My friend has very bad brain fog from a physical condition. It’s so bad she often pauses when she speaks like a YouTube video trying to buffer on a bad internet connection and she told me she wants to be more like her former self. She’s on medication for the condition, but the brain fog is one symptom that persists. She wants some good insight on how effective amphetamines are for brain fog in the non-ADHD population. She could only find people who have both ADHD and brain fog which could skew things. She doesn’t have ADHD, just brain fog.
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She should discuss that with a doctor instead of self-medicating with addictive substances.
She’s looking to mention her brain fog and how she needs it to improve on her next appointment. It’s often prescribed for brain fog in some places. Her brain fog is bad enough that directions like left/right take up to 5 seconds to compute and she keeps telling me how embarrassing it is
Well, you’ve already been told the important part, that you can’t crowd source this. There’s way too much detail that matters to give a good answer without a shit ton more information.
That being said, brain fog tends to be a specific term used by a relatively narrow range of neurological conditions. As it happens, I’ve been around a lot of people in that narrow range.
So, with the initial caveat in place still, the answer is probably not going to help.
Most of what causes brain fog isn’t so much about the things that amphetamines do.
Amphetamines work by boosting dopamine and norepinephrine, basically by increasing the cycle where brain cells pull chemicals into themselves.
Brain fog in most circumstances is caused by damage to the brain cells in one way or another. It isn’t going to be helped by a hit of dopamine and norepinephrine. Otherwise, it would respond to those chemicals when administered directly. There are some cases where brain fog is chemical in origin rather than structural or inflammatory causes. But, again, in those cases, there are better options.
Take MS as an example. The brain fog there is from demyelinization. The outer layer of some nerve cells gets attacked my the immune system. The signals no longer get carried properly, and a side effect of that is decreased responsiveness in the brain. A brain fog. It’s a structural issue where cells are damaged, and there’s an inflammatory response that amplifies the effect.
You can dump all the dopamine and norepinephrine you want into a brain like that and all you’ll get is a jittery, stressed out person with brain fog. Wouldn’t matter if you took those chemicals, or an amphetamine, it just can’t patch over damaged cells. Best case, it slightly decreases the fog by having healthy cells improve function, but it isn’t likely, and there’s no telling if the improved activity of those cells could bypass the damaged ones and do anything useful.
If your friend is dealing with any of the usual suspects, chances are that it would be a waste of time. It’s been tried, and never really does anything useful, or they would get prescribed more often
Now, I have heard that some Parkinson’s patients have had a degree of improvement of the brain fog from amphetamines, but that’s a dopamine based disease to an extent, so not a big surprise there.
If her doctor isn’t willing to prescribe them for her, then there’s essentially zero chance it would do any good because they will and do prescribe them for conditions where it can be helpful.
Tbh, I’m not surprised she had trouble finding anything. Most of the diseases where brain fog is an issue, amphetamines were tried so long ago that the journals and publications the data was in were all in print. A lot of that stuff isn’t digitized, and you won’t find it outside of a medical library. I think the last time I read anything about studies done with them for MS in particular was back in the nineties. And that would have been in back issues of stuff.
It sucks, but she may not ever be back to her old self. She may get better, but never quite back to before. At least, not unless some new stuff comes along. Again, using MS as an example, there’s been some attempts at repairing the damage to the myelin. There’s been some success with it, and it does come with a decrease in disability. Combined with a disease modifier, that can potentially reverse the problems caused, and keep them from coming back. But that’s likely a decade or so away from being ready for patients to have access to. Iirc, it’s still in animal testing.
Other conditions have similar attempts ongoing, so it isn’t hopeless. But amphetamines have been around long enough to have been tested against pretty much every disease out there. They just aren’t viable for brain fog usually
That depends on how much amphetamines you take, and what type of amphetamines you take. The effects would varies slightly from person to person, but, generally speaking, amphetamines are extremely effective.
The effects vary a lot from person to person. For me, amphetamines cause brain fog. I remember years ago when I was first prescribed them, they worked great to treat my ADHD. I never felt any addictive tendencies and could stop using them for extended periods without any cravings or even withdrawal symptoms. Around the end of high school they started to give me horrible brain fog though, it would take me a few seconds to even recognize my name, I had a hard time remembering where I was or how I got there, it was pretty bad. I stopped using them pretty shortly after I figured out the cause of my symptoms. Definitely best to talk to a doctor about it, don’t assume it’s going to work for you.
It likely won’t help, though it depends on the source of the brain fog. ADHD drugs are aimed particularly at the areas of the brain associated with executive functioning. Under stimulation here can cause brain fog, among other symptoms. Critically, the body’s homeostasis system wants to boost things, but can’t. It doesn’t fight the boost from the drugs, at least in the under stimulated areas.
If the brain fog is sourced elsewhere in the brain then the amphetamines won’t help much. Even worse, a normal Brian will adapt to counter the drugs effect, causing physical addiction. You would need to constantly increase the dose to gain the same effect. That’s the reason ADHD drugs are controlled substances in most countries. People chase the dragon, and end up nuking their brain with too high a dose.
Basically, don’t do it without medical oversight.
As someone who takes dexamphetamine daily for ADHD, it doesn’t fix my brain fog caused by other factors. There’s a number of things that can be causing the brain fog for your friend, and I wouldn’t recommend starting with amphetamines.
For myself I’ve been looking into the anti-inflammatory potential of drugs like semaglutide or tirzepatide as a possibility. For the most part, keeping my allergies in check and my thyroid levels as close to ideal for me as I can get helps way more with fatigue and brain fog than the ADHD drugs do.
Talk to Dr rather than internet randos. This was interesting though (Naltrexone):
Not a doctor, but based on research I’ve seent brain fog (in likely many cases) seems to be due to inflammation. https://www.autoimmuneinstitute.org/covid_timeline/brain-fog-likely-caused-by-brain-inflammation-its-not-just-all-in-their-head/
Have your friend try inflammation-reducing drugs like metformin. Metformin specifically, maybe there’s others, I’m sadly not a doctor. Metformin is a magic drug that’s not just for diabetius.
It won’t be immediate, but maybe it could help your friend recover. Idk if cranking yourself will break through when it’s a blocking mechanism causing the problem.
Besides talking to a doctor, would she be against doing cognitive training? If she’s down, I can suggest some stuff :)
I could see it being effective, yeah. Obviously in this situation she just needs to try it (carefully obvs) and report the effects. If it’s not/won’t be medically prescribed for her condition then she would be in somewhat untested waters, so it’s a trial and error thign obviously keep it safe and acetone wash it.
When I was self-medding with amph, I bought a scale and would pack it in capsules weighed out to 40mg each and pop two - four a day. Don’t snort that shit.
Definitely don’t do Cocaine that shit doesn’t help much of anything and even if it seems to, lasts all of 10 minutes unless you OD.
I would also suggest wellbutrin. It’s sometimes used as a generic stim, but unlike amph and etc. it’s also a smoking cessation aid - because it works on the nicotinic receptor, similar effect to nicotine but without the addiction (and in fact,.you won’t want to ever consume nicotine on it).
Creatine has been studied for combating brain fog. Might have worked for me (could also be placebo)
This sounds like a sleeping disorder, imo.
And no, ADHD medications do not make you immune to brain fog. In some situations they can make it worse, especially when they wear off.
Ask your friend if they’ve been checked for sleep apnea.
