well this is my first post on here and i cant believe its taken me this long. well i have quite the story and i wanna keep it as short as possible but i dont want to miss any details(skip to last paragraph if you dont wanna hear).. so here we go. Im a 21 year old guy. basically my entire life has been a perfect storm for a leaky gut and candida overgrowth (tons of Antibiotic use as a kid and my diet was absolutely disgusting). The amount of Sour patch kids i have ingested..anyway then i got to high school... now i want to let you know that i was an unwealthy kid living in a very very wealthy town.. i am a living product of peer pressure at its worst. i did anything to fit in. little did i know my body was NOT ready for what was to come.

in my 10th year i caught a case of Mono(eppstein barr) and i really didnt bat an eye to it, but it changed me. when i recovered, it just felt like something was wrong. i was off. after i recovered symptoms started arising in the next few years- mild brain fog, weird sharp neck pains, couldnt gain a single pound of fat(still cant), AWFUL sinus pressure and rhinitis. a weird note- getting high made all the symptoms way worse-what could that mean? i got high anyway. talk about peer pressure man. in my 11th year i even researched and came across candida and leaky gut- had the almighty epiphany i know all the sufferers have had lol! yea still ended up not caring. ate like crap 24/7 and by senior year of college i was getting plastered every weekend. i would drink like a maniac and it made my symptoms worse but i didn’t care i was having the time of my life and nothing else mattered.

fast forward to that summer.. late in the summer i was at a party and i got the drunkest and highest I’ve ever gotten in my life- but i didn’t blackout. the high gave me a major panic attack and it was super traumatic. i managed to sleep and when i woke up i was in a dizzy haze.. the rest of the day i rested and took it easy but the haze wouldnt go... it was seriously like was still totally drunk. i freaked out for almost a week researching and chalked up what was happening to Depersonalization. it was as if my brain fog went up a stage. i stopped all drugs and everything for a while but i seemed to kinda get better and i eventually moved back into the old lifestyle right in time for college where i also picked up a nasty cigarette habit. yay!!!

So i was back to my detrimental lifestyle since my dizziness/brain fog/depersonalization got a bit better(i didnt even care about my other symptoms), and on top of a cigarette habit, i started occasionally taking xanax- and i drank on it sometimes. the mess i was doing to my body in the name of peer pressure.. i dont even know what to say looking back at myself even 2 years ago. anyways this lifestyle went on for a bit until the end of freshman year of college.. i was feeling off one week maybe a little sick, but i went to go grab a drink with a friend, and after one beer, it happened. it was as if a plastic wrap was put over my entire sense of reality. i started to feel sick and dizzy, and i stopped drinking immediately. i went home and i suddenly realized. my brain fog had just moved up a stage.

its been exactly 2 years since that happened (may 2016). and since then, ive lived in a foggy hell. ive had to basically drop out of school because i can barely sit in a classroom without drool coming out of my mouth. im extremely sensitive to light, my balance and coordination is terrible, my eyes are blurry, i cant move my head quick without getting dizzy, I literally feel like im not real. and the worst part about that is that im quite the existential thinker.. i ponder extremely complex ideas about theories of reality, space, time, etc, so whats happening to me right now is a constant existential crisis. not a day goes by that i dont think about my fog and derealization, distractions dont work anymore. nothing interests me i am a walking potato at this point.

My debilitating brain fog and derealization as well as other symptoms of course is a product of of a terrible lifestyle through my teen years on top of candida overgrowth and leaky gut that has built for years and years. Ive completely cut out alcohol/tobacco/drugs of course, processed foods, refined sugars, dairy, grains, etc and im basically on a leaky gut diet- i havent cut out fruits. this is because i am TERRIFIED of die off symptoms making my brain fog and derealization worse. its already UNbearable. Ive made this post in hopes for some sort of guidance or tip for something to ease just this one symptom. im getting worse by the day. is there anyone who has lightened their fog even a little when its this severe? please i need guidance from anyone. i will do anything to gain just a tiny bit of my mind back.

much love folks.