Mental cloudiness or brain fog

[zen_racer]

I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with this, or has ever felt it get resolved to any degree through any type of therapy, treatment, or anything else.

I personally have an odd history with brain fog.  I've had days where I had such clarity it was hard to believe it was real, and I've also experienced all different varying degrees of brain fog to the point where it got debilitating and I couldn't properly function.  I know the next part sounds weird like this, but I think it makes sense.  Luckily, all of my worst brain fog happened when my gallbladder went from low functioning to hyperkinetic.  The worst and most debilitating happened when I passed all the stones (which is when my gallbladder instantly switched to being hyperkinetic).  I have theorized that it was because sludge came out with the stones, and it was that chemical flooding my system that caused it.

But I haven't had a gallbladder for a while now, and I still have brain fog.  I've seen it mentioned in connection with cptsd, so I'm wondering if there's any hope to get better than where I currently am now.

One thing I've recently seen but haven't posted here about yet, which I had planned to, was for a Dual Sympathetic Reset, or Stellate Ganglion Block.  I don't have any plans for doing this.  From what I gather, it's best to try actual therapy first.  But I've seen videos from people at least claiming to have had this done, and mentioning that the brain fog has lifted and feeling much calmer.

I know I'm pretty high functioning in at least the scope of work projects I've taken on at home for hobby, but I know I used to be sharper, faster processing.  I would chalk it up to age, but my sense of scale for what's normal for my age was severely thrown off by the issues I had with my gallbladder.  Things started getting worse and worse so slowly that I didn't know I was even being affected by anything, and figured it was just because I was getting older.  I kept feeling worse and worse in several different ways and kept telling myself it was due to age.  And then I had surgery, and then got past the nutrient deficiencies, and I felt better than I had in over 5 years.  So now I don't know if anything is actually age related, especially the brain fog that I still feel.

If anyone has any insight, I'd love to hear it.

[Kizzie]

Hey Zen Racer - If you Google "brain fog and CPTSD" there are pages of info about it, some sources more credible than others obviously but enough that you can get a good idea of what it is and why it occurs. 

I used to have it a lot, but 11 years on in recovery it's not as constant I believe because I have dealt with a lot of my underlying trauma. Nowadays if/when it happens I know to slow down, take away as much of any sources of  stress I'm feeling, and focus on why I might be feeling the fog so I can work through it.

Hope this is helpful 

[zen_racer]

Hey Zen Racer - If you Google "brain fog and CPTSD" there are pages of info about it, some sources more credible than others obviously but enough that you can get a good idea of what it is and why it occurs. 

I used to have it a lot, but 11 years on in recovery it's not as constant I believe because I have dealt with a lot of my underlying trauma. Nowadays if/when it happens I know to slow down, take away as much of any sources of  stress I'm feeling, and focus on why I might be feeling the fog so I can work through it.

Hope this is helpful 

Thank you Kizzie.  I'm not entirely certain if this was the first I've seen this response, or if there's some other reason I don't remember seeing it.  I just did google that.  It does make a lot of sense now.  It leads me to having more questions about types of treatments, but I guess I'll find the appropriate section to put those.

[NarcKiddo]

I get periods of noticeable brain fog. Being a woman of a certain age my first thought was menopausal hormone changes and I am sure that plays a part. Looking back, though, I think I have always had periods of brain fog. I'm not sure how trauma plays in but I'm sure it does. My processing capacity is severely compromised at times of stress, EF, dissociation, hyper vigilance etc. I used to be able to override it more easily but I can find myself struggling to find a word, for example, when I am talking to someone perfectly safe about a safe topic. These things tend to happen at times of higher stress or background EFs or around FOO visits. I've always put it down to having only a certain amount of bandwidth. I'm sure age has some effect. But to my mind the bandwidth argument holds and one of the annoying side effects of processing trauma is that it comes to the surface and takes up some bandwidth.

I imagine all your gallbladder chemicals will not have helped. Dealing with clearance of the chemicals will obviously have taken up some brain bandwidth. Recognising and starting to deal with a trauma history takes up a huge amount of bandwidth in my experience. I am interested to read what Kizzie has said about brain fog reducing with time and trauma processing. I think once we get familiarity with and understanding of things like EFs they get easier to manage and we find ways to manage them more efficiently, so they take up less bandwidth. I guess a bit like adequately exercised muscles needing less oxygen to function.

Anyway it's a very interesting topic. I think that with anything chronic there may be fast fixes but they cannot override the years of adaption the body has undertaken, so I'd be surprised if a fast fix offered a full and lasting cure. But they might offer something good enough.

[Calico77]

Hey
Just in case this perspective helps, there is a lot of neuroscience research now that has identified that whenever we are anxious, there is a cascade of changes due to cortisol being released etc. One effect of that is to dial down the pre-frontal cortex which is the bit of our brain that thinks clearly, problem solves, makes decisions by weighing up different things etc. Without it, we literally can't access our clear thinking. And once we're in our old 'survival patterns' our nervous system will focus on one way of seeing things only and we won't be open to any alternatives. So if you've been chronically stressed, it could be contributing to the problem? Menopause hormone changes also have an effect. I have so many experiences now of forgetting words for things and ending up having to describe them instead.

What I've noticed for me is that I can on occasions think super clearly (like if I'm fired up about someone being treated badly, or there is an non-anxiety provoking external situation/ task needing sorting. It only takes certain triggers (anxiety provoking in some way) and my head turns to mush, I feel paralysed and can't even make a straightforward decision. 

Anyway, I found the neuroscience things useful to know and it certainly resonates for me because I can see sometimes I have the capacity to think really sharply, just not all the time......

[zen_racer]

Thank you for that response, Calico77. I do appreciate the science aspect of a lot of this. I've noticed recently especially that when my brain is actually processing some of the trauma, I get the brain fog even worse. I've heard it called an emotional hangover, which obviously isn't the scientific explanation but also makes a bit of sense.

Thank you for giving me another way of seeing this.

Also, welcome to the forum. I hadn't said anything on your introduction because I've been having a rough couple days and didn't want to accidentally say something wrong and be less than inviting.

I hope you find this forum to be as helpful and wonderful as I have. Thank you for adding your knowledge on this post!

[dollyvee]

For me, I can say that I have experienced brain fog from physical issues and dissociation from emotional ones. What's helped me to start to evaluate which is which is to track my physical symptoms and take care of my physical health. There's been times when no one has an explanation for why I am getting sick and can't stay awake/feel really fatigued all the time (let's call them the mold years), but was something I kept away with because it felt off physically (ie I still had a lot of issues losing weight and weird symptoms like reacting to the sun).

For me, these two things are still difficult to differentiate and have to make it a process to track why I might be experiencing this fuzziness for example (ie did I eat something that was different than normal etc). After doing this for quite a few years now, I can sort of tell the mental fuzziness/anxiety from a physical reaction, and the sort of reaction I have where it's like I don't want to pay attention, or am checking out.