What Fixed/Aided Your Brain Fog?

[Timaca]

I will also state that cutting out high histamine foods (including animal protein....for me there was just too much histamine in it) also helped a lot with the brain fog.

 

[Little Bluestem]

then include seeds (eg sesame and sunflower seeds)

My dietician wants me to eat a few seeds and nuts with each meal (I think for the omega-3s). I have also seen recommendations to eat less meat and more fish and shellfish. No one can seem to agree on what foods are and are not good for you.

 

[Timaca]

It's individual what foods are good (or not) for a person. In general, nuts and seeds are great foods if you aren't allergic or intolerant to them. If you do have a problem with nuts and seeds they can cause headaches and other minor issues or they can kill you. Usually a person knows if they have a major problem with a food because it is life threatening and you end up in the ER. The intolerance symptoms can be less easy to discern......that's where I'm at right now. Even 1 ounce of corn (I've learned to test small amounts) seemed to give me problems. I will retest it again in a couple of weeks. I will test just 1/2 ounce of nuts when I get around to testing them. Sunflower seeds did not seem to go well for me when I tested them......

 

[Jimbo39]

Alpha-GPC
PS
Curcumin
Resveratrol
Colostrum
Oxaloaloate (glutamate pump)

 

[place]

Not eating gluten/dairy
If I have an important meeting the night before I Take anti viral, difulcan and fish oil

The day of, if I have any , lovonox. I'm right as rain and my Irish wit is in full force

 

[Jimbo39]

Not eating gluten/dairy

I agree. I've been GF/DF for about a year now. Major improvement.

I took fish oil religiously until I read this link:http://howirecovered.com/connections-between-methylation-toxicity-and-liver-function/

Shoot. I'm so brain dead. I don't know how to paste links.

Anyway, it's so confusing.

 

[Jimbo39]

Oh, wait it worked.

 

[JaimeS]

Not eating gluten/dairy
If I have an important meeting the night before I Take anti viral, difulcan and fish oil

The day of, if I have any , lovonox. I'm right as rain and my Irish wit is in full force

Lovonox... heparin?!

 

[JaimeS]

I agree. I've been GF/DF for about a year now. Major improvement.

I took fish oil religiously until I read this link:http://howirecovered.com/connections-between-methylation-toxicity-and-liver-function/

Shoot. I'm so brain dead. I don't know how to paste links.

Anyway, it's so confusing.

Interestingly, a lot of us can't do fish oil. There's a discussion somewhere about it; I'm one of them. It makes my exhaustion noticeably worse.

 

[hamsterman]

Hi @MAF14

Getting a grip on sleep can be tricky. Pharmaceuticals inevitably have their limits. I've recently read that using a 'cool' pillow helps cool down your head aiding in better sleep. I've been meaning to try it.

For me... cooling down is the key... more-so than most people... I pretty much require a cooling towel. I also need white noise... (and occasionally melatonin) and light therapy in the morning. Medication will start to cause memory retention issues... so I avoid it like the plague.

 

[hamsterman]

I'll join in the counterintuitive anecdotes. I also used pot at first to help sleep because I didn't like the sleep medication hangover. But I had to give that up after 6 months.

But one thing for me that was weird was that alcohol, up to a point, gave me great clarity and energy, For years this kept me able to do things like have dinner with friends at a loud restaurant, go see live music and dance and stay up late. It wasn't perfect sometimes I would alternate coffee, glass of wine water. And the hangover was awful and I used to say I got a 3 day hangover but really I felt like I had a hangover with or without the booze.

Not the smartest treatment but honestly for those 10 years to have a break every week from feeling like I did and be able to have good conversation and not just think about wanting to lay down was worth it.

Later I had minor surgery and I felt GREAT after the anesthesia. I wash't doing cartwheels but I felt like me, happy, clear headed and animated and just normal. It was such a nice day,

Looking back a lot of the things that gave me energy or were just healthy made me too wired, I had the wired/tired thing from the start.

It was always the things that were nervous system depressants or just calmed me down that made me feel good even if just temporarily. And I was seemingly a very calm person to begin with so doctors would't look at me and think she needs less energy not more. Even I didn't put that together until it was too late.

This was decades ago and I wish I had the resources back then that I do now because now I can't handle any vitamins or medications that might have been good long term solutions,

I was never depressed yet talked into taking an SSRI by a dr and It was one of the worst things I ever did. It was like being on speed but not helping any of my symptoms and nobody warned me about the side effects even when I asked. I ended up with Parkinson like symptoms and a messed up brain beyond anything I knew before.

Sorry about the Parkinsons.

Based upon how you reacted to anesthesia (I responded the exact same way). You might benefit from LDN. I am not an expert or anything... I just noticed this pattern with others.

 

[antherder]

What ruined my day (2 days actually) most recently was swimming 6 lengths of a pool. I honestly think I have a chlorine / bromine intolerance. (Trying to ascertain which chemical was used in the pool). I was down and not very functional after that swim and I don't think it was the amount of exercise!!!

Is your tap water chlorinated? If so, that might affect you too. I have a chlorine sensitivity, and tap water makes me wheezy, sneezy, and queasy. Not fun.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

The only thing that has significantly helped with brain fog in my case is vitamin b12. At work I used to have to take a break every 2 hrs and have a lie down in my car for 20 min. Since I took the b12 I don't need those breaks anymore. When I take the b12 away, the brain fog comes back. Pretty conclusive for me. Pacing and sleep obviously key as well as others have mentioned.

 

[Timaca]

Is your tap water chlorinated? If so, that might affect you too. I have a chlorine sensitivity, and tap water makes me wheezy, sneezy, and queasy. Not fun.

Yes, our tap water is chlorinated. That does concern me. I now use a Brita filter....don't know how much that helps. I'd love to get it tested before and after filtering......................

Thanks for the thought....

 

[antherder]

@Timaca,

Forgot to add that when I ran my 23andme results through Promethease, it came up with this snp which apparently means I'm a slow metabolizer of chlorinated swimming pool water, and the drug, DCA. Also of protein. Not sure how accurate it is, but found it interesting. Just mentioning in case you did the 23andme thing too;

https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Gs311

I did experiment with various water filters, including a jug, but they didn't remove 100% of the chlorine. Of course, I still get a dose of chlorine in the shower, unfortunately.

 

[Seven7]

I just wanted to say if I can get better from brain fog anybody can. Mine was so extreme that I was afraid the damage was permanent.
I am not sure if my BF was cured by the antiviral (FAMVIR) or the OI meds (florinef+midodrine+propanalol) but I have most of my brain back. The speed processing is still faulty I used to be very snappy, That is not back yet (or might be that I now live on my second language) not sure.

 

[Basilico]

I came across an interesting post by Gestalt in the "Candida and Biofilms" thread below:


From this post and a few others the biggest aids were:

Yucca
RS (Resistant starch)
Larch Arabinogalactan

**Not mentioned but Citrulline Malate is also an ammonia scavenger so I assume it would have similar effects

I'm curious what else has shown improvement in the community.

I'm a little confused, maybe someone with more BioChem understanding than me can explain something. The pH of the small intestine is supposed to go from 6 to 7.4 (from slightly acidic to neutral). So just because Candida can raise the pH from 4 to 7, why would that at all matter? That part of the GI tract shouldn't be acidic anyway.

The intestines are already at the pH level that Candida can produce. The quote says that Candida produces an "alkaline environment" by raising pH from 4 to 7, but 7 isn't alkaline, it's neutral, meaning that Candida actually can't produce an alkaline environment, at best it can neutralize acidity. What am I missing here?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10421978

 

[Wishful]

One thing that provided a slight reduction in brainfog for me was apigenin. It wasn't major, but I could tell the difference between having taken it and not. After several months, the effect became harder to distinguish. I'm presently not taking it for a couple of weeks to see if it's still having an effect. It's not expensive, so worth a try if you're desperate. BTW, luteolin is generally also mentioned as a similar treatment (CD40 blocker) since apigenin converts to luteolin, but luteolin had no effect for me. Apigenin has some other immuosuppressant functions which might be responsible, or maybe it just reaches the appropriate cells more efficiently.

 

[Wishful]

Late to the thread, but I'll add that apigenin has a slight but noticeable and reliable reduction in brain fog for me. I'm presently not taking it for a few days to see if the effect is still noticeable, but so far I've considered it worth the cost (it's cheap). I've tried lots of supplements and foods, but apigenin is the only one I've found worth taking daily. I'll repeat that it's only a slight reduction, but enough to make a difference in trying to think.

 

[SueJohnPat]

Late to thread- I discovered I was reactive to mold 2 years ago.

My cfs lasted about 6 years. I had the usual pem confirmed diagnosis by 2 exercise studies consistent with cfs.

About year 1 into my illness I was diagnosed with add; I had mouth diarrhea and my personality was “ hyper” ;
My brain felt inflamed. This continued and then started getting emotional meltdowns by year 4-5.
At year 6 thought mold might be in play and took a sabbatical in Death Valley. I did an air B and B in Tecopa . Felt too ill to tent camp.
Had a dramatic improvement after Death Valley and cholestyramine.

After selling our home and putting possessions in storage and tent camping for a week I finally feel like myself
again. I have my physical strength and stamina back but the cognition is finally normal again if I remain free of exposures.

My son was diagnosed with add and depression at age 12 . After moving to our apartment after 3 months he went off all of his medications and his grades have improved greatly. He is now 17. His psychiatrist was taking notes from me at his last appointment. He had rages and meltdowns almost had to put him in a psyche ward. He had been a happy loving intelligent child and it seemed to come from nowhere. I am glad I was ill in a way because we never would have though mold exposure would have caused mental illlness symptoms.

This took about a year after my trip to Death Valley. Still get “ hits” but I am slowly moving forward.

Husband was affected too. Took him a year to believe finally believes after seeing the health of me and my son improve after getting away from whatever was contaminating our old home. .