Why Do Allergies Cause ‘Brain Fog’?

I'm way late to this article but I wanted to add my experience if anyone comes across this and wants to know if others have these symptoms. After keeping a daily log of my activity for the last month, I have discovered that Cedar pollen is causing me severe brain fog. I can't focus, feel drowsy, sometimes very light headed, short term memory problems and sometimes very emotional. I even have panic attacks after exposure to the pollen. I've seen an allergist, ENT, and an Internist who all say my this isn't normal. Bloodwork, CT, MRI all show nothing. Cedar pollen exposure and possibly mold causes me to feel like I've taken 12 shots of tequila. If this sounds familiar to you, you are not alone.

People might be interested in reading: http://www.cytokines-and-depression.com/

"Why Do Allergies Cause ‘Brain Fog’?" article was very helpful and interesting to read. For most people, allergies can get very bad for them, my allergies can get very bad for me, and going to school can be a very difficult challenge. Having this to look at is a great thing for everyone to know. Hopefully, you can find this as helpful as I did.

One thing I loved about this article was how they explained how we have head fog. Sadly that there really is no cure yet but, this shows that allergies can be very hard to control sometimes. I always forget to take my medicine and when I do, I always regret not taking it. It is very important to always take your medicine and to always stay safe.

Learning about this made me realize that maybe one day we can hopefully find some better ways to treat allergies, with all the new discoveries and the advanced technology, I hope that one day we can treat allergies better!

I suffered from terrible allergies which triggered an asthmatic response for many years, especially in the spring, then I decided to get tested. I found that I'm hyper-allergic to tree pollen, ragweed and a myriad of other allergens that are commonly at high levels in the spring. Once I began getting allergy shots the severity of my symptoms began to abate. I still get the foggy brain and fatigue, it's just not as pronounced or for as long. I would highly encourage anyone suffering from allergy symptoms to get tested and treated. There's just no good reason to needlessly suffer those awful allergy symptoms, sneezing and dripping all over everything, when help is available. Get treatment before Trump takes it away!

I recently had an allergy attack and felt miserable. But unlike many contributors to the article, I didn't have so much a "fog" but rather a lack of concentration since I was very distracted by the allergy symptoms. It would be difficult indeed to perform well on a test when you feel the annoying and distracting symptoms of severe allergies while trying to take a test or do one's job!

I used to go through a box of kleenex a day during the spring, back when I was a kid. Treatment was never suggested, but I remembered trying to do those standardized tests that happened every spring and trying to keep the snot off the scantron.

I scored just below threshold for taking advanced classes on those tests and spent several summers trying to catch up. It all turned out fine, but it's nice to know that it wasn't just my imagination that allergies made it hard to think back then.

Now I have Zyrtec and get to remain functional 12 months a year.

Sinus cavities were invented to cool your brain. Congestion that obstructs the flow of cool air will impede that function. Nasal congestion from whatever origin allergic or not will cause brain fog. Keep your head cool is therefore a very good admonition.

Histamine is released by mast cells causing brain fog. Non-drowsy anti-histamines can help.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954611111003325

I would suggest that the connection is obstructive sleep apnea fragmenting sleep due to sleep-disordered breathing worsened from nasal congestion (and mouth breathing) that occurs in the setting of both allergies and colds.

Alas, but second generation antihistamines also produce anticholinergic side effects and have been associated with cognitive decline in the long run. As a chronic allergy sufferer (and physician) I fear brain fog with allergies is unavoidable.

I started weekly allergy shots (3 for trees, grasses and dogs) 2 years ago. I am now at a monthly maintenance dose. Thus far this spring I am symptom free. It is worth it I used to lose my voice, my mind for 3 weeks in the spring and again in the fall. Just do it.

Thanks for this article. I have a bad cold right now and am happy to know that I'm not just imagining being so fuzzy-headed. My understanding hubby is refraining from trying to get me to concentrate on the business mail coming in or anything else that requires a few working brain cells.

What a man!

"Brain fog" and "sinus congestion" are often signs of underlying and unappreciated migraine. Allergies itch. Migraines cause changes in blood vessels in addition to their direct effect on brain function. Migraine preventative therapies work well, but the diagnosis needs to be considered.

Thanks to the writer Karen Weintraub for this informative article. Allergies sometimes cause Meniere's Disease, a problem with dizziness and vertigo. The inner ear is a complicated place and several different things can go wrong and affect the balance organs in the inner ear, so there are different causes for Meniere's. One cause of dizziness is allergies, which can cause swelling of one or both inner ears. Meniere's is associated with cognitive confusion. A person can have poorer balance but unconsciously learn to compensate for it and not realize the problem, or attribute it to aging, and not realize they have Meniere's without balance and other testing. When the inner ear's vestibular organs (ex: semicircular canals) send erratic information to the motor cortex that conflicts with information from the eyes or the body's feel of forces and position, it can trigger vertigo. Regarding cognitive confusion, I suspect. but do not know of any studies that inform my suspicion, that conflicting nerve signals to the brain may lead to disrupted or interrupted processing of the unconscious brain processing that underlies our thinking. In my case, it was apparent that I had difficulty holding information in short-term memory. I found it slowed down reading and understanding. Thanks for the information about cytokines, and presumably other signaling molecules that occur with allergies and illness being a factor.

Now that you mention it, I have noticed people becoming more obtuse the last couple of months.

I suffer from multiple food and inhalant allergies, some of which trigger bacterial infections. One of the clear causes of the brain fog that I get with either an allergy attack or a subsequent infection is the fatigue and physical lethargy that both cause.

In addition to subtle chemical processes there is the matter of the sneezes. Sneezes can rattle one's brains.

Try sneezing 60 or 70 times in row - sneezing so hard your back aches - and NOT getting brain fog.

These articles may be useful for the question -

When Breathing Interferes with Cognition: Experimental Inspiratory Loading Alters Timed Up-and-Go Test in Normal Humans
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4792478/pdf/pone.0151625.pdf

Breath-based meditation: A mechanism to restore the physiological and cognitive reserves for optimal human performance
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4832119/pdf/WJCC-4-99.pdf

This is so great to read! Ignorantly, I have been blaming all my foggyheadedness on increasing age! Now I can relegate some of it to severe hayfever! What a glorious sense of health! (Pass the kleenex box, please.)

New info on lymphatic system surrounding the brain could explain a lot of this.

I ask will it ever be possible for scientific research to find a cure or how to know which foods you are allergic to? Skin tests do not always help to answer just what allergen is causing your specific allergy.

Allergy attacks, infections and many other acute diseases trigger
increases in endogenous carbon monoxide (CO) produced from heme catabolism . This CO contributes to both inflammation of sinuses and brain fog (the CO enters the brain from the nose via the cribriform plate).

The CO increase is easily measured in exhaled breath.

I'm allergic (or sensitive) to perfume, air fresheners and basically any artificial fragrance. It definitely affects my brain.

I can have problems with my memory, slurred speech, loss of coordination and other symptoms like swollen eyelids and difficulty breathing. On at least one occasion I've been asked if I had been drinking!

Half an hour or so after I'm away from the perfume, etc., I'm fine.

It could be down to simple distraction due to discomfort. It's really hard to think or focus when you can't breathe, your noise itches, your eyes are watering, and the next sneeze is a minute away.

Perform similar research comparing allergy sufferers to another group that is made similarly uncomfortable and I bet you'd get the same results.

When my allergies were bad, there were times when I would sneeze fifty times in a row. Achoo! Achoo! ACHOO! It's exhausting. The drugs at the time were sedating, they made me feel like a ghost. There are days I spent walking the halls of high school, feeling like I was in a parallel universe. It's a wonder I passed any class at all.

Two years ago I started taking a teaspoon of local* honey every day. And my allergies to trees and pollens have almost totally disappeared.

Tell us about it. Sometimes the allergies flare up with such intensity that all I want to do is close my eyes and sleep. Perhaps if the OTC drugs weren't so expensive and they weren't ones my body won't tolerate I'd buy them for the temporary relief they give. It would also help if landscapers were not using those blasted leaf blowers which can give anyone a headache or sneezing fits. When did lawn cleanliness become so essential to suburban life?