Fatigue
Question: I am tired all the time but sometimes I forget just how bad it gets. I swear I could sleep away the rest of my life! The doctor ordered 2 pages worth of blood tests. They have already ruled out thyroid & all the 'normal' things like vitamin deficiencies. What's left to do?
Dr. Bruno’s Response: First of all, a sleep study is vital for all polio survivors with fatigue to show if you have disordered breathing obstructive or central sleep apnea or shallow breathing that is disturbing your sleep. Sleep disordered breathing can be treated with positive pressure ventilation using BiPAP, a machine that cycles blowing air into your lungs at one pressure and then decreases the pressure to allow you to exhale and prevent carbon dioxide from building up. Second, as part of the sleep study, electrodes need to be placed on your muscles, legs and arms. Our research has found that 50% of polio survivors have muscle twitching that disturbs sleep and that half of them don't even know it! We found that a low dose of alprazolam 60 minutes before bed stops twitching and allows sleeping. Finally, we did do a study of bromocriptine, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease, in polio survivors who did not respond to The Post Polio Institute ”conserve to preserve" treatment and lifestyle modifications. We found that bromocriptine was somewhat helpful in reducing daytime fatigue. However, the side effects were unpleasant and of those taking the drug there were a handful of patients out of all who did not respond to self care treatments. I don't recommend taking the drug.
I recommend these articles:
For more information, go to the Encyclopedia of Polio and PPS and look in the Index under the topics "Fatigue" and "Abnormal Movements