Spiral of Fog and Exhaustion

I'll try to keep this short, as I'm sure I'm the millionth person to ask about this.

I have had mild depression and anxiety for years. Tried several medications (lexapro, zoloft, viibryd) to no avail. My main issue is the mental fog and physical fatigue that I constantly battle. I am able to evade negative thoughts, but my motivation has been zapped.

I've tuned up my diet recently and continue to workout as I have my whole life. Trying to cut out my cup of coffee a day. Nothing seems to help. I am a creative type, or used to be, anyway. I want to write, but have lost the ability to sit and focus as well as the motivation to do so. I'll sit and the fog will make it so exhausting to think, then after a bit, I give up because I've become so tired. I really just want to be able to write and create like I used to without having to rely on drugs or caffeine.

I know there's no one answer, but is there any shred of advice that works for you that might help me overcome this?

I appreciate it very much,

Ryan

These symptoms are by far the worst in my opinion. I often feel so tired I cant even keep my head up off a desk. It's relentless fatigue, sometimes it's so severe I feel like it literally takes every bit of energy I can muster to even move. We need to find the root cause of this already! Sorry I cant be of more help, but I can only relate. The only thing that gets me going for brief periods of time is Aderrall and that in an of itself has a $#%^ comedown of overthinking, rumination and agitation.. for me atleast.

ryanw1333 wrote:I'll try to keep this short, as I'm sure I'm the millionth person to ask about this.

I have had mild depression and anxiety for years. Tried several medications (lexapro, zoloft, viibryd) to no avail. My main issue is the mental fog and physical fatigue that I constantly battle. I am able to evade negative thoughts, but my motivation has been zapped.

I've tuned up my diet recently and continue to workout as I have my whole life. Trying to cut out my cup of coffee a day. Nothing seems to help. I am a creative type, or used to be, anyway. I want to write, but have lost the ability to sit and focus as well as the motivation to do so. I'll sit and the fog will make it so exhausting to think, then after a bit, I give up because I've become so tired. I really just want to be able to write and create like I used to without having to rely on drugs or caffeine.

I know there's no one answer, but is there any shred of advice that works for you that might help me overcome this?

Why do you believe that depression is the cause of brain fog and the kind of constant fatigue you describe?

Do you have an exercise physiology lab in your area, and maybe you could get a VO2Max test with CO2 data? If you get a low score on that test, that will be physiological evidence that your body is unable to do aerobic metabolism efficiently and would be a much better match as an explanation for those symptoms.

For those kinds of chronic fatigue syndromes I would find a doctor well versed in the Shoemaker protocol and have them look for chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) which is typically caused by a biotoxin, such as mold or lyme.

While I would phrase the message above differently, persistentone is correct -- the underlying cause for how you are feeling might be physical. I recently discovered that my thyroid has been under-functioning and thanks to that I had signs of depression, felt cold all the time, lacked energy, needed lots of sleep, etc. Now that I have been placed on thyroid medication (the name of which I constantly forget, because it's bloody long) those things are going away, which makes me very happy.

Have you had blood checks done before you were placed on medication?

Greetings.