Help! Fatigue due to physical illness or depression?

Hey all,

Sorry for posting in this section (just joined and am not sure where the right area is), I'm just desperate and I'm worried if I might have chronic fatigue syndrome or another physical ailment. Basically my question is, how do you tell whether chronic fatigue is due to depression or another physical ailment?

In addition to bad fatigue these past few months, I've also had a lot of weakness in my legs (sometimes they feel shaky going up and down the stairs), frequent headaches, some slightly painful palpitations (but it's usually only like one/two skipped beat/s at a time) and more recently, frequent dizziness/nausea/bad balance. Routine blood work came back normal and I've been told not to worry, and that perhaps these symptoms are due to depression. However, while I have felt down sometimes this past year, I have started seeing a therapist (who did not diagnose me with depression), and my mood has been getting better while my physical symptoms have gotten worse. Could this possibly still be due to depression? I'm worried that it could be due to something else, but because it's assumed to be due to depression it won't actually be alleviated/will get worse.

Have any of you guys experienced this? How did you guys discover that you had chronic fatigue syndrome, or depression, or etc?

I'm frustrated because I can't get referred to have more specialized tests to rule other things out, since I've been told twice that I'm probably having all of these physical symptoms due to depression (Also worried that this is a gender stereotype?)

Thank you for your time.

Depression fatigue and CFS or fibromyalgia fatigue are not the same. I suffered for years with depression and its fatigue before I found a medication that worked. Since then I've been diagnosed first with CFS by my primary doctor and then with fibromyalgia by my rheumatologist. Of course this came after a battery of tests which came back normal.

Depression fatigue comes from a deep psychological pain that does not happen to me now that I'm on antidepressants even when I'm severely exhausted from fibro. I got the diagnosis finally after seeing my rheumatologist. He touched some pressure points on my back, arms and legs and I was surprized to find this painful. I have also been having body aches and headaches and wobbly legs so you may want to make an appointment with a rheumatologist to get evaluated. This is the speciality that usually treats this disorder. I hope you feel better.

Kyyndred