HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Found the cause of my Brain Fog

Support Forums
>
Lyme Disease
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 10/8/2020 7:33 AM (GMT 0)
Complex PTSD dissociation fits me to a T. The de-realization is my last crippling symptom. Doctor says my infections are gone. Since I'm too traumatized by doctors to find and pay for a LL therapist, I've literally been studying psychology, neuroscience, mind-body, neuroplasticity, and self-healing to do it myself. It's insanely intense. But it's all fitting together and I'm already seeing vast improvements.

Just wanted to put this out there - I'd have gone mad looking for brain parasites, heavy metals, inflammation, etc etc... for me, it's trauma. Not just lyme but I'm digging up 30 years of trauma I never dealt with. And I'll NEVER heal my Lyme if I don't heal the trauma.

"Complex PTSD Dissociation is like a mental room divider." I've been saying this for years: "there's a wall in my brain."

Got my work cut out for me. Just really glad to have an answer.
https:// https://www.aprillyonspsychotherapyboulder.com/complex-ptsd-dissociation/

Sorry if this is weird; it's 4 am and I woke up screaming since 11:30 from a dream/hallucination.
I'm okay.
Posted 10/8/2020 12:39 PM (GMT 0)
Babsbunny, I'm so glad that you found what is causing your derealization. That is by far my worst symptom and like you I have been searching for anything that will help with little success. When you were trying different treatments did anything at least help a little, I think detoxing helps me most. I know a little bit about cptsd, I have heard that it can be mistaken for BPD which one dr. thought that I might have but my counsolor said she doesn't think I have. I am going to look into it more.
Posted 10/8/2020 1:31 PM (GMT 0)
That's awesome. I spoke w/ a psychosomatic psychologist for 2y back when my old rheumatologist told me it was all in my head and "in my professional opinion, your pain is not related to your autoimmune disease". Worst call I've ever seen, and this woman was supposed to be the best. I still shake my head when I think about it.

Anyway, I ended up reading The Divided Mind and seeing John Sarno's protege, Ira Rashbaum over at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation at NYU. He hooked me up w/ a fantastic pain psychologist. I was literally able to keep my pain in check for 2y by talking to this dude. Eventually it became clear there was something physical/medical going on, but this man helped me so much. Absolutely fantastic. I'm still glad I went because I unpacked so much, my anxiety is much better now and I have way less hangups and can deal with things emotionally that I couldnt before. If anyone in the new york area needs a pscyhologist, I've got the one for you.

But I would recommend The Divided Mind as well.
Posted 10/8/2020 1:58 PM (GMT 0)
@CalmLittleBuddha:
Of course treating Lyme-MSIDS was necessary to stop the [latest of many, straw that broke the camel's back] trauma causing the dissociation (I use Chinese Medicine, and C-PTSD explains why this is so important to me - Classical Chinese Medicine is a whole system of not just disease management but health, diet, mental health, societal health, worldview, etc. Since my brain is dissociating and building walls between realities I've deemed "dangerous", a view that reconnects all aspects in a harmonious balance would help me break down those barriers and see my life itself as a safe and natural phenomenon.)

But nothing has touched the "brain fog" which I will now specify as dissociation. My energy improves which allows me to DO more but not at all any less zombie-like than before; in fact it's gotten worse. My pain is lessened, my panic is lessened, all symptoms are slowly disappearing except that which must be rebuilt - joint collagen and muscle tone, gut health etc - and those are improving. But NOTHING would touch the dissociation.

Except for the last month I've been doing intense self-reflection and therapy to dig up trauma and triggers, and after about 25 days I finally saw the faintest improvement; Hi-Def memories after only a few days, better ways to describe what I'm feeling and that is why this article blew me away: it describes word for word what I've been untangling in my mind.

@dcd: thank you for the recommendation. I have been hearing over and over and over "The Body Keeps the Score" referenced and once I had a name for my condition I decided to order it. Hopefully it will further narrow down my self-therapy focus.
Posted 10/8/2020 3:34 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks for posting this, Babs. I agree that healing past trauma is key to healing for many of us with chronic illness. That's definitely been true for me.

I admit that I bristled when this idea first was brought up to me by a trusted LLMD. Past doctors had been dismissing my Lyme symptoms as "just anxiety" (as though anxiety is not a legit disease? But whatever) when I knew something more was going on, so I felt offended and I sulked. Over time, I learned more about it, though - neurotransmitters and gut health, the limbic system, stress causing impaired immunity, etc. - and I realized how interconnected all of our systems are.

The mind-body connection is a huge deal! Studies have shown for years that trauma predisposes people to chronic illness and even can trigger chronic illness, but people are quite preoccupied with thinking that fighting microbes is the only key to improvement. Our bodies are looking out for us, and a lot of processes become dysfunctional when trauma keeps us feeling unsafe on some level. The cell danger response research touches on this concept to some degree.

I know someone who had Lyme (she says it in the past tense because she felt better after months of IV antibiotics, but she continues to have four autoimmune diseases and disabling spinal degeneration, so...?) and saw John Sarno. She found him very offensive because he told her that she could alleviate symptoms and heal herself with mind-body medicine, but he did not give her concrete ideas for how to do this. She felt like he wanted her to have some sort of sudden realization and miraculously feel better just from seeing him. I can understand how after years of suffering, people want a specific road map for how to affect their symptoms with their minds, and without that road map it just feels like another version of "it's all in your head." Plus it's a lot of work to unravel this stuff, honestly. I can see why people would rather try another round of IV antibiotics!

In terms of things people can do from home and without a therapist, I think the app Curable is a great start for a lot of people, but those with more complex trauma histories might need more support after a while. DNRS is a great way to work on the "wiring" of the limbic system, and I like tapping (EFT) for processing acute issues. A good therapist is a wonderful thing, but it can be hard to find the right one.

Please keep sharing what you find helpful!
Posted 10/8/2020 4:14 PM (GMT 0)
@sareli, thank you, I agree wholeheartedly. I'm aware mind-body/psychosomatic exploration can feel very offensive. I think I mentioned it before but there's an interview with Chris Kresser and Annie Hopper that explained it perfectly to me - it is not a mental illness; it started with real pathogens/biological imbalance, the trauma of which leads to a cascade in the limbic system= brain, which controls hormones which control the body.

The work (books, and podcasts!) of Dr Caroline Leaf was my intro to neuroplasticity, and her 21-day brain detox (with 3 repetitions =63 days) is the basis of my self-therapy. Though I've taken it to the extreme, working hours a day. Dr. Nicole LePera has been a great help to me too.

I always add a disclaimer to my discussions of mind-body: it's not meant to blame; it's meant to EMPOWER. We already know doctors can't help us, the medical system is corrupt and untrustworthy. If I hold the power within myself, that is a most wonderful cure! I don't have to wait for funding or research. I have the cure already!
Posted 10/8/2020 5:49 PM (GMT 0)
https://www.beautyafterbruises.org/what-is-cptsd#
This is also clarifying everything. I swear I have said every single thing in this entire article to myself, in my journal, and to my husband, trying to describe what I feel. It is healing in itself to have my identity SEEN.

** I edited just to fix the link that wasn’t working.**

Post Edited By Moderator (Girlie) : 10/8/2020 12:44:13 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 10/8/2020 6:24 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you so much for these links and recommendations!

I wonder if anyone here has tried both Caroline Leaf's program and Annie Hopper's DNRS. I'm curious how they differ and overlap.
Posted 10/9/2020 4:07 AM (GMT 0)

BabsBunny said...
Complex PTSD dissociation fits me to a T. The de-realization is my last crippling symptom.

Sorry if this is weird; it's 4 am and I woke up screaming since 11:30 from a dream/hallucination.
I'm okay.

Sounds to me just a bartonella infection and going through it's typical life cycle at night or herxing if your on antibiotics.

One of the ways I know I herxed very bad, is if the night before I was having a very vivid or hallucinatory dream, even sometimes waking up with short breaths of air, happens to me like clockwork. Many report this over and over again on the forum.

There's many Veterans who think they are dealing with PTSD from the Iraq War, come to find out, a lot of the Vets could actually being dealing with a bartonella infection, bartonella is very prevalent in third world countries

https://www.sponauglewellness.com/conditions/bartonella-treatment/is-the-iraq-war-partly-responsible-for-the-surge-of-bartonella-infections-in-america/

"It reveals that 47 percent of the domestic dogs tested in Iraq had an active Bartonella infection."

BabsBunny said...
Doctor says my infections are gone.

Lyme isn't the type of disease where a Doctor just says all the infections are gone, we will always have dormant round body forms, even biofilms somewhere in our body, it's just bringing out body to the point where our immune systems can handle the bacterial load and then label that remission.

If your Doctor is saying that, I'd honestly run the other way... Sounds like he's just making up a clinical diagnosis to make sense of the rest of your bartonella symptoms, a common trait of traditional doctors(non-qualified LLMDs)

If you're waking up from bad dreams, like many of us have with bartonella, you need to be on specific antibiotics for bartonella a lot longer.

It's not necessarily just the persister cells that's making bartonella so resistant, but the biofilms...

I've cleared many of my neuro bartonella symptoms with doxy/pyrazinamide, then when I stepped back on flagyl and disulfiram, all of my neuro PTSD symptoms come ravaging back. Flagyl is known as a big biofilm dissolver, I'm sure disulfiram being made of the similar composition, it does a similar thing with biofilms.

Good way to tell if the infections are gone, is to go on a drug like Flagyl or Disulfiram, if you're neuro symptoms flare... Just like so many bartonella patients report, guess what, still have a persistent bartonella infection.

Another good way to tell, is I keep seeing how many report after a hot shower or hot bath, seeing the common red stretch marks that appear around their ankles, shoulders, lower back, or elsewhere on their body.

Post Edited (Charlie55) : 10/8/2020 10:25:32 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 10/9/2020 1:28 PM (GMT 0)
@Charlie55
I use Chinese Medicine. It is a completely different system of health, that does not reduce everything to pathogens and antibiotics. That western model made me very very ill. A holistic approach has been very healing. CCM uses a completely different diagnostic system than Western med. I am completely aware of that, and I trust it. Trust is an enormous part of healing Lyme. If you don't trust your doctor, you will never ever believe you can get well. I know it's hard to believe but I have found one I trust completely. She has told me I had infections before I even had symptoms, and sure enough got sick the next day. She has told me nothing was wrong - just stress - when I swore up and down I had flare ups and heart disease and all kinds of awful possibilities.... turned out it was a new food sensitivity brought on by stress that stopped as soon as I removed it from my diet. When I tell her what I think is wrong and needs to be fixed, treatment doesn't work well to alleviate symptoms. When I tell her "do what you feel my body needs right now" I have better results.

Returning soldiers, it would seem, have a very high probability of contracting both Bartonella AND PTSD, both of which must be addressed together along with a healthy lifestyle to keep the brain healthy to fight off both.

It is entirely possible to still have flares of pathogenic activity. I am continuing herbal treatment to help my immune system fight those off. If that IS what's going on, then I'm still satisfied with my current treatment - herbal and psychological - to produce the results I've seen day to day.

But one cannot discount the fact that the mind is part of the body and mental health drives physical health. Ignoring this keeps doctors in the dark and patients sick for years. It does not start psychosomatic, but chronic illness IS traumatic and can definitely perpetuate psychosomatically because of the limbic system, even if/when pathogens are weakened or gone.

I did not post to seek differential diagnosis of my symptoms. I posted to say I FOUND the cause of my brain fog that no treatment, supplement, detox, or medicine could fix for 2 years.

Sorry I am triggered and don't mean to be so defensive but I don't post much anymore for this reason. The Chronic Lyme paradigm of trying to fit all symptoms into pathogenic diagnoses and throwing around pharmaceutical drugs, questioning each other's choices, is panic-inducing for me. Every single person is different, meaning some will find their golden ticket where others have not, and I wish they could be free to share without argument. If neuroscience-driven mind-body healing is not for you, then please continue with your pills and pathogens. Please be mindful of how you tell ME I need to find a new doctor when the one I have IS HEALING ME. (Case in point, I'm upset right now but my heart isn't pounding and my teeth aren't clenched and I'm going to breathe through it and move on with my day).

If you're interested in learning more I recommend the books we've mentioned above, the work or Annie Hopper, Joe Dispenza, "The Web That Has No Weaver" and "Healing with Whole Foods," "Mind Over Medicine," or any number of YouTube videos about the limbic system and anxiety.
Posted 10/9/2020 4:58 PM (GMT 0)

BabsBunny said...
@Charlie55
I use Chinese Medicine. It is a completely different system of health, that does not reduce everything to pathogens and antibiotics. That western model made me very very ill. A holistic approach has been very healing. CCM uses a completely different diagnostic system than Western med. I am completely aware of that, and I trust it. Trust is an enormous part of healing Lyme. If you don't trust your doctor, you will never ever believe you can get well. I know it's hard to believe but I have found one I trust completely. She has told me I had infections before I even had symptoms, and sure enough got sick the next day. She has told me nothing was wrong - just stress - when I swore up and down I had flare ups and heart disease and all kinds of awful possibilities.... turned out it was a new food sensitivity brought on by stress that stopped as soon as I removed it from my diet. When I tell her what I think is wrong and needs to be fixed, treatment doesn't work well to alleviate symptoms. When I tell her "do what you feel my body needs right now" I have better results.

Returning soldiers, it would seem, have a very high probability of contracting both Bartonella AND PTSD, both of which must be addressed together along with a healthy lifestyle to keep the brain healthy to fight off both.

It is entirely possible to still have flares of pathogenic activity. I am continuing herbal treatment to help my immune system fight those off. If that IS what's going on, then I'm still satisfied with my current treatment - herbal and psychological - to produce the results I've seen day to day.

But one cannot discount the fact that the mind is part of the body and mental health drives physical health. Ignoring this keeps doctors in the dark and patients sick for years. It does not start psychosomatic, but chronic illness IS traumatic and can definitely perpetuate psychosomatically because of the limbic system, even if/when pathogens are weakened or gone.

I did not post to seek differential diagnosis of my symptoms. I posted to say I FOUND the cause of my brain fog that no treatment, supplement, detox, or medicine could fix for 2 years.

Sorry I am triggered and don't mean to be so defensive but I don't post much anymore for this reason. The Chronic Lyme paradigm of trying to fit all symptoms into pathogenic diagnoses and throwing around pharmaceutical drugs, questioning each other's choices, is panic-inducing for me. Every single person is different, meaning some will find their golden ticket where others have not, and I wish they could be free to share without argument. If neuroscience-driven mind-body healing is not for you, then please continue with your pills and pathogens. Please be mindful of how you tell ME I need to find a new doctor when the one I have IS HEALING ME. (Case in point, I'm upset right now but my heart isn't pounding and my teeth aren't clenched and I'm going to breathe through it and move on with my day).

If you're interested in learning more I recommend the books we've mentioned above, the work or Annie Hopper, Joe Dispenza, "The Web That Has No Weaver" and "Healing with Whole Foods," "Mind Over Medicine," or any number of YouTube videos about the limbic system and anxiety.

Bravo!!
Posted 10/30/2020 3:34 PM (GMT 0)

BabsBunny said...
Complex PTSD dissociation fits me to a T. The de-realization is my last crippling symptom. Doctor says my infections are gone. Since I'm too traumatized by doctors to find and pay for a LL therapist, I've literally been studying psychology, neuroscience, mind-body, neuroplasticity, and self-healing to do it myself. It's insanely intense. But it's all fitting together and I'm already seeing vast improvements.

Just wanted to put this out there - I'd have gone mad looking for brain parasites, heavy metals, inflammation, etc etc... for me, it's trauma. Not just lyme but I'm digging up 30 years of trauma I never dealt with. And I'll NEVER heal my Lyme if I don't heal the trauma.

"Complex PTSD Dissociation is like a mental room divider." I've been saying this for years: "there's a wall in my brain."

Got my work cut out for me. Just really glad to have an answer.
https:// https://www.aprillyonspsychotherapyboulder.com/complex-ptsd-dissociation/

Sorry if this is weird; it's 4 am and I woke up screaming since 11:30 from a dream/hallucination.
I'm okay.

I also hv ptsd trauma for years and not the kind when u come out of the army. I was a victim and a survivor. I thought my lyme/bart mold caused lots of.my brain fog as 2 yrs ago my mind suddenly went fuzzy blank in la la land. It was so dissociative it's like ppl would.talk.to me and I'd b there bt it's like I wasn't there. A lot of it can hv to do with your subconscious. U see I'd store l my trauma in there instead of fully treating and talking about it. Hv u looked into hypnosis and reiki? I've heard great things
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply