance-oriented social atmosphere, the working environment in which someone has to work around the clock, and various socioeconomic instabilities add to individual fatigue.
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Fatigue is not easy to define in a word. This is because physical, mental, and social aspects appear in a complex combination. In general, fatigue is defined as abnormal symptoms of exhaustion after activities, a state in which continuous effort or concentration is not possible due to lack of energy, and a state in which daily activities are not possible.
Usually, it is natural to feel tired after hard work, but fatigue that persists without recovering after some rest is certainly not normal. If this condition continues for more than a month, it is called persistent fatigue, and if it continues for more than six months, it is called chronic fatigue.
It is often easy to confuse chronic fatigue with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is defined by relatively complex criteria. The criteria set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States in 1994 are most widely used, including:
In particular, unexplained fatigue should appear continuously or repeatedly for more than six months, the occurrence of heavy fatigue is not related to current work, symptoms should not be improved by rest, and occupational, educational, social, and personal activities should be substantially reduced due to chronic fatigue. In addition, people with the above symptoms should feel at least four of the following symptoms continuously or repeatedly for a period of more than six months: memory or concentration disorder, sore throat, cervical or axillary lymphatic tenderness, muscle pain, multiple joint pain, new headache, no fresh feeling even if you sleep, severe fatigue after exercise or hard work.
However, apparent organic diseases, psychiatric diseases, metabolic diseases, or fatigue caused by drug misuse do not correspond to chronic fatigue syndrome.
Although the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome is not clear, there is a hypothesis that complex factors such as chronic infectious diseases, stress, toxic substances, trauma or shock continue to activate the immune system and inhibit the function of neurotransmitters.
In general, it is known that only 1 to 3% of patients who complain of chronic fatigue are affected by chronic fatigue syndrome. However, chronic fatigue is a symptom that can cause great loss both personally and socially, so it is important to find and treat the cause disease properly through various differential diagnoses.
As with all diseases, prevention should be more effective and prioritized than treatment, but if you already feel tired, you should receive active treatment from then on.
Taking fatigue lightly with the mind that it would be okay to rest a little longer and hold out a little longer can increase the disease. You can regain your full life by consulting and treating experts at the same time while pursuing improvements in lifestyle, such as exercising regularly, controlling weight through an appropriate amount of balanced diet, getting enough rest and sleep, and avoiding drinking and smoking.
Oriental medicine can provide acupuncture and cupping therapy to help circulate substances in the body, moxibustion therapy and thermal therapy to help relax the body, as well as Gyeongokgo or Gongdan, which is commonly known for fatigue, and herbal medicine tailored to an individual's constitution.
If your daily life is tiring, let's not endure it anymore and try to solve it actively.
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