I must have a lot of the run of the mill tiredness/fatigue because I seem to be needing more sleep lately. Maybe it's the heat or maybe I just need to set an alarm clock. Maybe there still is a tiny bit of depression hanging around

That'll do it..

To me, tiredness is a lack of sleep - whereas MS fatigue is when someone lets the air out of my tyres and I can't push myself to do anything. It is almost overwhelming and happens out of the blue - usually in the afternoon.

Lyn

I've quit announcing that I'm tired. I hear the "yeah, I know how you feel. I'm tired, too" response too much.

For me, there is such a huge difference between just being tired and having the dreaded MS fatigue. If I do get the fatigue and someone comments on it or asks about it I tell them I have "MSF" (multiple sclerosis fatigue). It sounds more severe than just being tired (because it is) plus it shuts up the folks who want to play the "I'm more tired than you are" game.

Like others, to me tired is just not getting enough sleep or something. Fatigue is an overwhelming feeling of just being exhausted. There is nothing you can do but lay down and/or sleep. My body just can't go any more and I get a sense of unreality, like everything around me is in slow motion and I just feel blah. Once I nap, I am fine.

I often tell others that it is like coming down with the worst flu you have ever had; where you just need to go to bed. I think that is the only way that others can understand what we feel on a daily basis - only because most people have felt that before.

That's a good comparison. That's exactly what it feels like.

The trouble is, all of those words--tired, sleepy, fatigued--are just words. MSers use them and healthy people use them. I might use "tired" to mean I painted the barn and now I'm really tired. You might use "tired" to mean I was up most of the night and now I'm really tired.

Technically, fatigue is EXTREME tiredness, or mental/physical EXHAUSTION typically caused by stress or illness.

MSers (and some folks with other illnesses) go a step beyond that to extreme, crushing, dibilitating fatigue that isn't necessarily caused by anything other than having MS. It's fatigue on steroids.

To me, "tired" means more body or muscles, whereas not getting much sleep is "sleepy".

Even though it gives me the grrrrr's, I can't really blame people that don't get it, because you hear "fatigue" all the time referring to run-of-the-mill tiredness. So of COURSE when I say I'm dealing with fatigue, someone with three little kids and a full-time job is going to say "I know exactly what you mean!"

We need our own word that can't mean anything else than the kind of fatigue "we" get.