Fatigue

Fatigue seems to be a reasonably common symptom with HSP - my 2013 survey identified that fatigue was the third most commonly occurring symptom (after loss of balance and getting more stiff in the cold). 62% of respondents reported that fatigue was significant (occuring frequently, regularly, most of the time or all of the time), 20% of respondents indicated that fatigue was minor or affected them occasionally, with 8% of respondents not being affected. Full report here: http://hspjourney.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/hsp-survey-results.html

So, what information can I found out about fatigue in HSP? - Not much.

People with HSP on patients like me also report fatigue, with 20% reporting severe, 40% moderate, 33% mild and 7%  without fatigue. Grouping severe and moderate together (60%) this is the same result I showed in 2013. Data here https://www.patientslikeme.com/symptoms/show/7-fatigue?condition_id=493 (although you have to be signed in to see this).

There are two papers:
One from 1999: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10368840 - with no abtract here. Some hunting shows the start of the article here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pri.1999.4.1.68/pdf This paper appears to cover the aspects of HSP as they were at the time. There is no mention of fatigue on the first page.

The other paper is from 2016: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26806216 This paper compared 30 people with SPG4 HSP with 30 controls in Brazil. This paper reports that patients with HSP had higher levels of fatigue than controls (as well as more pain and more depression).

The lack of published information, and comments about fatigue from others led me to include this in my 2016 survey, http://hspjourney.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/2016-survey-results.html I asked people to complete 3 different fatigue surveys and these results showed;

• 11% of people had mild fatigue, 62% had moderate fatigue and 27% had severe fatigue. 
• Fatigue is generally independent of mobility.
• Whilst the physical factors of HSP contribute the most to fatigue there is also an important cognitive aspect. 
• Those with SPG7 tend to have a higher level of fatigue than those with SPG4. 

I compared my results with the Brazil results and found they were comparable.

If you have a low mood/depression and wish to do something about it, you could look here: https://moodgym.com.au/ - I found this on this podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b082hg9v - plenty of other interesting similar podcasts here!