Does Osteoarthritis cause Fatigue?

Baybreeze

Hi, yes, it can definitely cause fatigue. The pain itself can be exhausting and when you're in pain, it's very hard to do things physically so your body feels drained, sometimes by the simplest tasks. If you have pain at night while trying to sleep, it will cause you to not get enough restful sleep, which can also contribute to fatigue; I have also read there can be some inflammation with OA and that can cause fatigue as well. Plus if you're just overdoing things that will tire you out and if you get depressed over the pain, that can also contribute to fatigue. So there are lots of things can cause fatigue with OA.

For example: Just think of if you do some sort of exercise you've never done before and you do a bit of it at one time. Like say, leg presses. Usually the following day you will have alot of muscle pain/achiness. With OA, you have pain and stiffness and alot of extra pressure on your spine from the degeneration. This causes problems moving around and walking; When you walk, you might walk differently, with a limp, or using a different posture than normal....all of this can put extra work on your muscles without even doing much. Then your legs feel tired and/or very achy after doing things b/c there is more stress on your legs so your muscles are working harder.

I hope this helps you to understand somewhat...

aether4

Pain alone is very tiring, it can also affect how well you sleep -if you're getting to sleep in the first place.
Did you have any other blood tests done? If electrolytes, vitamin D, or B12 are low that can cause fatigue too.

Did your doctor suggest anything to get that inflammation down? Medrol dose pack or injections? Mine was pretty bad when it was flared up, but thankfully it's calmed down over the last few months, I hope you can get the inflammation in your's under control and get to feeling better.
Once that's settled down physical therapy for that area can help.

For my neck, when it gets bad enough cause a headache or spasms, I take muscle relaxers and use ice (ice for inflammation, heat for muscles). If you can get into PT maybe you can see if your doctor can write it out so you can get some for your neck too -ultrasound and massage would probably feel great.

Tricia2007

Thank you both so very much. I really appreciate your responses.

I actually was low on Vitamin D and have been taking a supplement. I was off my vitamins for a week ( I thought something in my multi was making me have anxiety, but it turned out it was not ) But I was off the Vitamin D for a little over a week, did not drink any milk either, so I was thinking maybe my levels got down again and maybe it takes a while to get them back up. So yes, perhaps part of the fatigue is due to that. My B12 was fine, thank good ness.

I will look into the PT and will keep you posted.

Thank you both so much. I will come back on and let you know what happens.

Good luck to you all.

Tricia

aether4

Are you taking vitamin D3? D and D2 won't do you much good unless you spend several minutes outside each day - you need UV rays to convert the other forms to D3 so your body can actually use it.