BRAIN FOG: WHY DOCTORS AREN’T HELPING YOU

You can’t remember the name of the Netflix movie you saw last night, scant hours ago. That actor–what was his name? He was in, you know, that other movie, with that woman with the hair. “Oh, where is my mind?”. Then you get a notice from Verizon that they’re turning off your phone for nonpayment. You knew you paid it…you think.

 Here’s a checklist of “brain fog” symptoms:

• difficulty concentrating,
• poor word recall,
• problems multitasking,
• slow thought processing,
• mental fatigue,
• poor working memory.

Variations on the brain fog theme, including, “just can’t concentrate”, “memory shot to hell”, and “worried about Alzheimer’s”, are extraordinarily common these days, especially with long COVID, estimated to affect 7% of Americans. If you’re experiencing any of this, be assured you’re not alone.

New patients arrive at WholeHealth Chicago centers with chronic and somewhat vague symptoms, like “fatigue”, “bloating”, “brain fog”, but also having seen a variety of physicians who tell them variations of “your tests are normal” and “can’t find anything wrong”.

Let’s spend this week on that most troubling of symptoms: ‘brain fog’. Neurologists refer to this as “Subjective Cognitive Impairment” (you notice it, but others don’t), as opposed to “Objective Cognitive Impairment” (your family reports how you routinely get lost driving home from Whole Foods or you can’t recognize old friends), which is obviously serious and in the realm of actual dementia.

I’ve written about the more common causes of brain fog in previous Health Tips. Generally, these are not overlooked (or should not be overlooked!) by most practitioners. Included here are: stress, hormonal shifts (perimenopause, PMS), hypothyroid, nutritional deficiencies, poor sleep, side effects of medications, toxic metal exposure, undiagnosed diabetes, undiagnosed ADD and even chronic dehydration.

However, there are four conditions that we see at WholeHealth Chicago that are all too often either overlooked, or if not ‘overlooked’, then accompanied by an irritating chunk of conventional physician misinformation: “Well, I’ve read about the brain fog of long COVID (or Lyme, or mold toxicity) but really there’s nothing to be done.”

On the plus side, the actual number of patients with long COVID brain fog (and this includes patients who had an adverse reaction to the vaccine) is going down simply because COVID itself is in decline. I wrote about the mechanism of the brain fog here, a phenomenon called “leaky brain” triggered by viral brain inflammation. 

Patients with long COVID brain fog who do undergo a routine MRI will be reassured that it is normal, but if the patient is fortunate enough to have her MRI interpreted using a special software system called Neuroquant, originally developed to diagnose the brain shrinkage of early Alzheimer’s, the MRI will also show the inflammation and damage of long COVID.

Interestingly, other overlooked conditions of brain fog, brain inflammation, and leaky brain may show up as abnormalities when interpreted using Neuroquant.

Although these have not been completely studied with a sufficient number of patients, the same mechanism of inflammation/leaky brain has been shown to occur in:

• Lyme and co-infections;
• mold biotoxin illness (a/k/a “chronic inflammatory response syndrome” patients call it ‘mold madness);
• some cases of fibromyalgia (“fibro fog”);
• post concussion syndrome (many neurologists consider this a chronic brain inflammation);
• food sensitivities, most notably gluten;
• cancer chemotherapy (“chemo-brain”).

Keep in mind that Neuroquant is not a treatment of any kind. It is simply a new way of interpreting your brain MRI without contrast but with newly developed software.

At WholeHealth Chicago, we attempt to diagnose every case of brain fog from a chronological perspective. “I was fine until I had COVID.”, is easy. This is likely long COVID brain fog. On the other hand, “We always went to Wisconsin as kids. Sure I had tick bites.”, becomes more challenging and requires a serious search for chronic Lyme and co-infections. “We pulled down some plasterboard and there it was, a wall of black mold.” Oh, yuck!

Most diagnostic tests (Lyme, inflammatory markers, even Neuroquant) are covered by insurance. Measuring toxic mold is not, but is reasonably priced. Obviously, treatment is based on diagnosis, but except for some use of antibiotics for Lyme, most use natural products and infusions of ozone to hyperoxygenate your cells to enhance self healing.

Be well,

David Edelberg, MD