
Sullivan, laid off before the pandemic from a senior position with a photography company, said many days he could manage only two responsibilities: “Clean the kitty litter and pick up dog poop.”Įven that was anxiety-provoking.

In the middling phase, “fuzzy,” he said, “I become angry when people talk to me because it hurts my brain to try and pay attention.” Most severe is “fog,” when “I cannot function” and “I sit and stare, unmotivated to move, my mind racing.”Įven slight mental or physical exertion can trigger his fog, and Mr. In the mildest state, which he calls “fluffy,” his head feels heavy. Sullivan navigates a spectrum of cognitive speed bumps. “We went and saw a Madonna concert, we went to the Eiffel Tower, we went to the Catacombs. “I look at all my pictures of Paris, trying to remember,” he said, showing a selfie of the couple at the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. He’s forgotten this past Christmas, New Year’s and the Paris vacation in March that he arranged for his partner Mustafa Al Niama’s 40th birthday. Returning to discover a dangerously hot empty pan, he panicked and hasn’t cooked since. Reagan, the vascular medicine specialist, turned the stove on to cook eggs and then absent-mindedly left to walk the dog, Wolff-Parkinson-White, named after a cardiac arrhythmia.
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“In this case it is literally in our heads, and it is very real.” Forgetting Paris, and how to say toothbrush “People say in a disparaging way ‘It’s all in their head,’” she said. Murphey, scientific director for a brain-wave technology company, who couldn’t summon the word “work” in a recent meeting, said research is crucial so symptoms are taken seriously. So far, MRI scans haven’t indicated damaged brain areas, neurologists say.ĭr.

Some people with brain fog still experience lung or heart issues, which can exacerbate neurological symptoms. Allison Navis, a neuro-infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Health System. Symptoms like tingling or numbness can occur when damaged nerves send wrong signals, said Dr. Other possible causes are autoimmune reactions “when antibodies mistakenly attack nerve cells,” Dr. Dona Kim Murphey, a neurologist and neuroscientist, who herself has experienced post-Covid neurological issues, including “alien hand syndrome,” in which she felt a “super-bizarre sense of my left hand, like I didn’t understand why it was positioned the way it was and I was really captivated by it.” Tiny strokes may cause some symptoms, said Dr.

It feels as though I am under anesthesia.” Wreaking havoc on the job “It is debilitating,” said Rick Sullivan, 60, of Brentwood, Calif., who’s had episodes of brain fog since July after overcoming a several-week bout with Covid-19 breathing problems and body aches. Memory problems, dizziness or confusion were reported by a third or more respondents. It was the fourth most common symptom out of the 101 long-term and short-term physical, neurological and psychological conditions that survivors reported. In a soon-to-be-published survey of 3,930 members of Survivor Corps, a group of people who have connected to discuss life after Covid, over half reported difficulty concentrating or focusing, said Natalie Lambert, an associate research professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, who helped lead the study. A French report in August on 120 patients who had been hospitalized found that 34 percent had memory loss and 27 percent had concentration problems months later. But research on long-lasting brain fog is just beginning.
