In Desperate Need of Help! Brain Fog/Dementia

[JeepMedic06]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum here and wanted to see if anybody has experienced similar symptoms in the hopes I can cure this Brain Fog and finally get back to a normal life once again. Here is whats going on...

21 year old male
6' 3'' 170 lbs
No family history of psychiatric illness

I've been on Adderall for the past few years now and have had phenomenal success with it. Right now I'm on 60mg/day of XR and things have been going well...however...

I seem to have spontaneous occurrences of horrible brain fog. I don't even want it to classify it as brain fog because it is really a type of mental "limbo" where I lose all cognitive senses of emotion and feeling. It feels like my frontal lobe or something just stops functioning for some reason. That is really the only symptom I have and (I am not tired, sad) I feel in a robotic like state with no motivation and no emotional feeling whatsoever.

I have tried virtually everything in my search to try and beat this thing. I have taken periods of up to two weeks off of adderall/stims, tried tyrosine, and even done acupuncture/massage therapy too to try and fix this stuff. I am a pre-med student as well as a full time paramedic and am committed to figuring this out because it sucks so much to go through. It feels like I am going through Alzheimer's as a 21 year old.

In my search to figure this thing out, only three things have worked.

1. Anti-Histamines (Benadryl, Claritin) seem to clear this up pretty well, but I hesitate to use them because benadryl makes me super tired and claritin stops working after a few hours, so I have to take more.

2. L-Carnosine has been very effective and helped me very well, but I still can't understand why.

3. Serine Complexes have been slightly effective, but I think this is mostly due to my polydypsia/polyuria (I have had to restrict my fluids due to an unknown renal problem, which caused me lots of mental confusion and disorientation, eventually leading me to withdrawal from classes this semester. Increasing my sodium intake greatly helped me with this, and was a tremendous breakthrough for me).

There is more to this and my thinking on this is that histamine might be the main player involved in my problem. I am a person who never gets sick with the flu (even while working as a paramedic), I have virtually no mucus production and have no other medical problems. I have been to two different internists and one neurologist with this problem with no success (brain scans, bloodwork, urine have come up normal). As a side note I did develop some tension headaches in my right temple (likely due to demyelination from my rapid correction of hyponatremia) recently. I found that fish oil helps the problem but also might be the cause of this mental "limbo" problem as well.

If anyone has any ideas with this I would forever be grateful for your help. I have tried virtually every supplement under the sun for this, and nothing has helped. I am hopeful that one day I can fix this so that I can regain my emotions (good and bad ones) and enjoy life once again.

Thanks for your help!

Samuel

[TheChemicals]

Brain Fog is different for everyone. My brain fog is terrible but i am able to function. It does come with forgetfulness and extreme low energy and detachment from my fellow man.
The best thing i have found to help is to just use as little energy as possible and get lots of sleep and naps. Let yourself renergize and reconsolidate your power. NO caffeine or stims for a few days. Nothing that can amp you up because you dont want to be a stimmed up zombie brain fogging. The hardest part is trying to stay away from coffeee and stim meds, but if your anything like me, itll completely rid the brain fog.

After those 3 days, slowly introduce your stim meds back into your life. I am not a doctor but i do know what works for me. Hope it helps.

[Jtuck1995]

I also recommend looking into depersonalization. Saying "I lose all cognitive senses and emotion" screames depersonalization.

[425runner]

I get that brain fog too. MSM 1-3gr/day seems to help as well as b-complex and other stuff I take. It seems to happen when I take Dexedrine too close to the 1st dose.

Other then that, a small dose of Klonopin 0.25mg clears it right out...

[sarahsweets]

Has a lower dose of adderall ever been effective? Maybe 60mg is too much?

[Jtuck1995]

And coffee helps to lift my fog most of the time, but I might have a different kind of fog.

[Hypoactive]

Originally Posted by sarahsweets

Has a lower dose of adderall ever been effective? Maybe 60mg is too much?

it could simply be due to your age. a person's brain doesn't fully mature until age 25, so lots of things can go awry during that time...especially if you add in other factors:

my son complains of the same things you've mentioned -- and he very rarely takes adderall (maybe once every 3 months).

going to college full time, having a part time job and being in a serious relationship is stressful enough as it is -- but combine that with being a "weekend warrior" (at parties that go on until 4-5am every friday and/or saturday), and it's no wonder he feels this way. his body is constantly "recovering" and his sleep schedule is never consistent...that in itself is enough to mess anyone's mind up.