How do brain foged people read books? " I got a new lyme book ect"

Carefully - LOL!!
I take notes. And I don't concentrate on the details until I need them. The physical act of note taking helps to implant it into my brain. And, the more I do it, the better I get at it. I'm back in school now (YIKES!) and am putting this to the test - so far so good though!

I used to be an avid reader. Vision problems took that away from me before anything else. My eyes would water trying to focus. Just a few lines and I was done.

That's not so much the case now, that had been replaced with the lack of ability to focus on the meaning-to the point have often having to read a few words over and over to get them to 'sink in'.
At least when I am very stressed.

And that's the easy stuff. Getting Buhner's book in the mail was ....daunting. I set out in my usual fashion of starting at the beginning. That's the normal method of reading books. Magazines I read from back to front, lol.
I didn't get very far in Healing Lyme 2nd edition. Nor did my jumping right into the RMSF section. It has sat mostly, unless I decide to use it to look up something specific for the board.

I can't seem to get a grip on the stress around here long enough to do anything for myself but get away to this board.

Astro I can't read these Lyme books either. I have four on my nightstand. The only one I have been able to read is the Insights into Lyme disease treatment and that's because I could skim the chapters as their own thing. I tried to read Horowitz's book and couldn't. Now I look in the index if a thought flies into my funnel. Can't even read fun novels much because my attention.

Well, they make good doorstops and fan props.

Its time for "Lyme for Lymies" version of "Lyme for Dummies" - but maybe a picture book!

It gives me trouble too. Highlighting and re-reading, sometimes multiple times is what works for me. I never had these problems before. This seems to be a fairly common issue. I hope you find something that works for you!

Mine is pretty mild compared to other symptoms. I was in paralegal school when I got diagnosed and reading and taking in legal textbooks just fine. My memory is sucky but not to the point where I forgot school stuff. So now I can read pretty much anything. My only non mild symptoms are psych, gi, fatigue, and pots.

I made it through 4 years of hard study (Construction & Built Environment BTEC Diploma) fuelled on antidepressants (sertraline & fluoxetine). I didn't need much to get the desired effect. I would use fluoxetine for reading heavy material. It basically zoned me out to the point where I was able to sit and read for hours without the nervous/restless feeling I have normally, and which I think is lyme related.

I would use the sertraline for energy (practical side of study). I would never take both on the same day. Strangely I never needed to build them up in my system. I could take one pill having 5 days before then with nothing, for example, and still feel the full effects. I would joke with the GP that these work for me on an ad hoc basis but they never believed me. The conception is that you need to take them for weeks before you start to feel anything and you also need to stagger doses to eliminate withdrawal, etc etc. I never suffered withdrawal and I could leave as little as 1-2 days between changing the antidepressants. Sometimes I'd wait just 24 hours for the effects of one to clear out my system before taking the other. But then again my brain fog was so bad anyway, I probably would not have noticed side effects were there any.

I had to stop taken them towards the end of the course though because I did develop insomnia but only on the day I took the pill. The next day I could sleep normally. Normally for me would be bad anyway. This was all around 2008-2011 before I knew anything about lyme. Got a tripple distinction on the BTEC

While I do agree that a lot of those techniques help when we have this lovely brain fog, but there are times when that's not even enough. My short term memory refused to 'capture' anything for a very long time several years back. As soon as I walked away from the book, I had no clue what I had just read. Not even for a fast trip to the bathroom.

One of the things I have found that has helped most (besides healing, of course) was Gingko bilboa. Buhner speaks of it as well as several other things to help with memory/cognitive dysfunction, as well as for brain hypoperfusion on page 219 of his 2nd edition of Healing Lyme in the extended protocols section.