What are the causes of fatigue?

Functional medicine expert Susan Blum, MD, discusses the various causes of fatigue. Learn more information on thyroid health and fighting fatigue.

Transcript

00:00

[MUSIC PLAYING] So environmental toxins, like mercury or toxins in your water, these are very important things to look at to see whether or not

00:07

toxins are clogging your metabolism, which is making you tired.

00:21

There is actually, a pretty lengthy fatigue checklist that I use when people come to see me in my office. The first thing I look at is nutrition.

00:28

And it's not just what you're eating, which is important, but it's how you're eating. Are you skipping meals? But I also look at deep nutritional insufficiencies

00:35

or deficiencies. In other words, I look inside your cells to see if you have enough nutrition to make your cells work properly.

00:43

The second thing I look at are all your hormones. All your hormones are an orchestra. They work together. So the adrenal glands and the thyroid gland

00:50

has to be working in unison. Those hormones both have to be healthy in order for both to work. So I look at all your hormones.

00:59

The third thing I look at are toxins. So environmental toxins, like mercury or toxins in your water, these are very important things

01:07

to look at to see whether or not toxins are clogging your metabolism, which is making you tired.

01:15

The last, but not least is chronic infections. And so sometimes people have chronic infections and their immune system isn't working properly

01:22

to help fight those infections, and so we work on that as well. [AUDIO LOGO]