What causes extreme fatigue? Extreme fatigue can have many and diverse root causes. Some important ones include:

 #1 – Hormones

From a hormonal standpoint, when the hormones are in balance you will feel your best – no matter what challenges life throws at you – and you have the energy to tackle those challenges head on.

But when the imbalance sets in – which usually happens with stress of some kind – cortisol levels shoot up and we feel tired and wired. The body starts to move towards a fight or flight mode and whatever you eat starts to get stored as fat.

Along the way, liver starts to get clogged up and thyroid imbalances set in. Usually low thyroid decreases mental agility and leads to extreme fatigue, accompanied with weight gain and constipation.

#2 – Chronic Stress

Since everything is inter-related, high cortisol as a result of stress can deplete your progesterone levels (this happens in guys as well!), because progesterone gets used up to manufacture cortisol.

As progesterone levels continue to fall so then starts the decline in estrogen and/or testosterone.

And of course all of this just makes the thyroid situation even worse.

So, you are not able to stay calm. You have a short fuse. You feel like you need to sleep all the time. You probably wake up tired.

You are not as mentally agile and therefore performance at work and home starts to decline – which adds to even more stress to the pile and the fatigue cycle continues. If you keep running at top speed on low battery you’re probably no longer deriving joy from life. Things have become too serious.

You are drained physically and mentally. Even laughter is hard to bring out and further spirals us into fatigue.

#3 – Gut Microbiome

Whether it was stress that caused the hormonal imbalance…or a chronic infection that led to taking antibiotics for too long…or eating the Standard American Diet – the point is that it has affected your friendly gut bacteria.

These little creatures are power houses. They are responsible for producing your neurotransmitters, many nutrients, and a host of other beneficial chemicals for your body’s machinery to run smoothly – be it your joints, heart, kidneys, liver or brain.

Whether it’s processed foods or medication or stress that has led to a hormonal imbalance, your internal environment, especially of the intestines, starts to shift from an environment that contains friendly probiotic bacteria to an environment that becomes home to unfriendly bacteria, yeast, and even parasites.

This can then lead to food that does not get digested properly. The pathogens and chemicals from food or medicines start to poke holes in the intestines and this partially undigested food starts to leak into the blood stream- the classical leaky gut syndrome.

And you feel more and more and more tired…

#4 – Free Radical Damage

This can happen at any of the above stages. But, at some point when it becomes extreme, which means that cell membranes start to get attacked constantly with free radicals coming from any of the above, cell machinery starts to breakdown.

Even mitochondria – which are the energy powerhouses of a cell – cannot generate enough energy to repair the cell.

Once the mitochondria start to breakdown uncontrollably, the end result is extreme fatigue.

Make a promise to yourself starting today:

Stop feeling lousy…rotten…awful…crummy…miserable…terrible…crappy.

Find a good Functional Medicine doctor to help you get to the root cause of your health problems.

Like I always say:

Find the cause.

Fix the cause.

Feel normal again!

Dr. Carri Drzyzga, DC, ND – The Functional Medicine Doc

Find the Cause. Fix the Cause. Feel Normal Again!