I've always had problems with chemicals, but it's gotten much worse since I caught Lyme over a year ago. I discovered that I'd already had Bartonella and a Mycoplasma for decades, but adding Lyme to the mix was not a good idea! I got really really sick, then got it pretty much under control, at least the physical symptoms are gone. But there have been many times when I couldn't think or talk properly. That was really scary.
Gradually I've figured out that my cognitive problems are usually from something I have eaten. It's not the food itself, it's the pesticides, as I can eat the same foods if organically grown. These are foods that I could eat conventionally grown 18 months ago.
And now comes the big question that prompted me to try joining some Lyme groups. What if there's something about Lyme itself, or one of the co-infections, that interferes with the usual liver detox routes that allow "ordinary" people to eat these chemicals??? What if other people with Lyme and cognitive problems avoid chemical toxins in their diet, will their brains start working right again?

Has anyone played with their diet and noticed if certain foods or chemicals mess with their mental faculties? For me, one of the most striking examples is bananas. I get migraines sometimes with visual aura, but I know from long experience that there's always some kind of pesticide exposure behind it. One day about 5 pm I ate half a banana. The whole evening my vision had that sort of weird spot in the middle, not quite the full blown effect, but enough to bother me. Next morning I ate the other half of the banana, and it happened again. So ever since I've bought only organic bananas, and they don't bother me.
For years I'd bought gluten free oats and pancake mix. Eventually I realized that the days I felt bad and couldn't think properly were days I'd eaten one of those products. By that time, nearly everything else I was eating was either organically grown or at least had no pesticides or chemicals added. Turns out organic oats don't bother me at all.
Another clue is that travelers to Europe discover their "gluten sensitivity" miraculously gone, at least till they return home to the USA. Turns out that ALL the bleaching agents (all 8 of them) used for pastry flour, for bread flour, and for pasta are banned in Europe. One of the most common symptoms of "Gluten sensitivity" is "brainfog". And I note that the "Lyme brainfog" I've had is pretty similar to my "gluten brainfog" and my "cows milk brainfog" and "pesticide exposure brainfog". I've found that cows milk doesn't give me brainfog if the cow is fed organically. It's starting to look like all the brainfog events, for me at least, turn out to be from chemicals.

Well, I was one of the people who figured out that gluten was a problem from doing the low carb diet. Later I looked in all the big Low Carb books and the word "gluten" was not in a single index. I figured they were ALMOST hitting the nail on the head, and bit by bit a lot of other people figured out that it was only flour products that were making them feel bad, not carbs in general. (In fact, if we go back further in time, the "anti yeast diet" also cut out most breads.)
So now I wonder if the "gluten free diet" is almost hitting the nail on the head. By going gluten free one avoids all or almost all processed foods with the big 4 Roundup Ready(TM) crops. RR crops contain Bt toxin, POEA solvent, glyphosate which binds up the zinc that's needed for 50 digestive enzymes, and binds up the manganese you need for your symbiotic gut flora to grow. I have already progressed to the "Roundup Free diet", getting my chickens off Roundup Ready(TM) feed and buying only meat fed on Non GMO feeds. Grocery meats tear my guts up bigtime.
The problem with conventionally fed meat, and I suppose with iron enriched flours and cornmeal, is that Roundup binds manganese, but not iron (not very much anyway). Pathogens generally need iron to reproduce, but given enough Manganese the symbiotic gut bacteria can fend them off. POEA and pathogens increase intestinal permeability which can increase allergic reactions and inflammation.

Stephen Buhner talks in his book about Lyme co-infections about these various infections creating "inflammation cascades". The inflammation from one infection makes it easier for other infections to do their dirty work too. What if the inflammation from pesticides chemical additives in our diets also contributes to the inflammation cascade? Dr. Rosedale says that sugar prevents cells from absorbing vitamin C properly, and vitamin C is used to control oxidative damage. When I read where someone was really sick and went organic, or on a good whole foods diet or cut out all the processed foods and got better.... how many of those people were sick with Lyme or one of the co-infections???
Before I quit milk 25 years ago, I thought I was dying. I felt terrible, and couldn't think or do anything. Going off milk helped dramatically. Quitting sugar for 2 years helped some. But after another 7 years I went off gluten and that's when a lot more problems went away. Now I look back and think, no, it was the pesticides in the milk. Gluten - or the pesticides in commercial foods that contain it - cause inflammatory reactions in me. Things that reduce inflammation help me a lot. I took Niacinamide nearly every day, and sometimes several times a day, for inflammation before figuring out about the wheat. My brain was inflamed too, and it happens again any time I get hold of wheat -r the chemicals it's been treated with - by accident. I was very very grouchy, and I've been grouchy for days after gluten exposures, and that was quite a common reaction on the celiac group I used to be in.