The Brain Fog

One of the top Hashimotos thyroid disease symptoms. It's hard to describe this symptom. Especially given that it often would present with short term memory issues.

I hear that many other conditions also cause this.

Straight from Wikipedia:

Brain fog or mental clouding is a general sensation of unusually poor mental function, associated with confusion, forgetfulness and detachment. A number of medical or psychiatric conditions and treatments can cause such symptoms, including:

• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Heavy metal poisoning and in particular mercury poisoning
• Hypothyroidism

I was once a "straight A" student. I was able to read the textbooks without problem, and memorize them.

Now, I'm not so great at the memorization.

Worse than the memory trouble, was when I would find myself simply not being able to study.

Studying shouldn't have been such a problem- nothing I hadn't done repeatedly in the past. Noting the unusual difficulty, I would make sure I was well fed, well rested, unstressed. I would prepare myself for my study sessions in all ways possible. It wouldn't really make much difference. If the brain fog was upon me, it was pretty much a futile endeavor.

Even with all measures taken, I simply could not study. I remember nearly weeping over a textbook after I'd been attempting to study all evening without making any progress whatsover. I was that frustrated.

One of the most difficult things has been accepting that I cannot achieve academically the way I used to. It doesn't matter what I do- not happening.

What exactly was the problem, you might ask, because I'm being kind of vague here. What do I mean by "could not study?". Well I wondered that too.

I could not for the life of me understand what the problem was. The most obvious question was, had I spontaneously developed an ADD problem, that would randomly come and go? That didn't seem to be the case. But for some reason, sometimes, my brain would not work. I'd be... in a fog. A few times I thought maybe coffee would sharpen me up... which did not work at all. It'd be very awake... and still confused.

This whole thing was maddening- why was a twenty-something losing her cognitive abilities? Was I a mental case? I still seemed relatively sane, despite the my occasionally fuzziness.

It was if there was a delay in my brain's messages around itself. Normally, you'd have lots of little thoughts every minute. Imagine them clogged up and never making it across your brain. Stalled thoughts that never make from where they are generated to where they are registered and acknowledged.

The brain emails were getting lost and delayed.

The neural pathway were snowed in.

Memory boxes were jammed and refused to open.

After a while, I might just have to give up and lay down, stare at the ceiling or something. That seemed all I was useful for doing.


Now, a few weeks ago, right before finals, I noticed that I was able to open up my textbook and just ... read it. I read for just about 4 hours, even, and seemed to not have any problems. I still can't really memorize the way I used to. I can't write up notes and flashcards without my hands hurting too much. But even this improvement, was a relief.