Sick in bed.

My wife is always sick in bed. It took me a while to believe that she wasn’t faking it. But I’m not the only bloke who questioned his partner’s invisible symptoms.

Believing a sick person can be difficult, but when your wife is always sick, and she stays sick in bed nearly every weekend and struggles to leave the house, you begin to notice that it is more than the flu.

Chronic Illness

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Flu doesn’t last, and she doesn’t have a fever. What is it..?

Why my wife stays sick in bed?

The reason why my wife is always sick is two chronic conditions – endometriosis and fibromyalgia.

Her primary chronic illness is stage 4 endometriosis and her type is deeply infiltrating. Her secondary condition is fibromyalgia disorder which she was diagnosed with the following year.

Flu vs chronic illness.

Flu is commonly known as influenza. It is a viral infection that typically lasts for a few days to a few weeks and is characterized by symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, and body aches.

Chronic illness, on the other hand, is a long-term health condition that typically lasts for months, or years, or is incurable, and can range from mild to severe, requiring ongoing management and treatment.

Since my wife is chronically ill, I’m going to discuss endometriosis and fibromyalgia, and why both conditions make her stay sick in bed.

Endometriosis.

The reason why endometriosis makes my wife feel sick in bed every week is chronic pain. The very fact that endo pain takes different shapes, from sudden and stabbing, tooth-like feeling, to pulling down the insides feeling.

My wife cannot stand such excruciating endometriosis pain and the only way she can cope with is to lie in bed with a hot water bottle.

Endometriosis makes women feel sick because this illness often causes endo belly and symptoms of IBS.

Also, acid reflux which is related to IBS, often makes her feel sick, literally sick and nauseous.

If you want to learn more about endometriosis, I wrote an “Endo-Tool, Endometriosis for Men” e-Book.

You can get the 1st Chapter of the e-Book for FREE, and if you like it, you’ll get a Whopping 33% Discount on the Whole Book, plus discounts on other helpful tools. You have nothing to lose but a lot to gain!

The first chapter alone contains all the comprehensive medical knowledge about endometriosis, including:

• What is endometriosis?
• What are the symptoms?
• What causes endometriosis?
• What does endometriosis look like?
• What are the stages?
• What are the types?
• What is adenomyosis and how is it related to endometriosis?
• Why do some women develop severe endo and others don’t?
• Does endometriosis cause infertility?
• How is endometriosis diagnosed?
• Do types and stages affect the treatment?
• Recurrence of endometriosis after excision surgery.

Fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia makes my wife feel sick in bed because of the chronic fatigue she experiences, and she is too ill to get out of bed. She can also lie in bed for hours because of the widespread pain that fibromyalgia causes.

Migraines are also related to fibromyalgia. These types of headaches make her feel sick.

You can stay feeling sick in bed for many reasons if your body lacks energy, or you have left no choice because of other symptoms of chronic conditions.

If you want to learn more about fibromyalgia, I wrote a “Fibromyalgia for Caring Partners” e-Book.

You can get the 3 First Chapters of the e-Book for FREE, and if you like it, you’ll get a Whopping 33% Discount on the Whole Book, plus discounts on other helpful tools. You have nothing to lose but a lot to gain.

These chapters alone explain how to accept the new normal, and understand fibromyalgia, and its diagnosis. They include:

• The new you.
• The new her.
• The new reality.
• Introduction to fibromyalgia.
• What is fibromyalgia?
• The early days.
• When you first realize something is wrong.
• Spotting the signs that something is wrong.
• Coming to terms with a chronic illness.
• The role of partner in fibromyalgia.
• The process of getting diagnosed.

Lying without energy.

Lying in bed without energy is common for people with fibromyalgia, but it is also common for endometriosis.

I often find my wife in bed over the week after working for hours, even though she had a full night’s sleep. She just feels too ill to get out of bed.

Life with a chronic illness isn’t fun. You cannot choose not to be fatigued or without pain. You cannot pick a piece of time in the day and feel rested, even after hours of sleep at night.

Chronic fatigue can cause people to feel exhausted, weak, and lacking in energy. In some cases, the fatigue may be so severe that a person may feel unable to get out of bed or carry out any physical activity.

When a person is chronically ill, the body is often expending a great deal of energy in an effort to fight off the illness or disease, despite lying or not lying for hours in bed, sick or not sick.

A vicious cycle.

Apart from lying in bed, there are worries involved when it comes to being chronically ill.

When you live with a chronic disease, you have a problem where your symptoms impact your sleep, which impacts your mood, and the anxiety along with overthinking makes the symptoms of your chronic condition worse.

You may feel sick and tired of worries, but they still come and haunt you.

Along with chronic pain and other symptoms, this impacts your job and productivity, you begin to overthink things, and you would rather stay in bed rather than spend time working.

You would rather prefer to stay home. But you most probably don’t know that you can…

Work from your bed.

Did you know that you can work from home if you are chronically sick?

I wrote about it in a few of my blog posts, but here’s one that fits the bill perfectly! In the meantime, I want to tell you that you have rights!

My wife worked in the office as a medical secretary for over 10 years. After she became sick, she stayed at home feeling sick in bed more and more. But there was a period of time when she couldn’t return physically to the office.

After discussing her rights with her boss, we realized that employers have to make reasonable adjustments to chronically sick employees.

So, if you, or your partner, falls in this category, my piece of advice would be to research all you need to know about this topic, so you can fully work from home, ideally with your laptop, in bed, and never worry that you have to return to be in person at the office again.

I don’t want you to be sick in bed. In fact, let me take it off your hands – here are some of my articles on the matter:

• How to have a job when you are sick in bed blog post 1.
• How to have a job when you are sick in bed blog post 2.
• How to have a job when you are sick in bed blog post 3.

Final word!

When you are sick and tired of being stuck in bed and your chronic illness interferes with your job, working from home could be (hands down) the best solution for you.

Try to look at your situation as a full glass rather than a glass half empty.

You may feel sick and tired of endless explanations to your friends or family about how you feel, but you can talk to your boss once, and give yourself an opportunity of working from home.

But there is also a great benefit of staying at home, not only you can work from home, but being at home you don’t waste time traveling to your office, and that gives you a great opportunity to start a blog.

Starting a blog on the side brings you additional income, but apart from earning a living blogging, you can ditch your traditional 9 to 5, and fully work from home.

Home or not, sick or not, start blogging today!