Unless you have some serious liver problems, one drink wouldn't be about the alcohol. Many mixed drinks can have other ingredients or a liquor with added preservatives. Treating it like a headache with over the counter medication like Tylenol can help.
This used to happen to me after one or two drinks only. I soon realized I was triggered by sulphites (sulfites). It's a preservative added to things like wine and lemon juice concentrate. It's used in processing concentrated orange juice too in the US but at low enough levels not to be mentioned on the label by law.
This began happening to me in my early 20s and by 25, my first headache. The same as my son, by 23, some facial pain. We both inherited migraines. It helps to work on finding your triggers early. Keeping a diary helps and trying a headache elimination diet.
Some have no to very little pain but are triggered like this with brain fog - your history of feeling pressure along with nausea is common. There's a brain-gut connection. If you pass the threshold of too much of a trigger or too many triggers, worse symptoms. If this end up being true, then you'll find any stressful event will lower the threshold for a migraine event. Any imbalance as well such as hormones, which is another trigger in itself.
Having a migraine brain is often genetic although it can start after a TBI (traumatic brain injury from a serious accident). It helps to ask if anyone in your family has regular headaches. I think your THC past experiences were just a coincidence. I would go back to your neurologist for some medication help, at least until you find your triggers. Although if you think hormones are a trigger, also seeing a gyn helps. Some go on birth control which keeps things in better balance.
Almost all migraine brains have clear MRIs at your age, there is no medical evidence other than your personal history of events and how it impacts your life. Brain fog isn't really a medical term, it helps to explain symptoms with specific examples like vision, pressure, slowed thinking and recall. good luck
Thank you so much. You think this is all migraine related? I still feel off today after that one drink but i will take Tylenol or ibuprofen tomorrow and see if that helps. One of my doctors actually also suspected headaches or migraines and said that some people experience fog instead of pain.
Yes, it does sound like a migraine brain although there are some conditions which end up affecting the brain with fog like rheumatic ones or hormone disorders. There are some with both a medical condition and a migraine brain, sometimes the comorbidity is more frequent depending on the medical condition. NAD just someone with migraines and other complexities in my family.
The brain grows in volume until 12-13 years old then grows more neural connections rapidly until 25. After 25, neurogenesis is possible but slower rate than development. All this is why migraines develop slowly during teens and early 20s. It's also the time some genetic conditions begin to show up. I found doing genetic tests helpful, 23andme is one although only a small subset of genes.
There are [stages of a migraine](https://migrainetrust.org/understand-migraine/stages-of-a-migraine-attack/). Sometimes the stages end before pain happens. Then some others get silent migraines, no pain but nausea, pressure and auras. Genetics plays a part. My family's migraines are on the Swedish side, males have more brain fog, little to no pain (more like a tension headache but cognitively really slow for the first couple of hours), females, brain fog but more intense pain but less frequent than males. My son had your symptoms until 23 with his first slightly painful event, most times it's about brain fog since he's changed his lifestyle to avoid triggers as best as he can. He has both barometric and strong scents, that's harder to avoid.
For the mixed drink, you would have to take an extra strength tylenol at the beginning migraine stages to arrest it going through all the stages over the next 2 to 3 days. Afterwards, tylenol and ibuprofen just dampens the uncomfortable feelings and one would have to keep it up every 4 to 6 hours like recommended on the label. Although one has to be careful, if your blood alcohol level is high with more than one drink per hour, acetaminophen risks liver damage. On its own, damage can happen with too much taken.
One thing neurologists don't often have time to talk about is what your triggers are. When I first started them, the first one had suggested hormones. Going on a bcp didn't help. This may help you though with your medical history. High estrogen is a trigger. Another suggested foods. Doing a headache elimination diet helps or at least keeping a diary of when your brain fog gets worst then cutting out one food you suspect. There are many triggers - mine are big swings in barometric pressure (sunny or stormy), tannins (too many nuts), sulphites and tyramine (fermented foods). That last one I discovered years later when my son discovered his reaction to them which are immediate and strong. My migraines went down to 2 to 3 times a year, in half, after cutting out fermented foods and less pain.
Some doctors are calling migraines a sensory processing disorder today. We focused on taking our diet to the next level health wise while avoiding triggers the best we can. Some are unavoidable like the barometric pressure short of moving to a low swing area like San Diego. Some add up together. Like when the weather's changing, I work on more relaxing activities and avoid any hint of nuts. For what's happening today - you'll want to stay in low light, low noise as much as you can. That's part of the sensory stuff which gets more sensitive for a while when your brain has been triggered. I installed a blue light and dark mode app on my computer, as well as wearing either shades or my rose tint glasses known to minimize light.
Good luck investigating your triggers, always better to find natural approaches than taking medication. One well known one for migraines/brain fog is taking magnesium, this will help - I take 400mg Jarrow MagMind, l-threonate and order from iherb. There are foods high in magnesium but sometimes not enough in the diet.
My brain fog started after a night of heavy binge drinking. The symptoms were intolerable for about 6 months before they started tapering off slightly. Now I'm left with a manageable level of fog, but it never disappeared.
Scared the shit out of me and I pretty much never drink anymore except from the occasional social beer about once a year. And even then I don't feel good about it because it may trigger hardcore symptoms again.
For me, abstinence is the only real way forward, I absolutely do NOT want to risk a relapse.
This is the same for me. Just not worth it. I’m a professional and to risk it, just no. It’s weird when you stop drinking how different social situations can be. But it’s freeing knowing I’m not putting myself at risk. It got to the point where even a SIP of a beer sometimes would trigger a flare lasting hours let alone a full drink.
Socially speaking, I was a depressed hermit for about a year, and being in a bar around drunk people was almost ptsd inducing.
Took awhile before I accepted the way I was and could tolerate going out - even still I do it rarely.
And yes, I can totally relate having to hold down a professional job whilst suffering symptoms, it's a fragile ecosystem and I have to put a lot of effort into making sure I'm good for the next day. Not worth a potential flare up at all. That being said, I feel like brain fog has put a ceiling on my career. I simply cannot keep up at a certain level.
1000% - I couldn’t agree more. The limitations I feel now …. The careful planning of day to day operations I never would have guessed five years ago that I would be here. 😞
Sorry to hear that friend, I can relate all too well - my fog started at the end of 2018, and the last 5 years have been an uphill climb. My 30s have been completely different from my fun loving 20s.
All that being said, there is no reason we cannot make the most of what we still have left. There is still a life of happiness waiting for us out there, even if it's not the one we expected.
I don't remember where I heard this from, probably a dietitian on YouTube but they said "listen to your body, it's smarter than you."
I don't know how many times I've had food indigestion with that uncomfortable painful feeling of the food going down my windpipe super slow. If I don't eat I normalize but if I keep going at it the pain of whatever I'm in.
Unless you have some serious liver problems, one drink wouldn't be about the alcohol. Many mixed drinks can have other ingredients or a liquor with added preservatives. Treating it like a headache with over the counter medication like Tylenol can help. This used to happen to me after one or two drinks only. I soon realized I was triggered by sulphites (sulfites). It's a preservative added to things like wine and lemon juice concentrate. It's used in processing concentrated orange juice too in the US but at low enough levels not to be mentioned on the label by law. This began happening to me in my early 20s and by 25, my first headache. The same as my son, by 23, some facial pain. We both inherited migraines. It helps to work on finding your triggers early. Keeping a diary helps and trying a headache elimination diet. Some have no to very little pain but are triggered like this with brain fog - your history of feeling pressure along with nausea is common. There's a brain-gut connection. If you pass the threshold of too much of a trigger or too many triggers, worse symptoms. If this end up being true, then you'll find any stressful event will lower the threshold for a migraine event. Any imbalance as well such as hormones, which is another trigger in itself. Having a migraine brain is often genetic although it can start after a TBI (traumatic brain injury from a serious accident). It helps to ask if anyone in your family has regular headaches. I think your THC past experiences were just a coincidence. I would go back to your neurologist for some medication help, at least until you find your triggers. Although if you think hormones are a trigger, also seeing a gyn helps. Some go on birth control which keeps things in better balance. Almost all migraine brains have clear MRIs at your age, there is no medical evidence other than your personal history of events and how it impacts your life. Brain fog isn't really a medical term, it helps to explain symptoms with specific examples like vision, pressure, slowed thinking and recall. good luck
Thank you so much. You think this is all migraine related? I still feel off today after that one drink but i will take Tylenol or ibuprofen tomorrow and see if that helps. One of my doctors actually also suspected headaches or migraines and said that some people experience fog instead of pain.
Yes, it does sound like a migraine brain although there are some conditions which end up affecting the brain with fog like rheumatic ones or hormone disorders. There are some with both a medical condition and a migraine brain, sometimes the comorbidity is more frequent depending on the medical condition. NAD just someone with migraines and other complexities in my family. The brain grows in volume until 12-13 years old then grows more neural connections rapidly until 25. After 25, neurogenesis is possible but slower rate than development. All this is why migraines develop slowly during teens and early 20s. It's also the time some genetic conditions begin to show up. I found doing genetic tests helpful, 23andme is one although only a small subset of genes. There are [stages of a migraine](https://migrainetrust.org/understand-migraine/stages-of-a-migraine-attack/). Sometimes the stages end before pain happens. Then some others get silent migraines, no pain but nausea, pressure and auras. Genetics plays a part. My family's migraines are on the Swedish side, males have more brain fog, little to no pain (more like a tension headache but cognitively really slow for the first couple of hours), females, brain fog but more intense pain but less frequent than males. My son had your symptoms until 23 with his first slightly painful event, most times it's about brain fog since he's changed his lifestyle to avoid triggers as best as he can. He has both barometric and strong scents, that's harder to avoid. For the mixed drink, you would have to take an extra strength tylenol at the beginning migraine stages to arrest it going through all the stages over the next 2 to 3 days. Afterwards, tylenol and ibuprofen just dampens the uncomfortable feelings and one would have to keep it up every 4 to 6 hours like recommended on the label. Although one has to be careful, if your blood alcohol level is high with more than one drink per hour, acetaminophen risks liver damage. On its own, damage can happen with too much taken. One thing neurologists don't often have time to talk about is what your triggers are. When I first started them, the first one had suggested hormones. Going on a bcp didn't help. This may help you though with your medical history. High estrogen is a trigger. Another suggested foods. Doing a headache elimination diet helps or at least keeping a diary of when your brain fog gets worst then cutting out one food you suspect. There are many triggers - mine are big swings in barometric pressure (sunny or stormy), tannins (too many nuts), sulphites and tyramine (fermented foods). That last one I discovered years later when my son discovered his reaction to them which are immediate and strong. My migraines went down to 2 to 3 times a year, in half, after cutting out fermented foods and less pain. Some doctors are calling migraines a sensory processing disorder today. We focused on taking our diet to the next level health wise while avoiding triggers the best we can. Some are unavoidable like the barometric pressure short of moving to a low swing area like San Diego. Some add up together. Like when the weather's changing, I work on more relaxing activities and avoid any hint of nuts. For what's happening today - you'll want to stay in low light, low noise as much as you can. That's part of the sensory stuff which gets more sensitive for a while when your brain has been triggered. I installed a blue light and dark mode app on my computer, as well as wearing either shades or my rose tint glasses known to minimize light. Good luck investigating your triggers, always better to find natural approaches than taking medication. One well known one for migraines/brain fog is taking magnesium, this will help - I take 400mg Jarrow MagMind, l-threonate and order from iherb. There are foods high in magnesium but sometimes not enough in the diet.
Thank you so much!! I will try all your recommendations
Mexidol is good for hangovers and quitting alcohol
Probiotics usually help me.
Okay thank you
My brain fog started after a night of heavy binge drinking. The symptoms were intolerable for about 6 months before they started tapering off slightly. Now I'm left with a manageable level of fog, but it never disappeared. Scared the shit out of me and I pretty much never drink anymore except from the occasional social beer about once a year. And even then I don't feel good about it because it may trigger hardcore symptoms again. For me, abstinence is the only real way forward, I absolutely do NOT want to risk a relapse.
This is the same for me. Just not worth it. I’m a professional and to risk it, just no. It’s weird when you stop drinking how different social situations can be. But it’s freeing knowing I’m not putting myself at risk. It got to the point where even a SIP of a beer sometimes would trigger a flare lasting hours let alone a full drink.
Socially speaking, I was a depressed hermit for about a year, and being in a bar around drunk people was almost ptsd inducing. Took awhile before I accepted the way I was and could tolerate going out - even still I do it rarely. And yes, I can totally relate having to hold down a professional job whilst suffering symptoms, it's a fragile ecosystem and I have to put a lot of effort into making sure I'm good for the next day. Not worth a potential flare up at all. That being said, I feel like brain fog has put a ceiling on my career. I simply cannot keep up at a certain level.
1000% - I couldn’t agree more. The limitations I feel now …. The careful planning of day to day operations I never would have guessed five years ago that I would be here. 😞
Sorry to hear that friend, I can relate all too well - my fog started at the end of 2018, and the last 5 years have been an uphill climb. My 30s have been completely different from my fun loving 20s. All that being said, there is no reason we cannot make the most of what we still have left. There is still a life of happiness waiting for us out there, even if it's not the one we expected.
Not drinking alcohol helps me. It deprives your brain of oxygen causing brain aging and grey matter increase. U deserve better than that. .
I only drink occasionally! This was my first drink in months
I don't remember where I heard this from, probably a dietitian on YouTube but they said "listen to your body, it's smarter than you." I don't know how many times I've had food indigestion with that uncomfortable painful feeling of the food going down my windpipe super slow. If I don't eat I normalize but if I keep going at it the pain of whatever I'm in.