Hello Steve..and Zenga,

I myself suffered for well over 16 months with fatigue and weakness after rads/chemo and surgery. My medical team had chalked it up to CRF (cancer related fatigue) and I took that as what I suffered from. My quality of life was horrible, I was an extremely active person before cancer (athlete, wrestler/grappler/boxing runner, weight lifting etc) and most days I could barely get out of bed. I started going to physical therapy but found the 15 minutes a day would put me down for days on end. I tried several methods to overcome the physical fatigue and weakness (dosing oxy, energy shots, etc..) and had some results but nothing sustaining to get me back to my old self.

I recently stopped using my opiate pain medication and low and behold, my energy levels went way up and I started to return to myself again. I was on fentanyl, transdermal patch for pain and dialed as high as 200mcg/hr but had gotten down to 50mcg/hr when I quit. The thing with the transdermal patch is it is actually activated by heat. The hotter your body tempature or the hotter the patch gets the more medication released into your system. Of course you won't feel this immediately...but you will feel it the day after and for a prolonged period of time as the meds pass through your skin into your blood stream.

Opiates, especially fentanyl, cause fatigue, weakness, depression among other nasty side effects. It is great for pain and has a purpose, but also doesn't come without a price.

If you are still on pain meds this may be your issue. Also CRF could still be the cause. For me I lived with the crf explanation...and when I got off the fentanyl it all came clear to me.

hope it helped, good luck and keep your spirits up

Eric