Brain Fog

One of the real bitches of Lyme disease is not the physical problems, but the mental ones. There's a phenomenon known as "brain fog" that is common to several chronic diseases, including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, arthritis, and I've heard recently, chemotherapy.

To explain: imagine the worst flu you ever had. You know the feeling you get when you've medicated away the body aches and the fever and the respiratory yuck? That surreal "I really should be in bed, but I can't afford to miss this meeting/class/date/exam, so I'll just have to suck it up and go anyway" feeling? Or worse yet that "I'm not going anywhere with this 105 degree fever" feeling? People who have these illnesses feel like that alot. More disturbing, we don't always realize that we're not firing on all cylinders. Its like the drunk being the least aware of how drunk they are.

So we develop coping skill and we muddle through as best we can. I've always figured I had the "I just feel too lousy to think straight" variety of brain fog. As my physical symptoms wane, my mental clarity has always gotten better. However, with the diagnosis of Lyme, the spector of actual neurological involvement rears its ugly head. Brrr.

Some experts say that chronic Lyme is not a real thing and that the rounds of antibiotics I've had should take care of the Lyme. Any lingering symptoms I might continue to have are something else. Other experts say that Lyme can hide in the tissues much like syphilis and cause a syndrome very like tertiary syphilis

Interestingly there is also a group of doctors examining the possibilty of a link between autism and Lyme disease.

It would be fascinating if it weren't so damned personal