Light/Mild exercise and feeling exhausted after

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello

I’ve been trying to get my wife to exercise for a long time, but she always says she feels “terrible” afterward. Sometimes this feeling of exhaustion lasts the rest of the day.

Here are the symptoms she experiences:

  1. Exhaustion - could just close her eyes and go to sleep
  2. Lethargy - feels difficult to lift her arm
  3. Sometimes lightheaded These symptoms seem to happen more often than not and to various degrees after exercise. The exercise could be of various difficulties. Usually cardio, but sometimes when lifting (I’ve tried to get her squatting).

Her GP’s schedule always seems to be a barrier for her to go in and discuss her issues. Do you Doctor’s have any thoughts on what could be going on here? What kinds of suggestions for conversation points could we use to better start the conversation with her GP to try and resolve or understand what is going on?

Her general medical history/stats as I know it:

  1. 5’3"
  2. 125lbs give or take
  3. Diagnosed Raynaud’s Syndrom
2

The list of possible contributors / causes to these symptoms is extremely lengthy, unfortunately more than I can easily get into here. Would need to gather more information to begin narrowing things down, as is done during a visit. The main way to start the conversation is to simply tell the story you have told here, with whatever other details you’d like.

She will need to get her vital signs checked, and will likely need to get a fair amount of labwork done, in addition to investigating the possibility of sleep disorders, mood disorders, and whatever other suspicions arise from the history/exam findings that are gathered.

3

Thanks for the response Austin. I figured it could be a myriad of things. At least we’ve done a first step.