Brain Fog

It’s another week in the life for me. Highlights from my week and weekend so far are that the Long-Covid Care Center in Georgia turned out to be a bust, I celebrated my birthday, and I continue to try to improve my fatigue and brain fog through working with pacing and sleep management. Hopefully, I will have more to say about that process come the end of the week.

I also continue my attempts to spread advocacy and awareness by sharing my story. I was recently on the news in Russia and tomorrow, I will be on “The Doctors” on CBS.

Given the upcoming tv piece, and having talked a bit about my functional neurological disorder, I decided that I want to spend a few posts talking more in depth about my various symptoms with long-covid. I decided that the best place to start may be to talk about brain fog.

Brain fog is one of the most discussed symptoms of covid and long-covid. Basically all of the interviews I have given have centered around brain fog.

I’ve learned that brain fog isn’t unique to covid sufferers. Those with other diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome and some types of cancer can also develop brain fog. But, there is heightened interest in the unexplained phenomenon right now.

I think the interest in brain fog is because it is the least understood and also one of the most prevalent symptoms of long-covid.

Every day, some new survivor logs onto one of the survivor groups and writes a similar message “I can’t think straight since covid. Is anyone having the same issues?” and they are usually met with a large group of people saying that they feel the same.

A survey that the Body Politic survivor group assisted in suggests that fatigue and brain fog are the two most prevalent symptoms in long-haulers. 85% of those who took the survey reported having these symptoms.

When I first heard the word “brain fog” on a list of symptoms for covid, in my head I thought it was like when you are sick with the flu and are generally a little out of it and can’t think straight.

I learned that this brain fog is not like that at all. It’s worse and in a way that is hard to describe.

It’s also more than just being a bit forgetful and absent minded.

I do my best in my interviews to break down and explain what it feels like but it is still difficult. I think my best method has been to give examples. So, I compiled a post just giving examples of some of the cognitive issues that I have been struggling with. You can find that post here.

But, to try to describe it, there are several aspects to it. I believe the brain fog really is several cognition issues that are going on at once.

First, it’s like you’re on benadryl even when you’re not. Sometimes I feel dizzy, confused, like I am in a cloud.

Second, it’s harder to concentrate. My brain sometimes jumps to random thoughts at random moments.

It’s hard for me to listen and focus on people talking. It’s even hard sometimes for me to watch a new TV show because I can’t follow along with the plot and the dialogue.

It’s also harder to complete tasks without accidentally drifting off and starting on a completely different task. Or I will forget what step that I am on with a given task.

At points, it’s like parts of your brain and/or memory are just missing. I do things and don’t remember doing them. I read things or see things and don’t remember them correctly moments later. Sometimes, I don’t see things. I somehow don’t register that they are there.

I believe my past memories are more or less intact. But I know that some survivors don’t remember some events from their past. My problems seem to be more or less limited to short-term memory.

I forget deadlines and tasks that I am supposed to do. Sometimes, I forget almost a second after being told. I then suffer feelings of guilt because I feel like I let somebody down. I try to write everything down these days. But, sometimes I forget before I even get a chance to write it down or I forget where I wrote it down.

Expressing myself is also harder. I can’t remember words and grammar. At my worst, no matter how hard I tried to remember a word- very simple words- I just couldn’t. I think it may be related to issues with recall and recognition. I also will occasionally look at a road that I have been on a million times before and won’t recognize it.

Thinking through things also takes me longer. Like there’s a delay in processing. I have to break things down into really small steps in order to reason through it. Otherwise, I start to feel confused and overwhelmed.

For me, I feel myself improving. I can’t say if it’s just time that’s helping or if it also may be all the brain puzzles that I am doing. I know the brain is amazing and is capable of healing itself after injury. So, maybe it is just my amazing brain at work.

But, I do remember more things lately. I’m doing better with recalling words. I also do a little better these days retaining focus and thinking through things.

But, I also can tell that I am still having some problems.

I still have moments where I get dizzy, foggy, confused. These moments usually get worse as I get more fatigued.

I’ve come to the point where if I think about a word or grammar rule long enough and hard enough, I can remember it or I can come up with a decent replacement. But, everything takes longer. Thinking through steps in my head takes longer.

It is a really disappointing feeling when you catch yourself doing something absent-minded again and you realize that you are still having problems. You might have improved a bit, but you’re still not better. You’re still slipping up in pretty serious ways.

I think that is my greatest fear: that I won’t get well enough to function.

#covid #longhauler #brainfog #neurology #longcovid #medical