Brain Fog and Grad School

I don't yet know if I have Lupus but I do have the horrible brain fog. It is really bad and I noticed that I was waking up in traffic at red lights or on the freeway in traffic jams with my car rolling almost hitting people or going into ditches. I was drinking so many of those 5 hour energy drinks a day that I am almost positive it played a major part in the horrible surgery I just went through in June with all of my stomach stuff. In January I had told my doctor because I was working fulltime and taking online classes that I was scared. I was having to pull over on the way home from work which is a 20 or 30 min drive depending on traffic to take a short rest a couple of times and then I just started drinking a 5 hour energy drink about half hour before I left to drive anywhere I have had symptoms out the wazoo for years actually. My family is riddled with autoimmune diseases. My aunti died with MS my mom has thyroid disease, my daughter has Graves dis and PCOS my son is type 1 diab and Hashimotos dis, I got hashimotos dis at age 10 my thyroid weighed a poind and a quarter when it was removed I have the weirdest blood work all the time, I am so anemic it isn't even funny I have had two transfusions, now since this surgery that went so bad I swell so bad, I have to take 80ms of lasix a day and I still swell and i will be bald in about a month and I only wish I was exagerrating. My right hand feels like the tin man and aches like a bad tooth and now my left pinky is starting the same thing. My knees now are aching and my feet are to weird to explain. But being in a fog I can't find my way through and going bald is driving me absolutely nuts. How do you combat that? My doctor put me on Adderall 10mg in the am and then again in the afternoon it helps some but now my fog is so heavy and dense I need the whole 20 on both times. I heard this Plaquenil stuff helps with the fatigue is that true? I am back in classes now. I am 49 years old and trying so hard to get a Bachelor degree by te time I am 50. Since June I have lost so much I would like that to still look forward to but it isn't looking good for that either. What else does my body have left to take from me?

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, the best thing my rheumotologist ever did for my fatigue was prescribe Trazodone as a sleeping medication.

This was when I was sleeping 12 hours at night, taking a morning and afternoon nap, and still feeling exhausted. The first night I took it I slept 14 hours straight, but for the first time in ages I felt like a human when I woke up. That was in 2003...it wasn't long before I was sleeping 9 hours regularly and feeling refreshed when I woke up.

My rheumy's explanation was that while I was sleeping, I was not getting "deep restorative sleep".

I still take Trazodone today, and I still wake up with some energy. *So much better* than waking up like a zombie! I highly recommend getting OFF of energy drinks, caffeine, and stimulants and instead focus on quality of sleep.

My cognitive function was rather severe - it was enough to be measurable by neuropsych testing - and caused the loss of my business, my career, and my PhD dissertation. For almost 2 years, I didn't even drive as I'd get disoriented within a block or 2 of the home I've lived in for 25 years.

I had improvements once the fatgiue was addressed, and more improvements since my lupus has "quieted". While I am probably 90-95% back to my pre-lupus normal, as Bill says, my memory and ability to learn has been permanently compromised.

My recommendations -- use all the tricks you can find to help supplement your memory, make sure your sleep and eating habits support heath, avoid stress as much as possible, and give yourself plenty of time to read and fully comprehend the material.

As Bill says, Life is good but different!