People who have chronic respiratory illness frequently state that one of the main symptoms that they find difficult to cope with is perhaps one that doesn’t leap to mind as a major problem for most of us who do not have a chronic illness – fatigue.

Time and time again people who have aspergillosis mention how exhausted it makes them feel, and here at the National Aspergillosis Centre we have determined that fatigue is a major component of chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA – see Al-Shair et. al. 2016) and that the impact of aspergillosis on a patients quality of life correlated well with the level of fatigue suffered.

There are many possible causes of fatigue in the chronically ill: it could partly be a result of the energy that the immune system of a patient puts into fighting off the infection, it could partly be a consequence of some of the medication taken by people who are chronically ill and possibly even the result of undiagnosed health problems such as anaemia, hypothyroidism, low cortisol or infection (e.g. long COVID).

Because of the many possibilities that cause fatigue, your first step in trying to improve the situation is to go and see your doctor who can check for all common causes of fatigue. Once you have established that there are no other possible hidden causes you might read through this article on fatigue produced by NHS Scotland containing lots of food for thought and suggestions to improve your fatigue.