Chronic Fatigue

This pack has been produced with by Frimley Health NHS Trust in partnership with Healthier Together This pack is aimed at children and young people who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), a long-term condition with lots of different symptoms, most commonly extreme tiredness that can’t be explained by an underlying medical condition.

Fatigue is when you feel so tired that you can’t do all the things that you used to, for example, playing sports. With CFS often sleeping or relaxing does not make you feel refreshed, meaning you always feel tired. Some children and young people describe CFS as having ‘brain fog’ or running on ‘low battery power’.

When you are unwell often your body puts all its energy into fighting the virus that initially made you unwell. But then sometimes after you’ve got better you can still feel tired. Even though there is no underlying cause of this fatigue, it is still real. If this fatigue lasts for a very long time and becomes CFS, you might develop other symptoms, but remember everyone is different!

Feeling tired and not being able to do all the activities you want to can be very stressful and it is perfectly normal to feel upset or angry.