[Hazzell]

Hi,

I'm relieved this site is here! It's hard to find other people to connect to who also have brain injuries. (My brain injury is due to severe infection but I could not find a forum for that...so thought I'd try posting here.)

I'm wondering...has anyone else experienced brain fog? What have you found helps and what makes it worse?

For me, brain fog feels like, well...a lot of fogginess in my head. It's hard for me to convey my thoughts in a way that feels like what I mean and who I am, it's hard to speak, think clearly and my coordination and balance get out of whack. When I feel this way, everything feels like it takes enormous amount of work and effort.

Excercise seems to help but- if I push too much, then I get foggy. Laughter seems to help a bit as well as eating well. But even still...

I keep trying to find ways to dissolve the fog and increase my energy. I'd really appreciate anything you'd like to share!

Thanks!!
-Hazzell

[Mark in Idaho]

I have brain fog frequently. I call if a mud head ache. I get a dull head ache that is accompanied by the feeling that my thoughts are stuck in mud. They just do not want to move. Usually, mine are the result of poor sleep or over exertion.

Sometimes, I can take a nap after breakfast and wake up with the mud gone.

Sometimes, I get the muddy thoughts without a head ache, but this is uncommon for me.

What kind of infection did you have? Was it just neurological or was it broader with high fever? I count an episode of high fever (well over 104.7 degrees) in my list of concussions. My temp was 104.7 after 45 minutes of cold towels. Before the cold towels, I was locked in convulsions and unable to communicate. It effected me as bad or worse than a severe head impact.

My best to you.

[Hazzell]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your response! Yes, I can relate to the mud too- it's a good way to describe it. As you wrote, sometimes I'm not able to get my thoughts moving out of me. Then, if I try to talk, what comes out is jumbled, fragmented and either in tone or concept, not what I intended to say. I get really frustrated by this.

I had a flu type of thing with fever. But the fever apparently went down or disappeared. But somehow this led to encephalitis (brain swelling also with several hours of seizures and partial paralysis, now resolved but with weakness). All of this also led to a couple different types of brain damage: structural as well as diffuse.

When you get brain fog/muddy thoughts, is your general energy level low or ok?

For me, the lower my energy, the worse the fog.

I hope you have a good night,
Hazzell

[ShellyK]

Hazzell,
One of the most frustrating experiences with this PCS or MTBI has been the foggy brain.

Some days I just wake up that way, and all I want to do is sleep. I can't do much of anything when my brain is foggy. My energy level is very low. I just go through the day in a fog and hope the next day is better.

I haven't found anything that really helps except to rest. I think its just part of the brain's reaction to PCS. I also find that if I do too much the day before - too much, meaning too much for me - the chances of having a foggy brain the next day are higher.

I hope that you find something that helps you.

ShellyK

[Mark in Idaho]

Shelly,

I suggest to ask for help understanding your sleep behaviors. I know that mine are related to occasional sleep apnea of the3 central type. That means my brain forgets to tell my diaphragm to take a breath. My wife has witnessed this happening. Sometimes, i will stop breathing as many as 12 to 16 times per hour. Other times, she says I am breathing in a puffing movement. She can predict my mud headache from observing my breathing.

Since the brain stem controls breathing, any inflammation to it or near it can cause disruptions. When we were first discovering these signs, I spent almost a week with very low pulse and blood pressure. My pulse was in the 50's and BP was 80-90/40-50. I could barely get out of a chair. In hindsight, we remembered that I had fallen asleep in a car and sleep for a few hours with my head hanging forward and to the left.

We now know that I have a problem with neck position when I sleep. The head forward and to the left is usually associated with my sleep apnea. I spent a lot of money with an Upper Cervical Chiropractor trying to get improvements in this area. So far, no improvement. He did observe that I have a serious imbalance/tilt of C-1/atlas where it meets the skull.

This has been tough because I spent 20 years sleeping on my left side cuddled up to my wife. Now, if I do it, my breathing gets irregular and my body starts jerking. But, she says she will keep me anyway. She just pushes me over to my back so I stop jerking and breathing weird and waking her up.

The mud brain sounds so much like the symptoms the Tom Hanks character had in Joe Versus the Volcano. At least for us, it is real. We don't need to give doctors any more reason to think we are nuts.

Oops, time to go take my gabapentin before I forget and am up until 3 or 4:00 AM.

Now, go try to get a good night's sleep.

[budman24]

I have the mud and foggy also as well as bad headaches. I have post concussion syndrome from multiple head injuries and I am just not the same. I agree with not relating or talking to anyone that has not had any of this bc they just do not understand. I am struggling with work now and never want to go and when I do go, im miserable. Im only 24 and need to work but I just dont know what to do and how to go about doing it. I see a neurologist and tried a lot of medication, now im doing therapy for my neck but I just dont know???

George

[Hazzell]

Originally Posted by ShellyK

Hazzell,
One of the most frustrating experiences with this PCS or MTBI has been the foggy brain.

Some days I just wake up that way, and all I want to do is sleep. I can't do much of anything when my brain is foggy. My energy level is very low. I just go through the day in a fog and hope the next day is better.

I haven't found anything that really helps except to rest. I think its just part of the brain's reaction to PCS. I also find that if I do too much the day before - too much, meaning too much for me - the chances of having a foggy brain the next day are higher.

I hope that you find something that helps you.

ShellyK

Hi Shelly,

Thanks for writing! I too experience that- sometimes, usually actually, I wake up feeling foggy. Sometimes, after I get going I have some time that I feel a little better but then my energy decreases and my head feels tired and filled with fog, talking and moving get harder.

As you mentioned, it also happens when I do to much. And "too much" changes day to day. I'm trying to learn how to figure out when to push myself and when to rest.

I find that if I listen to my body instead of my head to answer "do I push or not?", things turn out better. What I think I want to do or should do is sometimes different than what I can actually do. This is really frustrating. I usually want to do much more. I try to appreciate what I can do- but it's still frustrating.

Thanks for letting me know about your experiences and how rest helps!
-Hazzell

[Hazzell]

Originally Posted by budman24

I have the mud and foggy also as well as bad headaches. I have post concussion syndrome from multiple head injuries and I am just not the same. I agree with not relating or talking to anyone that has not had any of this bc they just do not understand. I am struggling with work now and never want to go and when I do go, im miserable. Im only 24 and need to work but I just dont know what to do and how to go about doing it. I see a neurologist and tried a lot of medication, now im doing therapy for my neck but I just dont know???

George

Hi George & Mark,

I'm also doing therapy for my neck- I have misalignments (also called subluxations) with my occiput, atlas and axis. My range of motion is quite limited and have a lot of tension in my neck. In fact, for a while, my neck was so tense that swallowing was difficult. But manual therapy did help to reduce the tension enough so that I can swallow easily- there are still misalignments, tension and decreased range of motion. So I'm doing physical therapy for that.

George, what type of therapy are you doing for your neck? I've struggled with work too. I find certain types of work are more depleting than other types of work for me. Do you like the type of work you do but are too tired/foggy to enjoy it? Or would like a career change?

I'm going through a career transition right now and am thinking a lot about the type of work I really enjoy, find purposeful, and is not draining. I've also been thinking a lot about how to set up a work life for myself that is not depleting- ie when to take breaks, is working from home better than commuting etc. I'd like to add other dimensions to my career but am concerned about whether this would backfire due to low energy/brain fog.
Trying to come up with something good.
-Hazzell

[ShellyK]

Mark,
Thanks for the good advice. You have so much knowledge about all these things.

I don't think that I have sleep apnea. All of this fatigue, etc. happened after the concussion. But I will question the doctors about it.... Although, sometimes I think that they are just guessing.

Again, thank you for all the help you give to everyone on this site.

ShellyK

[Mark in Idaho]

Shelley and others,

Just because you did not have sleep apnea before the head injury does not mean you cannot have it after. My point is that some of the injury can be to the part of the brain that controls breathing. The apnea can be caused by the brain injury and be making the symptoms worse.

The healthy brain needs good full cycles of sleep each night to function properly. The injured brain is starting in a sleep deficit condition. It needs much more. Neuronal healing/recharging only takes place during REM sleep. If you are not getting REM sleep, the deficits from the previous day are carried over to the next day.

The key to good sleep is proper oxygenation of the blood. Low blood pressure and poor respiration can leave the brain tired form a nights sleep.

Think of it. Those bad days feel like you got tired trying to sleep. Or, you woke up more tired than when you went to bed.

One of these days I want to buy a recording Pulse Ox monitor/alarm to wear while sleeping. They are about $200 to $400. Doctors can prescribe a take home sleep test or even just a sleep Pulse Ox test. Medical equipment companies rent them for use under a doctor's prescription. Sleep labs have them too.

Before 1/16/2001, I never had any sleep problems. Since then, my wife has observed me many times with breathing irregularities. Since I do not have any obstructive breathing problems, doctors are reluctant to consider the possibility that I have any apnea issues. Occasionally, I will stop breathing while awake. All of a sudden, I am horribly out of breath. Once, I stopped breathing during an EEG. The tech noticed it and reminded me to breath. Sometimes, I notice that I am not taking a breath. Weird stuff.