Physical Effects of Suffering With CFIDS
Chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome pervades all organ systems and adversely affects every healthy function within your body. The main symptom of overwhelming, exhausting fatigue that you feel from the onset of this syndrome overrides any hearty, positive sensations that you would normally sense in your body. Immediate feelings of sudden illness and immediate discomfort accompany the reality that you have become a helpless victim of an unperceptible disease. The sensation is as if your body is no longer yours. No matter what you may wish for your body to do, it doesn't seem to listen to your desires. You begin to apperceive that your personality, mind, emotions, and spirit are trapped in a dysfunctional alien-like body which appears to control itself almost as if it is operating on some kind of automatic pilot. These viruses have somehow gotten the upper hand in how your body is going to act and react to its environment and have no intention of exiting your body until they are ready to either become dormant or to leave. So until they are ready to do what they will, you are at the mercy of the strength of your immune system.
Over time your impressionable, susceptible body will become accustomed to the ravaging CFS infection. It will acclimate itself to cohabiting with the destructive viruses out of no choice of its own. Your body has no reason or want to give up the fight against the dreaded viral attack. It inanely knows to assault the invasive viruses and attempt to confine them to your immune system. Your body knows that any progression made further into it means the viruses will replicate and create more of the same resulting in your entire body being contaminated. When this type of massive infection occurs, it indicates that you are going to be sick for an indefinite amount of time. Your body must regain enough stamina and energy to attempt to overrun the viral infestation. The killer T cells in your immune system, which fight off any foreign onslaughts and act as the body's "defenders", can't function properly if they are constantly barraged with this viral intrusion. Each symptom that you feel is really an indicator that your immune system is still battling the viruses. Incessant combat over time will result in them being weakened to the point of no longer being effective at all. There will be a number of killer T cells that will not survive the onslaught. As a result, your body will lack the appropriate number of "fighter" cells to be able to overcome the viruses.
When your body senses that it has been overthrown, it has no option but to secede to the viral take over. It is at this point when there is a silent internal temporary surrender and acceptance to living with this disease. Your body adapts to subsisting within the confines of CFS and concurs to the infection, but never stops warring with it. Your immune system will keep abrading the virally infected cells hoping to eventually obliterate all of them so that you will return to good health. It is up to you to care for your sick body in the best way that you can so you can help it build up strength and stamina. Your body requires you to be an active participant in overcoming this viral infestation. Anything that you can do to aid in your body's recovery will be welcome.
Once you decide to go to a physician to address your many physical symptoms, you will discover that he won't be able to distinguish or determine what the initial cause is for your suffering. When the doctor does a physical examination of your body, there will be some abstruse irregularities from swollen lymph glands to a reddened throat to discomfort when he or she palpates your abdomen. Any lab tests that he may order and have done will display and validate any of these same slight physical irregularities. However, neither the examination or the test results will be enough evidence for your physician to base any diagnosis. After you tell the doctor that you can do certain daily tasks but can't seem to really accomplish anything that you set out to do, he may tell you to rest and relax since there could be an indication that you are just over exhausted. Your doctor may strongly sense that you just have a stubborn case of the flu and will prescribe an appropriate treatment plan based on this supposition. Since you are having the manifestations of many diseases and could have something that your physician doesn't feel comfortable in dealing with himself, a recommendation to an infectious disease specialist could be another outcome of the visit. The doctor may also think that you are suffering from depression when you stated that you now sleep up to twenty hours a day and still don't feel rested. She may advocate a treatment plan containing prescription drugs and regular exercise. Yet, while you are tolerating chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome, there is a true cellular basis to the depression that you will feel. It is caused by the over stimulation to the brain's natural chemical balances and these alterations in the brain's make-up affect your mental and emotional control. This type of depression is not a psychiatric condition as most doctors tend to decide and diagnose. The second part of her determination is just as devastating. Exercising is very detrimental for you now that you suffer with this disease. Any type of extreme exertion can result in causing a relapse of symptoms. So, your physician can cause more damage than good in misdiagnosing this disease.
There are many physical symptoms that you will encounter as a component of your CFIDS journey. These various physical sensations are indicators that your immune system is still fighting to protect your immune system from the viruses that cause this disease. The affects of physical symptoms you will suffer with alternates from one time frame to another. You may tolerate a couple of symptoms for months on end and then with no indication have three new ones surface. It will become common place for you not to even notice the onset of a new symptom for a while. There is so much disruption going on that it is almost impossible to detect the minute alteration of having the new symptom surface in your body. The sad part is that when you do notice the sensation, it is usually out of discomfort or intolerable pain.
You may have originally noticed that you have either gained or lost a dramatic amount of weight since you have been sick. Most sufferers report one extreme or the other and a select few stay the same pre-CFS weight. Researchers and physicians suppose that the weight increases seem to occur in fleshier individuals as compared to thin sufferers. The weight gain may be based on inactivity since you can't exercise as regularly as you once did. Hormonal and chemical changes that are happening in your body while it is diseased will also contribute to weight gain or loss. Toxins in your body can also cause the body to bloat which lends to the appearance of obesity. Another assumption for the lost weight in some individuals is based on the premise that these toleraters would have naturally been thin if they were ill or not. However, the majority of chronic fatigue syndrome agonizers do gain weight instead of lose it. The excess weight can be a potential long term problem.
If you end up suffering with this disease for years on end, you may find yourself gaining more and more weight from leading a sedentary life style for such an extended amount of time. Years down the road, your energy level may reach a point to where you are capable of moving your larger body and you could decide to begin a walking program. However, you discover that you tire more easily than you thought because it takes more effort to push your extra weight around. The motivation that you would need to force yourself to walk becomes impossible to muster because it would seem unrealizable before you will lose all of the gained weight, so you may give up before you started to try. You would end up succumbing to the negative attitude of not watching what you ate and not doing any regular walking. The weight gain can also do a number on your self-esteem if you were a person who prided himself or herself on the way you physically looked. You may look in a mirror and what is reflected back is not who you remember seeing there before you became sick. This body isn't too pleasant to look at and seems very bloated looking. While you are sick with CFIDS, you may think that no one will find you attractive or physically desirable. Your self-respect plummets with your positive attitude about who you are. Since you can see that you aren't who you used to be, you begin to question who you are now.
Any previous surgery scars or wounds will ache, itch, throb, and sometimes burn from the inside out for no apparent reason now that you are tolerating chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome. There is no physiological explanation for why this is happening in your body. It is just one symptom that you have to deal with that is kind of unusual and uncomfortable.
Lymph glands are located behind your jaw line under your ears, both sides of your throat, and down into your upper chest underneath your collarbone and into your armpits. Sore lymph glands and swollen lumps in your armpits are very common CFIDS-related symptoms. Your immune system is varying between over and under stimulation at all times. Your lymph glands are directly connected to this activity because they are part of your immune system. The lymph glands secrete necessary fluids that contain the killer T cells that can help combat the viruses. This sickness being in your body means that these glands aren't going to work properly because your immune system is dysfunctional. Their response to the invasion of the viruses is to swell up, ache, and leak.
Body temperature dysfunction is another physical symptom of chronic fatigue syndrome. The body's "heating