Brain fog

Brain fog is something that many who live with lupus and fibromyalgia, as well as many other chronic conditions experience. Basically it is when your thinking is sluggish, fuzzy, and not sharp. You may have trouble remembering things or finding the word or phrase you want to use. Basically it’s just when you feel like your brain is foggy. Does that help?

Amber (lupus.net team moderator )

to me it is like being ona drunken college bender while trying to walk in a bouncy house and talk to people using some unknown language and it makes me feel people are staring or doing the RCA puppy head tilt like I have officially lost it! So frustrating I feel stupid and seriously dumb and I have a darn Masters degree in nursing yet forget words for the color red say or simple Jeopardy questions a d forget about remembering names of gonna happen it is hard. It is also scary when you have no idea what is going on and I have even lost my ability to talk or communicate at all and too afraid to go to the hospital what if it isn't reversible or serious enough to send me on a helicopter to another hospital with strangers and no one I know.

Great topic. One thing that I have learned over the last 30 years is the word brain fog. As a teen, I always thought that it was a phrase that was thrown around in the community. I did well i school and I do not remember fog being one of my symptoms. As a college student I don't recall it being a symptom. I found it more and more difficult to use remember something short term as I progressed in law school. This made writing 2 blue books worth of material about a case study or fact pattern very difficult because I had to always return to the text because the facts faded from my mind. When working on legal briefs it does take me a little longer to get through a fact pattern or read case law. My long term memory has remained in tack for the most part. Over the course of the last 3 years, I have learned that brain fog is not only a symptom of lupus but a symptom of many of lupus' comorbid conditions like Fibromylagia, Sjogren's Syndrome, Scleroderma. If you are like me, you have several co morbidities with lupus. The one solution to help Fibromyalgia and Sjogren's is to get more rest and stay hydrated. I do know that when my other conditions flare, it means that I did not get a good nights rest the night before. The question then becomes, is my lack of sleep causing flares. I think it is surely is and if my lack of sleep leads to a wording of my conditions, then my brain fog is a natural after effect. So I guess the central theme as the clock strikes 12:43 p.m. and I need to see the neurologist in the morning is get some rest.


Christopher Reed Lupus.net Team Member