Why Having Arthritis Can Cause Fatigue

Everyone gets worn out from time to time. But exhaustion that disrupts your daily life and doesn’t get better after a good night’s sleep has its own medical term: fatigue.

Fatigue significantly affects the quality of life for people with many forms of arthritis-related diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, spondyloarthritis, lupus, fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis. Your lack of energy may be caused by your inflammatory disease and other health conditions you have, as well as medications side effects and lifestyle habits.

Disease Activity and Fatigue

Fatigue and arthritis go hand in hand for many people with arthritis. The main culprits are the inflammatory disease process and the accompanying chronic pain.

Inflammation. Your body’s immune system normally helps to keep you healthy. But if you have an autoimmune disease, your immune system attacks your body and inflammation is the result. The body undergoes stress as it tries to cope with the release of Inflammatory cytokines (proteins) in the blood. That can cause fatigue, especially when disease activity is high or low-grade inflammation remains for a long time.

Chronic Pain: The pain/fatigue connection can be a vicious circle. Dealing with arthritis pain for months at a time over many years can wear you down. It can affect your sleep habits, which adds to your exhaustion. Being fatigued, in turn, can worsen pain and make it more difficult to manage.

Other Sources of Fatigue

Your fatigue is not always directly related to your arthritis disease activity, inflammation or pain. Read here more.