How do you know what brain fog is and that hypo... - Thyroid UK

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How do you know what brain fog is and that hypothyroidism causes it?

Iphoenix profile image
22 Replies

Hi everyone,

I am asking this question because I also have a benign brain tumour and my neurologist says my brain fog is caused by that. I was actually expecting him to say it was from the hypothyroidism but he said it sounds more like temporal lobe epilepsy.

I would class my brain fog as I am distant from what is happening in the room, if someone is talking to me I cannot make sense of what they are saying and it always starts with me hearing the same voice saying the same words nothing strange or dramactic and I have rewound the television programs afterwards to see if those words were said and they were not. I do not lose consciousness nor blackout even temporarily but feel very confused for a while.

Does this sound like brain fog to any of you?

Thanks for your help. Good health to you all.

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Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix
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22 Replies
Pastille profile image
Pastille

I am sorry to hear about your condition Iphoenix , I hope you recover soon. I can't comment on that but on brain fog I can. Mine feels as though I am in someone else's body. I am not 'present' in my own body. Everything is such hard work. I avoid conversations, they are just too draining and if people start going into details oh I can't cope! I can't read a book, watch a programme, it is the most awful feeling. I first logged on to this site last summer and when I seen how clear headed people seemed as they answered the questions I thought 'oh no they are not like me, what am I going to do!!' I couldn't believe that hypo people were capable of holding all that knowledge!! When I had severe brain fog I could barely get through the day safely. Always losing things, forgetting things, banging into things, no interest in anything because no mental capacity to have any! I am so glad it is lifting with the levo. I'm still not there though. I have been tempted to ask 'the wise ones' was there ever a time when they could not have imagined doing what they do here. I cried when I got my diagnosis, I knew I was fading away, I just didn't know why :(

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix in reply to Pastille

Oh Pastille I am so sorry to hear that you couldn't even cope with conversations what a lonely place that must have been. As for the losing things, forgetting things, general clumsiness I too know what they are all like.

What I find absolutely remarkable is that this deterioration in a vast amount of people is being allowed to occur by the Health service.

Pastille profile image
Pastille in reply to Iphoenix

Well if there was a protest taking place I couldn't have been an activist that's for sure :) maybe now I could give an hour or two. I have had to be drip fed on this site, I was overwhelmed with info. It wasn't a lonely place actually. I wanted to be solitary so I didn't actually 'feel' lonely. The little energy I had I spent researching how to recover

Snooperkitty21 profile image
Snooperkitty21 in reply to Pastille

I know this is an old post but I’ve read this thread a few times and wanted to thank you for your comment. This is me exactly. I feel like this 24/7 for 3 years. I am considering starting levothyroxine soon to try to get rid of this feeling xx

humanbean profile image
humanbean

I was like Pastille . I avoided conversations because they were too exhausting and I'd forgotten a lot of my working vocabulary. Also I could never think of anything to say in conversations with friends so I avoided them.

I could put posts together on forums and they sounded okay - when writing I had lots of time to remember words or think of alternative words or look them up. (That's still true now - I sometimes have to try and track down something - maybe just a word - I ought to know.)

I would read books, but I chose to read my favourite books over and over again because I couldn't take in new books. I'd read a page, turn over, and then immediately forget what I had just read. If I started a book one day, then started reading it again the next day I had no clue what the book was about and who the characters were.

I found it impossible to talk to people even when it was to my advantage to do so - returning things to shops because of faults, for example, was impossible, so I ended up not getting refunds. Having to defend myself or explain myself or stand up for myself or justify myself was simply impossible under all circumstances. I didn't have the words or the energy to do it.

I couldn't follow a recipe. It was too complicated and too exhausting. Keeping up with my finances was a nightmare. I paid huge amounts of interest on credit cards, not because I couldn't pay them, but because I kept forgetting to pay the damn bills. I've always done my husband's tax return. We had to pay a fine one year because I was a blubbering wreck when it came to trying to organise paperwork. I couldn't face it so I buried my head in the sand and was late submitting it.

I used to be organised and logical. That has completely gone. My memory has improved since treating my own thyroid, but my ability to organise appears to be (mostly) lost for ever.

I felt (and sometimes still feel) completely detached from life, the universe, and everything. I was totally apathetic (that is still a problem). I look around my mucky house and just couldn't care less what it looks like.

I never had an obvious sense of humour even before I got really ill. I often understood jokes but would rarely have a belly laugh, I'd probably just smile. But what little sense of humour I had disappeared when I got ill. I could no longer understand the jokes a lot of the time, but when I did understand them it was too exhausting to laugh. I have laughed a couple of times this year (go me!), probably for the first time in several years.

Treating my thyroid and fixing my nutritional deficiencies has improved lots of things - but not everything.

Pastille profile image
Pastille

My gp said 'Here's 50mcg of levo come back in 12 months' over the phone, I said 'okay' I will never forget that walk to pick up my first prescription of levo. I was dressed like a bag woman, I didn't care, I saw a friend and she said 'Omg I didn't recognize you!' I didn't care, I just thought 'Whatever just leave me alone' I used to ponder on the same thing for ages, especially a resentment, I think I was just looking for excuses to eradicate people from my life. I used to lie on my bed watching dvd's that I wasn't watching and eat a whole family new York cheesecake then cry. ( I don't do that now, oh I would be so sick! ) Anyway I spoke to my gp again on the phone and said 'I don't think this is working, can I have my blood tested again please?' he said 'You're not due for 12 months' I said 'okay thanks' put the phone down and lay back down again.....

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix in reply to Pastille

So sorry to hear that Pastille, the one thing that does keep me going is the friends in my life, one also suffers this horrible disease but the others are very supportive and non-judgemental when it comes to how I look, how I search for words and how I cry for the life I used to have.

faith63 profile image
faith63 in reply to Pastille

i would stop all grain and dairy..these are huge disruptors of the brain, causing depression and anxiety and brain fog.

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix in reply to faith63

Crikey would there be anything left to eat??? :)

faith63 profile image
faith63 in reply to Iphoenix

yes..meat most all fruit and veg. its boring and difficult but worth it. It is the only way to truly tell which food is bothering your immune system and keeping you ill. it is a 30-90 day protocol. Somewhere along the way, i have stopped getting migraines. It is a real challenge, but i want to get rid of hashimoto's and heal my immune system..my family expresses their issues by getting cancers, so i feel like i am living on borrowed time. My mom died at 56, from lymphoma developed from celiac disease!!

Pastille profile image
Pastille in reply to faith63

Yes I've been reading the links you've been putting on faith63 very interesting and informative, thankyou. I've stopped the grains but the dairy I haven't as I am trying to do low carb high fat atm.

faith63 profile image
faith63 in reply to Pastille

i wish i felt up to posting more, but i hope they help someone! I may have already said this, but, google info from Peter Osbourne, no grain, no pain and kelly brogan md a psychiatrist who treats naturally..refreshing.

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix in reply to faith63

I will thank you.

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix

Humanbean a lot of what you said resonates with me. As for the writing I have to do a lot of chasing the words I want to use, thank God for Rhymezone it almost always gives me similar words to the ones I was looking for and the correct spellings.

Reading books, well I can read a book over weeks rather than days and still not have much of a clue what they were about, but I have always been like that. Only recently have I discovered that I cannot put sentences together when speaking, I am much better when writing than talking.

I too used to be organised but now all that is organised in my life is the chaos! My mucky house is shouting out on a daily basis to be cleaned but I will see to that when I feel better, heaven help me feel better soon please!

Gosh sometimes I think it would be better to give up than have yet another day agonising over what I can't do, that is where my poetry has helped so much.

Pastille profile image
Pastille in reply to Iphoenix

I used to love writing poetry, it was so therapeutic for me. I wrote my best ones when I was low. But couldn't even do that

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix

I only realised last year that I had the ability to write poetry, where it came from I have no idea but without it I would be totally saturated in darkness, sorry you can't get down to it now.

Pastille profile image
Pastille in reply to Iphoenix

Yours is very good :)

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix in reply to Pastille

Bless your heart, thank you. :)

faith63 profile image
faith63

This is definitely not what i have. I feel a confusion and could stare at the wall for hours. Hard to think and answer questions clearly at times..it comes and goes. More like an extreme fatigue. Yours sounds different. My husband had a brain tumor as a child and would have a "dream" that repeated, the same one, before a seizure.

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix in reply to faith63

Thanks for that I think! So going by what you have said it is possible that I have brain fog from both sides, as I do have the problem with thinking clearly and answering questions but the "dream" scenario sounds familiar. Thank you.

faith63 profile image
faith63 in reply to Iphoenix

thank you and good luck! I'm sorry that you are going through all of this.

Iphoenix profile image
Iphoenix

I am sorry that we are all going through this, and that you have the added worry of cancer that must be really horrific when it is so embedded in your genetics. Take care of yourself faith.

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