u/neuro-psych-amateur

I have had brain fog on and off since early 20s, currently I am close to 40. Recently I have received several treatments such as starting lamotrigine two years ago and getting an iron infusion this year due to anemia. I also quit drinking coffee and lowered my caffeine consumption. I also started to consistently take vitamin D, even in the summer, and occasionally B12.

These changes have reduced my brain fog significantly. I have had many days without any brain fog at all.

I have been having an increasing workload and I noticed that the more emails, messages, and meetings I have in a day, the more likely I will experience brain fog.

I have a senior position and a pretty good salary, no complaints. Unfortunately I will have to look for another job because feeling well is more important to me.

I'm glad that as I am now older, I have a much easier time accepting that I can't handle a certain job.

When I was younger I would have felt very ashamed that I couldn't handle the workload. And I used to believe that life had to progress linearly. From undergrad you had to get your masters. That wasn't enough though, so I went for a PhD.

Now I am much more nihilistic in a positive way. We have to accept that sometimes a specific job or educational program is too stressful, even if other people can handle it.

Turns out that personally I don't tolerate high workload and especially constant emails and messages from co-workers / managers asking me whether XYZ has been completed.

Now I have a much easier time accepting this, that it's just my neurobiology, and I can't change it. Time to look for another job, and that's ok. Health is more important.

My first step was getting an iron infusion several months ago, as my ferritin was at 29. That did not resolve my brain fog, but for some reason it made it easier after to reduce daily caffeine consumption. Now I mostly drink rooibos tea with milk, and decaf coffee. Usually I have just one cup of black tea a day now, and occasionally a cup of coffee.
After this significant reduction in caffeine consumption, I started seeing object around me sharper and brighter. I then also had increased motivation, and decided to go back to intermittent fasting (which I have done in the past) for weight loss. My main goal is weight loss, but I noticed that fasting clears my mind and I feel more interested in activities.

My schedule now is eating a good breakfast around 9am, with a cup of rooibos tea with soy milk. In the afternoon I have a cup of black tea with soy milk. I eat lunch around 2pm. I do not eat after that until the next day. I have now been doing this for two weeks and feeling pretty good about this schedule. I've had some brain fogs on days that we had thunderstorms, but not on other days. Unfortunately I think not much I can do about the effects on me of changing air pressure.

By legal stimulants I meant just regular black tea, coffee, dark chocolate, matcha, Yerba mate, etc.

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I started drinking strong black tea around 5 years old, that was quite common in Russia. Coffee I started drinking around 11. Occasionally. Sometimes I ate dark chocolate, but also occasionally.

In my early twenties I started to combine everything daily because I enjoy the taste and I had the money for it.

Coffee / latte daily, usually with several pieces of dark chocolate. Then multiple cups of tea throughout the day. I also got into matcha lattes and started buying those regularly.

For many years a regular day for me would be at least one cup of coffee, three cups of tea that could be back / green / matcha, or a combination. Plus dark chocolate several times a day. Sometimes also a cup of Yerba mate.

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If you are prone to brain fog, I do not recommend this consumption of stimulants daily!

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My brain fog has significantly improved after I significantly reduced my consumption of caffeine and dark chocolate. I now eat chocolate occasionally. I brew my own coffee in a percolator and mix decaf grounds and Laurina, which is naturally low caffeine. I don't drink regular tea daily anymore. I do on some days, but on other days I drink rooibos or honeybush, which are caffeine free.

Matcha and Yerba mate rarely, as they are both very high in caffeine.

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I no longer feel like I am living in a fog. Objects around me look brighter and sharper. I don't feel as rushed throughout the day and I am able to enjoy more the current moment.

I have figured out a while ago that consuming a lot of caffeine throughout the day leads to brain fog for me. Everything starts to look and feel more gray and as if I am not participating in the moment, but only observing. Also I start to feel anhedonic.

I am very used to drinking both tea and coffee and I tried to reduce caffeine consumption multiple times, but found it very difficult.

I recently bought a percolator and it turns out that I really like the decaf coffee that I get from it. I use the Illy brand decaf ground coffee. I also found out that some green tea types have almost no caffeine. Genmaicha and bancha ujitawara.

Also there is a type of coffee beans that have about one third of caffeine as regular beans, Laurina.

So my current routine is genmaicha mixed with bancha in the morning. At around 11am I make coffee in the percolator. I mix decaf with Laurina.

Later on sometimes I have a decaf coffee. Or rooibos tea.

I've been doing this for several months and my daily caffeine consumption is now less than 50mg per day.

I noticed that I haven't experienced much brain fog since I started this. Everything around me now looks brighter and sharper. I also feel that I can be more present in the moment and more able to just observe something pleasant like a tree or a bird.

I started supplements in my mid twenties due to several symptoms that I started to experience back then. Instead of improving my symptoms, I ended up creating a complete mess and making myself worse off. My suggestion is to always do blood work and don't just assume that you know what you are deficient in and that supplements will help.

In my mid twenties I started to experience a lot of stomach discomfort, fatigue, trouble falling asleep, and anxiety, depression, sometimes also panic attacks.

I did go to a doctor maybe a few times, but they never found anything abnormal, and I did not push them to do more blood work at that time. I think only very basic blood work was done, and I don't even remember the results.

I decided that I would just figure the problem out by googling. Google results came up with B12 deficiency, so I started taking B12 every day. I started to have more frequent panic attacks (actually caused by B12, I now know that I react this way to B vitamins if I take them daily), so instead of stopping B12, I googled more. And Google suggested St. John's Wort. I started taking that as well. I started having more problems with falling asleep and staying asleep.

Later on I went to the ER for psychiatric concerns and given that in addition to anxiety and depression I had such trouble sleeping, I was prescribed mirtazapine. It did help me sleep the full night, but didn't help with any other symptoms.

Then I continued to keep googling and adding more supplements - probiotics, rhodiola rosea, magnesium. Sometimes I would subtract some, but then add some more.

I am not sure what exactly my logic was at that time, because I kept doing all of this without pushing my family doctor for proper blood work. I guess I just believed in my mid twenties that I couldn't have any actual disease and that some combination of supplements will solve my problems. That I wouldn't be that sick young person who requires meds.

I ended up having various psychotic episodes and got diagnosed with schizophrenia. I think all of this mess with supplements that I was taking, plus psych meds that I was prescribed, could have contributed to psychosis. There were just too many substances mixed together daily.

This went on for a few months, until my mom told me that she was very sceptical of the schizophrenia diagnosis. She insisted that she came with me to my family doctor and insisted for blood work to be done.

In a few weeks everything was pretty clear - I had celiac disease, my ferritin and vitamin D were extremely low. Also I had very high thyroid antibodies, so I was also diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

The fatigue, stomach discomfort, trouble sleeping, anxiety, all of this was due to celiac and thyroid diseases. And I exacerbated my symptoms by taking a random bunch of supplements daily, instead of figuring out the actual medical problem. I also took not the supplements that I actually needed, what I needed were iron supplements, vitamin D, and a gluten-free diet. The probiotics that I was taken actually also caused more bloating and this improved once I stopped taking them.

I have been recently trying some protein powders. Nothing else changed in my diet, or life, or medication. I gained a lot of weight after having kids and I wanted to try soy milk smoothies with protein powder to lower my appetite. The appetite lowering actually worked for me, I started to feel less hungry every day, and ended up eating less.
I eat very healthy already - no sugar, no refined carbs, no sweeteners in general. No fruit juice, etc. I eat a lot of vegetables, berries, fish, chicken, eggs, and whole grains. The only issue is that I still eat such a number of calories that does not allow me to loose weight.

So with the protein powder shakes I actually did start to eat smaller meals, which is what I want to achieve. Unfortunately pretty quickly my anxiety significantly worsened. I am quite certain that the cause was the protein powder, as when I stopped it, the anxiety went back to the level it previously was at.
I started to have panic attacks about not being sure that people are aware that I exist, feeling the need to run somewhere (not sure where), the constant need for confirmation that I do exist. It was really overwhelming. I also started to feel quite tearful and shaky.

The protein powders that I tried were plant protein. One was goodprotein all in one shake, chocolate flavour. The other one was Botanica Health perfect protein.
None of them contain gluten, nor dairy, no caffeine, no other stimulants, etc. Botanica Health perfect protein has a relatively simple ingredient list: Protein Blend (Organic Brown Rice, Organic Quinoa, Organic Coconut Milk Powder), Organic Vanilla Flavour, Organic Monk Fruit Juice Powder*, Organic Acacia Gum.

I was consuming only several teaspoons of the powder a day, which is a lower amount than the scoop that they provided. And still, I am quite certain that my increased anxiety and panic attacks were caused by the protein powder. Worsened anxiety stopped when I stopped adding the protein powder to smoothies.

I recently had blood work. My ferritin, B12, and vitamin D came back low. I ended up having an iron infusion about a month and a half ago, this procedure went fine. My doctor also told me to take more of vitamin D daily. For B12 I already drink fortified soy milk regularly, but since the level came back low, my doctor told me to take an additional supplement. I bought a regular B12 supplement that has 1000mcg.

After about a week of taking it, I noticed that I started to have worsened anxiety towards the evening. I also started to have ongoing fear in the evening of a violent break-in.

We have actually had a lot of break-ins in Toronto, so it's not an irrational fear. But I also started to have regular awakening around 2:30am from nightmares. Nightmares would usually be about someone breaking into the house with weapons.

I suspected that it was the B12, because I had this issue with B supplements in the past. I also now realized that the standard supplements with 1000mcg is actually a very high dose, as the daily requirement is about 2.4mcg. around 10mcg on average gets absorbed from the supplement, which is still much higher than required daily value.

Also I previously thought that all B vitamins do not get stored in the body, turns out that is incorrect. B12 gets stored in the liver for several years.

I decided to test stopping only the B12 supplement. I did not take it for the last 3 days and I have not had any nightmares on those nights. So now I am 99% certain that it was the supplement causing those nightmares for me.

I also remember that a long time ago, in grad school, I also started taking B vitamins supplement. I was renting in a basement with roommates and I started to have obsessive thoughts and nightmares about a serial killer entering our unit at night. All of these thoughts stopped once I stopped the supplement.

I now have a dilemma though, because I do need to increase my B12 level. Maybe I will try taking it once every three days, or only once a week.

It is frustrating to look at my data and see how my iron deficiency anemia was dismissed for so long. I’ve been taking iron supplements since 2020 because that’s what I was told to do, but my ferritin levels were low way before that and the supplements clearly weren't helping enough. LifeLabs indicates 30 mcg/L as the min of the normal range. My family doctor says ferritin should be above 50, but mine was often falling into the 10s and 20s for years. I’m not sure why an infusion wasn't suggested back in 2018 when the trend was already obvious.

My psychiatrist was actually the one who finally suggested the infusion this year. I had to pay $400 out of pocket, but it was worth it because I feel better now. I’ve been able to exercise more, and I have been actually exercising almost every day now, at least 20-40 minutes a day in total. I don't feel like I'm struggling as much to walk up the stairs anymore (there are some very long stairs on my work commute). My sleep feels deeper and I feel more rested when I wake up, which is definitely better for dealing with depression.

My diet is very healthy and I often eat liver, oysters, and sometimes red meat. My psychiatrist believes that I have malabsorption, so my anemia cannot be solved just by food and supplements.

In addition to yoga / pelvic floor exercises, I have been dancing a bit more at home. I also a few times felt an urge to jog??? That was very interesting! It did not last long, I felt out of breath. But for example today, I went downstairs outside during lunch. I work downtown, so it's all office buildings and pavement, but I just felt a desire to jog, and I did, probably for only about 4 minutes, but it's still interesting that I felt this desire.

All of these results are before my iron infusion. I have also switched my iron supplement recently, I decided to try Ferosom sachets. In addition to ferric pyrophosphate, they also contain folic acid, B12, B6, vitamin C, and vitamin D.

Date	Ferritin Value mcg/L
5/9/2014	30
3/19/2015	25
10/2/2015	32
5/3/2016	30
5/29/2016	24
5/9/2017	74
8/26/2017	62
10/24/2017	79
5/24/2018	10
10/2/2018	31
1/14/2021	9
7/6/2021	20
8/12/2022	50
1/18/2024	49
6/3/2024	6
4/12/2025	21
3/7/2026	29