One of the hardest parts about living with Crohn’s & Colitis, especially post-surgery, is fatigue.
Ironically, I’ve been putting off writing this post because I’ve been feeling so tired!
Living with fatigue is one of the hard symptoms to explain to people mainly because “everyone gets tired” so they “totally understand what you mean”.
But fatigue is more than just feeling tired and no amount of sleep is going to make you feel better.
Fatigue can be frustrating. You never know when it’s going to come and when it does it can knock you out for days, weeks or sometimes even longer.
It can make it hard to plan things because you never know when you’ll have the energy. Plus, it’s horrible having to let people down.
This is something I’ve really been struggling with lately. Normally I’m really good at planning rest days to help alleviate the problem. However, life got busy pretty quick and I burnt out.
I talked about this on yesterday’s post as well but it’s really important that we don’t beat ourselves up about it. I know that’s something I really need to work on as I end up getting even more worked up!
Explaining fatigue with the Spoon Theory
What’s the spoon theory? Well, it was created by Christine Miserandino and it is a way of explaining fatigue in a simple way.
The idea is that we all are allocated a certain number of spoons and tasks will take a certain number of spoons.
For example, say you have 12 spoons. Waking up can take one spoon, especially when you haven’t slept well. Then having a shower can make a spoon, maybe two on hair wash days. Getting dressed is another spoon and take another for making your breakfast. Half of your spoons are already gone before you’ve even got properly started with your day.
Things you don’t even think of can take up spoons; skipping a meal, cooking a meal, washing up, standing up for too long. So you have to think about how you use your spoons and what you do each day to make sure you get what you need to be done.
If you want to know more about spoon theory, you can read about it here.
Using spoon theory with Crohn’s & Colitis
There are so many aspects of Crohn’s & Colitis which can be really hard to explain for friends and family.
The spoon theory is a great, visual way to help explain this part of your illness.
If you do struggle to explain your illness or feel embarrassed, Crohn’s & Colitis UK have a great talking toolkit which can help you have conversations with friends and family about your illness!
Do you struggle with fatigue? How do you cope with it?
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