The main treatment thrust is to relieve the symptoms. This is done through a many-pronged approach. It combines symptomatic treatment with pain medication, counselling, special exercises and depression medication. When the condition is diagnosed early, the condition can be treated better. The pain and sleep problems are usually treated with drugs like bupropion and sertraline and this is combined with diet, exercise and lifestyle changes, all intended to reduce the stress levels of the person. There could also be a number of vitamins and supplements that are prescribed to level up any nutritional deficiencies. In some cases, there will be antibiotic courses to ensure relief.

All this, of course, will have to be done together with rest and a stress-free environment so that the person gets better. There are certain alternate treatments that are also employed to give relief. From a diet of spirulina and bananas to light treatment and acupuncture, people try a host of holistic treatments and some say they do get a lot of relief. The other treatments that people try are hypnotherapy, tai chi, massage and yoga. Whatever the treatment, while many respond to one or the other positively, there will be a few cases where there will be no relief and the condition could deteriorate in spite of everything that is done. There are some studies that say the 50% of patients still felt tired even after a couple of years of treatment.

What most doctors will tell a patient is to follow a regular routine, to get up each morning and do what they have to do at the time that they set themselves. A routine is the best way to manage this condition and as the person gets progressively more tired, he can cut down certain activities, but still follow a routine. Though it is hard to stay positive, this goes a long way in helping the patient to keep going. Avoiding any kind of stress and following a light daily exercise routine helps. If the condition is severe, the doctor could prescribe heart medication, anti-convulsants and maybe even cortisone treatment.

What also helps is to make everyone in the family realise that it is a condition and not sheer laziness that is keeping the person in bed and inactive. Support groups also help to lift the person’s spirits and feel like he is not alone in the world. Being isolated socially isn’t good for these people.

CFS is a condition that usually affects people in their thirties which is an age when people can usually work a lot, unlike much older people. It also seems to be affecting women more than men. There are other symptoms too that the patient could experience. Some say they suffer from jaw pain that does not go away, while others suffer from confusion, from allergies to a whole lot of foods and chemicals, there could be nausea and a feeling of being bloated and chills and sweating at night. There are cases where the person feels very dizzy, he might experience pain in the eyes, have an irregular heartbeat and maybe even palpitations. Some people suffer from an upset stomach while others have dry mouth and dry eye problems and maybe even ear aches. One sign is that these people cannot tolerate alcohol. In some, there is weight loss and sometimes, the skin experiences a tingling sensation. He might even have difficulty breathing at times.

When a person feels so tired all the time, it obviously affects every facet of his life – his work, his personal life, his social life, his exercise or even his studies if he is in the process of getting an education. Even if he sleeps for hours, he wakes up tired and very often stiff so there’s really nothing that he seems to be able to do to fix the problem. This could lead to depression and he might even experience panic attacks, very often caused by the fact that he feels so helpless.

As so many of the symptoms could well be symptoms of many other conditions, it is important that you are under the care of a doctor and not try and diagnose your own condition. However, you must be sure to tell the doctor about all your symptoms so he can diagnose the condition and give you the proper treatment depending on how the condition is placed on the scale of severity. The thing about CFS is that in many cases, this condition seesaws between periods of terrible fatigue and periods when you seem quite all right. It is this to and fro-ing of the condition that is hard to take because the patient fluctuates between hope and despair. The symptoms might seem like they have gone away completely only to sneak back in a few months and have you in a bind once more.

There are various degrees of the condition and a person could be affected by any one of them and some might progress from a mild affliction to a severe one. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS can be mild, moderate, severe or very severe. If it is mild, the person might need rest between spells of activity but he can take care of himself. In the moderate kind, the mobility is decreased and the person could have spells of inactivity and his sleep patterns could be disturbed. In the severe kind, there are very few things that the person can do and he might even need a wheelchair at times. In the very severe stage, the person cannot do even the simplest of tasks and he will have to be in bed.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can last for many years but in most people, the symptoms improve as time goes by and many get back to normal. The problem with the condition is that the underlying cause has not been identified yet and this makes it a difficult condition to treat, so doctors prescribe medication and treatment for the symptoms and try to help the person live as normal a life as possible. What is believed currently is that this condition might result from a number of causes – maybe an infectious virus, stress, trauma or toxins. It could also be a result of immunologic dysfunction which could be altering certain immune functions in the body. It has also been felt that it could be a result of allergies to certain substances which manifests itself as tiredness. There have been a number of CFS sufferers who have been thought to be allergic to OTC medication or to aspartame.

The cause could even be an imbalance of hormones in the body or maybe even a problem with the person’s blood pressure. Others feel it could be due to nutritional deficiencies. There is yet another point of view that it could be stress-related and that it is the central nervous system which reacts in this way because of emotional or even physical stress. Stress seems to alter the levels of chemicals in the brain and this has an impact on the immune system. However, they are all hypothetical questions that are posed and till research comes up with a conclusive answer, all one can do is to guess what the causes might be.

The trouble with this disorder is that it disrupts life for the person. It is not as though the person can pop a pill, get a bit of relief and carry on with his normal day. This is a condition that forces a person to stop what he is doing and rest because the fatigue is so overpowering. No matter what he does, even if he were to sleep for double the usual time, he still feels tired and nothing refreshes him and gets him back to normal. It is as though some part of his body’s mechanism has shut down and it is difficult for him to get it going again, however much he tries.

It would be a help if you were to keep a sleep diary for a week and then went to the doctor. If you have a recording of your sleep, you should take that along too. It would be a good idea to also take along your wife or partner if you have one so they can explain to the doctor just how you sound. Then the doctor will check the tissues of the throat, the mouth and the nose for obstructions. Very often, any evidence of this coupled with daytime tiredness and sleepiness is all that is needed to diagnose sleep apnea. However, in case of other symptoms, the doctor might ask you to do a few tests to eliminate the possibility of any other condition.

In certain cases, in order to make an accurate diagnosis, the doctor will ask you to do a sleep study with the help of a PSG or a polysomnogram which will check your heart rate, breathing, pulse, brain activity and oxygen levels. You will have to be hooked up to the machine with sensors but it is a procedure that does not involve any pain.

The treatment involves lifestyle changes as well as breathing devices. In case of other complications like high blood pressure or diabetes, the treatment will be symptomatic. There are a variety of breathing devices available today. This could be a simple mouthpiece which can be made by a dentist to fit your mouth. It keeps your airway open while you sleep. The one most commonly prescribed is a device called CPAP or continuous positive airway pressure which is a machine that blows air into your throat with the help of a mask that is attached to it. The air pressure is adjusted so it is just right to stop the airway from getting obstructed. There are various types of CPAP machines available and your doctor or the technician will help you as to how best to use it. This machine does not suit everyone so for those, there is another device called BPAP or bilevel positive airway pressure which has a little more air pressure than the CPAP machines. In extreme cases, surgery might be recommended to get rid of the obstruction that causes the blockages. Alternatively, it could mean resetting the jaw so it stays taut and keeps the throat muscles firm. Today, tissue that hangs loose can also be made stiff with injections. In children, sometimes all it takes is a simple tonsils removal.

When it comes to lifestyle changes, losing weight will be the first important thing to do as with weight loss, the pressure on the airways reduces. You also need to avoid alcohol and drugs as well as smoking. It helps if you have a nasal spray on hand to help if your nose gets blocked. It helps to avoid caffeine drinks and one must eat at least two hours before going to bed.

Just because you snore does not mean you have sleep apnea. All the obstructions mentioned could just cause snoring without a pause in breathing. However, people who suffer from sleep apnea snore and it could be a gentle snoring or it could be very loud. One of the main symptoms of course, is continually feeling sleepy during the day and suddenly falling asleep when you are sitting down or driving, or in extreme cases, even while you are standing and working.

There are other symptoms as well, though most of them could be common to other diseases as well. The person could suffer from headaches, he could feel his throat parched and dry when he wakes up and he could wake up at night to go to the bathroom. There could be behavioral symptoms too like being irritable all the time, getting angry and losing his temper at trifles and maybe even feeling depressed. For some, they might experience mood swings. For children, having this condition is very difficult because they lack the normal energy most children do. These children usually move around a lot in their sleep, they might talk in their sleep and many even wet their bed. Some might suffer from bad dreams and night terrors while other children might perspire a lot while they sleep. Even during the day, they tend to usually breathe through their mouths rather than their noses. Many of these children do not grow as well as normal children their age.

There are some other symptoms that these people might experience too. There could be spells of insomnia, times at night when they wake up feeling out of breath and they might wake up in the morning with headaches and body aches. It might help if you were to monitor and record the number of hours you sleep every day and then decide if you have enough hours of sleep and still feel sleepy. Add to it all the other symptoms, see if you suffer from four or five of them, especially the daytime tiredness and sleepiness and if you do, it’s time to go see a doctor.

Sleep apnea usually occurs when there is a blockage somewhere along the breathing passage. This could be due to a relaxed uvula, swollen tonsils, polyps in the nose or a deviated septum. These blockages cause the person who is affected to snore. The problem is, very often, it does not get diagnosed and this causes the person to feel tired and it can affect every area of his life. Though it is more common in people who are obese, even the ones who are painfully thin could be affected.  This kind of sleep apnea is known as obstructive sleep apnea.

There is also a type of sleep apnea that is called central sleep apnea. It is believed that because of certain medications or certain ailments, the portion of the brain that controls breathing does not send the appropriate signals in time and this causes a sort of a time warp and you stay in a state of suspension without breathing.

The third type of this condition is called complex sleep apnea and this happens when both the above conditions are present.

Why does sleep apnea need to be treated? It is not so much the sleep apnea but what it causes in the body that is the problem. People who suffer from this can develop irregular heartbeats and high blood pressure and it increases the risk of a cardiac arrest. It can also cause diabetes and with extreme sleepiness during the day, a person who suffers from it can fall asleep at the wheel or while operating heavy machinery and thus cause accidents. Sleep deprivation can lead to so many problems and complications, including weight gain. It can also affect your work life, your social life and your personal life because of the tiredness and sleepiness that you feel all the time. It is very difficult for a sleep-deprived person to stay alert or be productive.

Why doesn’t this happen when you are awake? This is because while you are upright or in an awake state, the throat muscles stay tense and allow the air through while you breathe. When you are asleep, these muscles tend to relax and this makes the airways to be narrower. Young children can suffer from this too if they have tonsils that are infected and enlarged and this could make schooldays very tough to cope with. The tiredness is due to the fact that not enough air and therefore oxygen flows into the lungs and this causes the oxygen levels in the blood to come down. When the levels drop, your body alerts the brain that there is something wrong and that makes you go from a deep sleep to a lighter sleep where your throat tightens and normal breathing resumes. However, you need deep sleep to feel refreshed the next day.

Sleep apnea can occur to anyone of any age but it does affect men more than women and people over 65 years old are more susceptible. People of African or Hispanic origins are affected more and so are smokers.

The tests that your doctor might ask for will be urine and blood tests as well as an ANA or antinuclear antibody test, an echocardiogram and a chest X-Ray. The urine tests will show up any blood cells or protein cells in case the condition has affected the kidneys. The blood test will show up any low white blood corpuscle count or if you are anemic. A blood sedimentation test will also reveal any systemic disease. The ANA test will show the presence of antibodies that arise from an over stimulated immune system. The X-Ray could show up any problem in the lungs like fluid collection and the echocardiogram will check for any cardiac complications.

The main line of treatment will progress from anti-inflammatory medication like ibuprofen to stronger ones and then, if the swelling and pain do not get better, to antimalarials and corticosteroids. Unfortunately, long-term use of all of these could have side effects so the doctor will monitor the patient to see if anything needs to be changed. NSAIDs cause damage to the stomach lining and can also cause indigestion.  Antimalarials can cause indigestion and skin rash and sometimes even headaches. Corticosteroids can cause a spike in blood pressure and blood sugar and can also cause a thinning of the bones and will have to be carefully monitored by the doctor to ensure that there are no serious repercussions.  In severe cases, immunosuppressant drugs might have to be used but these bring with them serious side effects for some. A new entrant on the scene, a drug called Belimumab also seems to be proving to be very effective in severe cases of lupus.

Doctors will also recommend certain lifestyle changes like reduction of stress, more sleep and rest and a healthy diet with more fruits and vegetable. What is very important for people suffering from lupus is that they are adequately protected from the sun with clothing that covers a lot of the body and sunscreen with a high SPF to protect any uncovered skin. Patients will be advised to exercise before sunrise or after sunset so the sun’s UV rays do not cause a flare-up. Smoking and drinking are taboo as are drugs.

Certain alternative therapies have proved beneficial for lupus but it is always better to discuss it with your doctor before you start anything. This is so that any untoward drug reactions can be avoided. Fish oil, Vitamin D and flaxseed have been touted as being very good for lupus patients. Provided you follow your doctor’s instructions carefully, lupus in most cases can be controlled and managed quite effectively.

One of the common symptoms is a rash that appears on the face across the nose, spreading onto either cheek. There could also be lesions on the skin which come up because of being out in the sun. Some people have a fever when the attacks come on and others just feel very tired. When it affects the joints, there could be swelling, pain and stiffness in and around the joints. Some might experience headaches or memory loss, even a bit of confusion. Others might have dry eye problems and difficulty breathing with pain in the chest. For some, when they undergo periods of stress, their toes and fingers could turn blue or white.

Some symptoms may not be as common but they do occur. The lymph glands in the armpits or neck could swell up, the person could suffer from migraines or anemia, there could be hair loss, high blood pressure or sometimes even depression. Some have noticed that they tend to get mouth ulcers often.

People suffering from lupus could have inflammation attack many organs in the body. When the lungs are affected, the chances of pleurisy increase and the chest gets constricted, making it difficult to breathe. It could also cause inflammation in the heart and this could lead to cardiac failure. It could affect the brain and this could result in dizzy spells, confusion, hallucinations and in severe cases, in seizures. When it affects the kidneys, there’s usually swelling in some part of the body, in most cases the ankles but if it gets severe, there could be kidney failure which could be fatal.

Lupus patients might find that they succumb to other ailments easily so there are occurrences of infectious diseases, bone density problems and even cancer. If the person gets pregnant, there could be complications and a high risk of miscarriages. You will have to tell your doctor well in advance if you are thinking of having a baby and it might be wise to abide by his advice when it comes to whether or not it would be a good idea.

The symptoms of lupus mimic many other diseases which is why it is important to get tests done to eliminate the possibility of some other disease which can be determined by a test. Writing down all your symptoms and when and how they appear would be a good start before you go to the doctor so he has a fair idea of whether or not lupus can be suspected in your case and if so, what line of treatment would be best for you.

Lupus could be a genetic leaning or it could be caused by a reaction to certain medication, to sunlight or it could maybe occur after certain infectious diseases. What is generally believed is that it is a combination of your genetic make-up and environmental factors that cause something in the body to go out of synch and turn on itself. There is no real cure for this condition but it can be controlled and managed by treating it symptomatically.

Lupus affects women more than men and it usually makes its appearance between the ages of 15 and 40. Hispanics, African Americans and Asians are more at risk than any other race. The chances of a white woman being affected are 1 in 5000. While sunlight can cause lupus lesions on the skin and trigger an internal problem too, medications can be a major cause because there are so many of them that could trigger off this condition in people who are prone to it. There are people who have been on medication for some other ailment and have contracted lupus which subsides as soon as the medication is stopped. However, in most cases, it is not curable but can be managed very well today with a combination of drugs, lifestyle changes and diet.

Lupus is one of the autoimmune conditions in which the body’s immune system turns on itself. So what should be the body’s natural reaction to defend any outside infection goes rogue and it sees the person’s own healthy cells as enemies and attacks them. There are many manifestations of this action and depending on the symptoms, the various autoimmune diseases have been classified. In lupus, the immune system in the body attacks the organs and tissues as well. Lupus has been classified into three – discoid lupus, drug-induced lupus and systemic lupus. The first is a milder type in which there is hair loss and red, scaly patches. The second is caused by medication and it usually goes away when you stop taking the drug. The third, which is also referred to as SLE can be anything from a very mild form to very severe and it can affect any part of the body. The main symptom here is fatigue that just will not go away. A possible cause for this condition might be a virus called the EBV or the Epstein-Barr virus.

People who suffer from lupus can get depressed because of the flare-ups that come and go with no possibility of cure so helping them join a support group would be a good idea. The doctor must be consulted in case the anxiety and depression gets too bad.

Once it has been diagnosed, there will be various methods of treatment that are prescribed. These are usually a combination of medication, exercise, heat applications and diet. The medications that will be prescribed will be pain killers as well as anti-inflammatory drugs. There might be no drug that can cure the condition completely but there are modern drugs that can slow down and sometimes even stop the condition from getting worse.

NSAIDs or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are usually the first to be prescribed to reduce the inflammation. The doctor will also prescribe an exercise regimen to be followed and then, there will be a wait-and-watch period after which he will determine if it is working. If the inflammation is still bad, he will prescribe corticosteroids or antimalarials in order to deal with the inflammation. There will still be a set of prescribed exercises and stretching will form a large part of it. The main aim of exercises when there a person is suffering from psoriatic arthritis is to allow the joints to be capable of as much movement as possible.

Certain medications are disease-modifying ones and these are usually aggressive forms of treatment to prevent degeneration or deformity of a joint. Drugs like methotrexate can be taken orally or injected and this has proved to be very beneficial in both psoriasis as well as psoriatic arthritis treatment. However, long-term use can have side effects especially on the liver and the bone marrow so these drugs are rarely continued for a long spell of time. Sulpha drugs have also proved helpful in certain cases.

When the condition is severe, the doctor might recommend the use of TNF blockers (tumor necrosis factor). These usually have very good results and quickly stop further joint damage. Corticosteroids help a lot too but they are not prescribed for long-term use because of side effects. New drugs called biological therapies which can be injected or administered by means of a drip are also proving to be very beneficial. In extreme cases, surgery will be recommended to replace the joint.

What is essential is that the medication is taken along with regular exercise and diet for best results. In severe cases, a physiotherapist could be very helpful. Your weight will have to be kept down through exercise and diet so that the weight on the joints is reduced.  Fish oil may be good to reduce the inflammation. A stress-free life is also recommended because stress seems to aggravate the condition. Alternate therapies like meditation could be useful. A multi-pronged program to deal with this condition will yield the best results.