Constant Fatigue and Tiredness

For many people who undergo ETS, constant fatigue and that feeling of being constantly tired as a direct result of your surgery is extremely common. If you were lucky to have not suffered any of the other devastating side-effects of ETS and this was the only impairment you woke up with, this alone is still enough to change your life.
Gone instantly is your motivation for getting out of bed in the morning, gone is the energy for going out and spending time with friends and loved ones, holidays and trips away will be a thing of the past, as well as all those dreams and aspirations you had for the future. All  gone thanks to ETS!

There are two main reasons for this. The first one is because communication pathways to and from the hypothalamus is now impaired, directly affecting the proper functioning of the thyroid and adrenal glands, both being extremely important for the production and release of hormones into the bloodstream which affect your energy levels.

The second has to do with your fight-flight response. The fight-flight response is triggered by your sympathetic nervous system to prepare your body to react to threats and survival in a dangerous situation, and the parasympathetic nervous system then takes over and restores the body to a sense of calm once the danger has passed.

When the parasympathetic nervous system is impaired from ETS surgery, this causes your sympathetic nervous system to remain active and on high alert, preventing the body from returning to a state of calm after periods of stress or danger. This is very fatiguing as your body is still 'working' internally in the background, using up valuable energy and resources at a time when your body would otherwise enter a state of relaxation and recovery.