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Healing brain fog

- 5 years and no luck so far

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#1 billybunter

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Posted 23 January 2015 - 11:08 AM


Hi,

 

I believe this to be the most informed place about health on the internet and I would dearly love your help.

 

My younger brother has been suffering from brain fog, among other symptoms, for 4 years and he has not gotten better. He dropped out of college, has completely cut off his friends and finds it incredibly daunting doing any simple task that involves some cognitive ability. 

 

He was 19 when these symptoms came to the fore. He had been smoking marijuana, on and off, for a number of years prior. He said he work up one morning after smoking the night before and these symptoms began. 

 

I had visited him a few months prior and he appeared incredible anxious and was not in a good place. 

 

He initially believed it to be the effects of the weed and stopped smoking. The doctors couldn't find much wrong with him and he has had a lot of tests done. Nothing has really shown up. He now believes it to be his diet and his allergies to food, as certain diets have helped him and cleared his brain fog - albeit only temporarily. Im still of the mind that it was the marijuana that has caused this and he needs to repair the hypothalamus. He has spent the last four years trying many many supplements and diets but he still suffers from these issues. I would dearly love to see my brother return to the person he used to be - incredibly sociable, peaceful, happy boy. 

 

He believes firmly, from spending years googling, that its down to allergies etc, but I think he needs to see a psychologist (it's a bit of a taboo where we come from to seek help in this area - which is idiotic to say the least!) but he isn't too interested in this. I really do think anxiety (maybe depression too) is playing a major role here.

 

Would love to hear your thoughts. I want him to start feeling better so he can get on with his life and 

 

 

Anyway, here is what he wrote on another forum...

 

 

 

I have developed what I believe to be allergies to most chemicals. I've been experiencing this horrific condition for nearly 5 years and have had enough of just "existing" with this condition. I need to get to the bottom of this. I need your help CZ. :-)

My symptoms:

Sound/light sensitivity, popping ears, shortness of breath, hypertension, twitching/spasms, shaking, sinusitis, aching joints (wrists, ankles, knees and shoulders**), - Clicking/popping joints (especially my knees, which pop every time I walk),  Regular raw pain feeling in stomach (When you peel off a scab and there's that shiny bit of sensitive skin underneath). That's what it feels like when i press down on stomach.chronic brain fog and fuzzy vision (translucent out of signal black/white tv fuzz) and getting hypoglycaemic very easily. Literally half a teaspoon of Sugar is enough to set off the wired symptom.

Description:

When I ingest foods and other chemicals, immediately a stress response goes off in my body and sets off what I can only describe as my wired symptom. Its an uncomfortable often painful tingling sensation streaming through my body as if something biochemical has been triggered and released into my blood stream after ingesting the chemical/s. My pupils dilate and it activates my nervous system. It puts me in a state where I feel stressed and on edge, whilst making me feel crappy. It impairs my cognition even more than it already is. The more extreme my wired symptom/stress response is, the more stressed I feel and the more extreme my symptoms get.


**Worth noting that only my knees are painful when the stress response goes off but all the other joints inc knees I experience a lot of pain if I exert to much stress on these joints when doing things, eg massaging someone quite strongly would be too painful after about 20 seconds if the stress response had gone off, or walking up two/three flights of stairs.


What triggers the stress response?

- Exercise (This one is bizarre)
- With no exaggeration, ALL food.
- Stress

I call it the stress response tap. It feel's like it's constantly on to some degree, streaming around my body, so I am pretty intolerant to stress and have a short fuse when threatened.

Worst offenders? (In order)

- Cigarettes
- Marijuana
- Histamine rich food
- Salicylate rich food (eg avocado)
- Caffeine
- Alcohol
- Gluten/Yeast

My worst symptom:

Chronic Brain Fog - I have read many, many cases of people experiencing this symptom but nothing to the extent of how extreme and debilitating mine is.

The extent of how chronic and debilitating it is, is something which my friends/family/doctors still cant quite comprehend. It is so chronic I am completely unable to think, access any thoughts or memories. I can't process more than 4-5 words in a sentence, completely unable to process a paragraph, sit back and think about it, it's not a matter of hazy thinking, I am completely unable to think AT ALL. The best analogy I can find is is it's like solitary confinement in the mind, no activity, just dead space.

My quality of life and the boredom I experience is frightening. Completely unable to process anything properly - books, films, music, conversation, again just dead space, no escapism.

What has helped with my "condition"?

Diazepam - reduces my "reaction" to things significantly to a point where I could almost live a manageable/mildly functional life with it. Because there's much less wired symptom it helps my ability to process better and appear more functional in everyday situations, but doesn't improve the BF.

Cold air exposure - If im very symptomatic being outside for 15 minutes or more significantly improves my wired symptom, ability to process information and general symptoms like sinusitis. I have heard cold air exposure reduces glutamate exitoxicity - so something is triggering it, but I'm not exactly sure what it is...

Elemental diet - Being on this for 8 days reduced my reaction to normal foods (gluten, alcohol, ready meals & dairy based foods) considerably and normalised my stress response and improved BF by about 40%. I felt very calm and zen after and was MUCH better at handling stress because the stress tap wasn't on anymore. Eating "normal" foods for a couple of weeks made me go back to square one again though.

Tests done:

I've had thyroid, lyme, (awaiting full autoimmune profile) and most standard blood tests a doctor could do for someone who thinks they have something wrong with them. Done brain scan, tested for POTS. Nothing.

My own conclusions: I'm still pretty clueless as to what it is. Mast cell activation disorder or Mastocytosis...

Just something is triggering neuronal excitability...

Background:

I was experiencing feeling a bit odd and cognitively impaired for about 6 months or so until one night I ate a big carby pasta meal, which I believe made me hypoglycemic and then I smoked a little bit of weed (which I have allergies to i've now realised), the combined autoimmune response along with the hypoglycemia triggered inflammation in my hypothalamus, which made the baseline brain fog worse.



#2 StevesPetRat

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Posted 24 January 2015 - 08:24 PM

Can't directly quote original posts for some reason, oh well.

He believes firmly, from spending years googling, that its down to allergies etc, but I think he needs to see a psychologist (it's a bit of a taboo where we come from to seek help in this area - which is idiotic to say the least!) but he isn't too interested in this. I really do think anxiety (maybe depression too) is playing a major role here.

Couldn't hurt, but also may not help too much. Remind him that they're not the ones who prescribe drugs for every problem.

He shares a remarkable number of symptoms that I also experienced. The ones that match exactly are blue and the ones that are similar are green (with description of the difference after):
 

allergies to most chemicals. (severely exacerbated environmental and food allergies)
My symptoms:

Sound/light sensitivity, popping ears, shortness of breath, hypertension(POTS / OH), twitching/spasms, shaking, sinusitis, aching joints (wrists, ankles, knees and shoulders**), - Clicking/popping joints (especially my knees, which pop every time I walk), Regular raw pain feeling in stomach (When you peel off a scab and there's that shiny bit of sensitive skin underneath). That's what it feels like when i press down on stomach., chronic brain fog and fuzzy vision (translucent out of signal black/white tv fuzz)(also minor hallucinations and weird visual effect where the red and blue components of white light no longer matched up exactly in the eye) and getting hypoglycaemic very easily. Literally half a teaspoon of Sugar is enough to set off the wired symptom. When I ingest foods and other chemicals, immediately a stress response goes off in my body and sets off what I can only describe as my wired symptom...(feeling drunk, dizzy, sometimes giddy or depressed, lightheaded, confused after eating pretty much anything)

What triggers the stress response?

- Exercise (This one is bizarre)
- With no exaggeration, ALL food.
- Stress



Worst offenders? (In order)

- Cigarettes (dunno, don't smoke)
- Marijuana
- Histamine rich food
- Salicylate rich food (eg avocado)
(fixed this by taking epsom salt baths frequently, sulfate is used in the liver detox mechanism for sulfates)
- Caffeine
- Alcohol
- Gluten
/Yeast (no problem with brewer's yeast in normal doses)

My worst symptom:

Chronic Brain Fog - I have read many, many cases of people experiencing this symptom but nothing to the extent of how extreme and debilitating mine is... (yes, I had a similar level of brain fog, my working memory was very nearly zero)

What has helped with my "condition"?

Diazepam(Benzos ultimately made things much worse for me. Such terrible rebound effects. Withdrawal was a mess, and I only used them for a bit less than 2 months.)

Cold air exposure

Elemental diet - Being on this for 8 days reduced my reaction to normal foods (gluten, alcohol, ready meals & dairy based foods) considerably and normalised my stress response and improved BF by about 40%. I felt very calm and zen after and was MUCH better at handling stress because the stress tap wasn't on anymore. Eating "normal" foods for a couple of weeks made me go back to square one again though.(WHY DOES YOUR BROTHER STILL CONSIDER THESE THINGS "NORMAL" FOODS?!?!? Anyway, I used a diet of nothing but meat, boiled lettuce, ghee, safflower oil, and white rice for about 2 months)

Tests done:

I've had thyroid, lyme, (awaiting full autoimmune profile) and most standard blood tests a doctor could do for someone who thinks they have something wrong with them. Done brain scan, tested for POTS. Nothing. (Have not had Lyme, autoimmune tests. Only abnormal results were anion gap, and a terrifyingly high level of the galectin-3 protein. Also, I definitely do / did have POTS.)

My own conclusions: I'm still pretty clueless as to what it is. Mast cell activation disorder or Mastocytosis...(yes, I suspected this, as gastro issues and giant rashes were present.)

Just something is triggering neuronal excitability...

Background:

I was experiencing feeling a bit odd and cognitively impaired for about 6 months or so until one night I ate a big carby pasta meal, which I believe made me hypoglycemic and then I smoked a little bit of weed (which I have allergies to i've now realised), the combined autoimmune response along with the hypoglycemia triggered inflammation in my hypothalamus, which made the baseline brain fog worse.

Anyway, I think that acetylcholine dysfunction plays a big role in the persistent brain fog symptoms. Please see these threads:
Stress can cause anticholinergic effects
This stack fixed my mental functioning about 75% of the way back to baseline
Bullet point summary:

  • Acute stress can induce very long lasting dysfunction of the cholinergic system (The body produces too much AChE, too little VAChT and ChAT = too little ACh)
  • Blueberries (once your brother can improve salicylate tolerance), lecithin and/or αGPC, fisetin, magnesium, ALCAR, and B5 play roles in ACh synthesis / function
  • CNTF, NGF, and BDNF may be able to help reset the ACh gene expression as well. Haven't played with these much yet...
  • B1 (thiamine, allithiamine) in huge doses have interestingly improved various autonomic functions (see also the work of Dr. Derrick Lonsdale, he has some of the trappings of a "True Believer" about him -- i.e. a guy who thinks he has "The Answer" -- but can't argue with his results)
  • Seriously, he has to stop eating crap if he wants to get better, WTF. At least cut out grains (except white rice), switch to goat / A2-beta casein cow dairy, reduce omega-6 and increase omega-3 fats.

Hope this helps some. It took me about a year to figure this stuff out, I can't imagine what 5 years must be like. I am still working on more long-term plans to continue to improve.

 

Edit: of course you or he should feel free to PM me as well if you like.


Edited by StevesPetRat, 24 January 2015 - 08:27 PM.

  • WellResearched x 1
  • Agree x 1

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#3 MichaelTheAnhedonic

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Posted 24 January 2015 - 09:02 PM

What the hell... I have the same symptoms for over 4 years and I didn't smoked weed back then... 



#4 billybunter

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Posted 24 January 2015 - 10:11 PM

Many many thanks for your input. I'm going to forward all this info to my little brother. He obviously knows more about all this than I do, and I'll see how it resonates with him. 

 

Truly great that there is a forum with such knowledgeable people : )



#5 TheWorldAroundUs

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Posted 27 January 2015 - 03:13 AM

I agree with StevesPetRat's Suggestions, you should take some magnesium and zinc not only for Ach Synthesis but because they both act as NMDA antagonists, which could help with the glutamate excitocity. As for brain fog, to my knowledge dopamine plays a big role in Clarity of thought, so your friend could look into L-tyrosine but I would hold off for now because he seems to be hypersensitive to foreign substances. He could alternatively look into L-phenyalanine because not only does it convert into tyrosine in the brain but it also acts as a competitive antagonist at the glutamate AMPA receptor, again anything to reduce glutamate excitocity. You could look into more potent Glutamate antagonists like Memantine but please be very careful with them if you do plan to use them. Other than that try Steve's suggestions and keep me/us posted on your little brothers progress if you can.



#6 Rin Tohsaka

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Posted 27 January 2015 - 03:31 AM

See my thread about this. I think I know the cause though, pm me if you're interested



#7 MichaelTheAnhedonic

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Posted 15 February 2015 - 05:46 AM

So, any clues? Im hopeless.. 



#8 iseethelight

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Posted 14 April 2018 - 12:01 AM

I have suffered from all these same symptoms for the past 10 years. Literally stole my 20s from me and have made me contemplate suicide a few times. A vegan diet of mostly rice and leafy greens have eased my symptoms but it’s not sustaiinable. I’m intolerant to all high sulfur veggies, , all fruits and of courrse all fush and meat.. What kind of life is this?

Edited by iseethelight, 14 April 2018 - 12:04 AM.


#9 chris85

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Posted 14 April 2018 - 04:25 AM

There are two general multipurpose herbs I would consider.

 

Firstly, ashwgandha ksm66, secondly, a dual extract of reishi fruiting body. Both can target several of the issues he is talking about.



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#10 iseethelight

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Posted 27 April 2018 - 05:28 PM

Ashaghanda makes me worse




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