Excessive daytime sleepiness

Thanks for your reply. One of my friend told that he had this problem (But the severity is not as mine). He had met the doctor and the doctor advised him to get the Vitamin D test. After the test, it's found he had in-sufficient vitamin D, After taking vitamin D tablet he was recovered.

like vitamin D any other vitamin or components i should test?. Because i go for a general checkup where i can't meet any doctor before that. only i can select the tests what i want to check.

Wow - that's an odd set-up! Somewhere in East Europe maybe? (Not that that's important.)

Vitamin D is never a bad idea, though its virtues tend to be overrated. You'd do well to check the entire haematology section, but if that's going to be too expensive, the essentials are haemoglobin, haematocrit and ferritin, to ensure you're not anaemic. Thyroid function is also important - TSH, T3 and T4. One of the symptoms of an underactive thyroid is sleepiness. Ditto fasting blood glucose to make sure you're not in early-stage diabetes, which can also cause drowsiness. These are the absolute essentials.

Other than the above, it's never a bad idea to check uric acid and creatinine (kidney function) and GOT, GPT, alkaline phosphatases and Gamma-GT for liver function. I don't imagine cholesterol is going to be a problem if you're only 32 - unless of course you have a family history of high cholesterol levels starting early in life, in which case it's essential. You might also want to check testosterone levels and DHEA, but I believe these can push costs up a bit. Still, if your health system presents you with a blood testing "menu", I'd assume it will also show the prices.

Good luck!

Glad to hear that. But don't be too surprised if they all come back normal.

One more avenue comes to mind. Can you get tested for Lyme disease? It sounds quite obscure but it's by no means as uncommon as people think. A friend of mine had it nearly 20 years ago, before the medical profession was really alert to it. She got increasingly ill and exhausted over a period of a year or two, was hospitalised twice, diagnosed with possible fibromyalgia and even psychiatric problems before she finally saw a private specialist, who did the blood test for Lyme. Once diagnosed, she was treated and recovered in a month or two.

Another possibility is some kind of viral disease - especially infectious mononucleosis, sometimes known as Epstein-Barr - though that more often affects people in their teens and twenties.

Hi Lily,

I got my medical screening done. I've not received the report yet, but i just called and inquired about the test results.

I was told that my vitamin D is low (14.1 where as the normal one is 30). My Thyroid levels are normal it seems. Planning to meet the doctor on this Saturday to collect the report and get advice.

Kindly advice me for the vitamin D insufficiency. My sleepiness is because of vitaD. How can i improve this...Now-a-days I'm feeling eyes burning also starting from morning to night. ANd often I'm getting small mouth ulcers. Kindly advice me. Thanks

Regards,

Thomas TJ.    

Well, your low vitamin D levels certainly won't be helping, but I doubt whether they're responsible for your excessive sleepiness. Around half the population in temperate zones falls short of the 30mcg/l mark because of lack of sunlight. It would be a good idea to put yourself on permanent vitamin D supplementation, especially in the winter months. This isn't one of those things where you just take a six-week course of the stuff and you're cured. But make sure it's in the D3 form. Most commercially-available vitamin D is D3 these days, but you should read the small print on the label to make sure that's what you're getting. The D1 and D2 forms are practically useless. You could also think about getting vitamin D from natural sources: sunlight of course (when there is any!) and food sources like oily fish, full-fat dairy, egg yolks etc.

I've never heard that vitamin D deficiency causes mouth ulcers and burning eyes either. Mouth ulcers are more likely to be down to vitamin B12 and folate deficiency, which I assume was also checked. Burning eyes can be caused by all sorts of things, including an auto-immune condition. You need to get yourself checked by an ophthalmologist as well.

That's really all the advice I can give you. I'm not a doctor and this is only a patient forum. (I'm a former nurse, but that's only a coincidence.) I'm glad you're going to see your doctor in the next few days. Make sure you take a full list of all your symptoms with you. I hope you eventually get some answers. It's fine to come back here and tell me about it if you want to.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot Lily for the detailed reply.

I'll make sure to get the natural vitamin D, also in the medicine whatever my doctor prescribes, I'll check whether it is more of D3.

About the Mouth ulcer, Yes I also believe it is because of B12. But My test was not included with B12 anymore. So I'll ask the doctor orally about this and if need let them give any supplements for that too.

About the eyes burning, it's really giving more problems from the time i wake up to till the time i sleep in the night. Especially night around 9.30PM it starts heavily and mild head ache and mild giddiness also joined with it. If i go for sleep then things will be fine. And in day time too, because of the eye burning problem, i feel to sleep all the day so that my eyes will not trouble me.

I had done my eye-power test, everything was normal. I've gone through the web where i found that vitamin D deficiency causes the dry eye and eye burning problems also, So only i just related it to Vitamin D. Okay, two more days to go, I'll meet my doctor and discuss in detail.

Thank you once again.