GERD, Brain Fog, and Fatigue - How I Made it Through This Frustrating Journey

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I was diagnosed with food allergies at just a few months old. I was in my early twenties when I learned that my anaphylactic food allergies were a disease, 25 when I learned that it was an invisible disability, and 26 when I learned that it was a chronic condition. Prior to Instagram, I didn’t possess the language to articulate what my body went through. At 29, I learned that other people with chronic illness experience fatigue.

Knowing that this is a real thing helped me to understand it and look at it objectively. I’ve hidden my fatigue for my entire working life, chalking it up to me being less robust than my friends and coworkers, not able to work as long or hard, having poor stamina, even considering whether I was just lazy. No one around me appeared to struggle with keeping their eyes open while sitting at their desk all day, most days. I felt guilty when I had to book the sick room so I could lay down for 25 minutes from time to time in the afternoon. I was not visibly sick, so why should I deserve the luxury of laying down at 2 pm?

Dealing with GERD and Brain Fog at Work

After booking the sick room at an old job several times in the span of a year, the health and safety lead assigned someone to sit in the room to watch me, which made me consider whether they thought I was a danger to myself or whether they didn’t trust that I wasn’t just slacking off. It was an awkward experience for both myself and the person assigned (imagine someone watching you take a nap), and needless to say I didn’t rest, and never booked the sick room again.

As I got older the fatigue became worse. Brain fog would overcome me, making me completely unable to function or process even simple thoughts. My eyes would close against my will, and I’d have to prop myself up on my elbows at my desk. Not giving in to sleep would eventually make me feel sick to my stomach. Lights were too bright, I felt cold in my bones, and my face and lips would turn pale.

It hit me on the weekends too, especially if we were doing a lot of socializing with friends. I always needed to rest afterwards, even if we had done something very low key. I was also developing GERD and it was getting out of control.

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In the thick of GERD and Brain Fog

I started a regimen of things “just to get me through the day”. That was always the goal - just make it through the next hour, and the next, and so on until I could go home. Walk a lap of the office every 45 minutes, drink too much coffee to the point that my hands shook, listen to ASMR to help me focus, wear a blanket for comfort. I felt better when I kept moving. I’d save organizational or admin tasks so that when I was having a fog and acid reflux day I could retreat to a back room or put in my head phones and disappear.

On the weekends it was easy enough to manage the fatigue; I’d pass out immediately any time I was a passenger in a car. But at work I felt that certain people noticed. On bad days they’d have to explain the same thing to me several times, that on a good day I would have immediately understood. I’d make detailed notes of exactly what I had to do that day because I wouldn’t trust myself to be able to work it out later. My Directors at every job knew that I had anaphylactic food allergies, but were unaware of the implications of living with immune disease. It felt very personal and I had a hard time explaining my situation without sounding like I was making excuses.

Eventually the fatigue and brain fog were accompanied by tinnitus and loss of the ability to hear certain tones. One side of my face often went numb. This happened around age 25, but I was too embarrassed to tell anyone.

I cherished my good days, the days with no acid reflux, fatigue or brain fog, and found they came in streaks. Some days I was really ON and it would last for a day or several or even several weeks. During those periods I felt like I was flying so high. I had no idea what caused the highs, but I was grateful for them.

Searching for Answers

I had a difficult time understanding how my fatigue was related to my immune issues until I saw a medical specialist after leaving the corporate world. My brother and mom have anaphylactic allergies but don’t seem to have other immune issues, so I couldn’t fully understand why this was happening to me and not them.

The specialist was able to determine my malabsorption issues and hormonal imbalance. He was able to put me on a natural supplement regimen that helped with the fatigue, and now I experience it significantly less often, to the point that I have mostly good days. I was told to stop intermittent fasting and to just eat earlier in the evening so that my body had more time to process my meal before I laid down to sleep. This is an important distinction between eating earlier and intermittent fasting; they are not really the same thing. I have heard that fasting can affect hormones so I may speculate that is why my doctor did not want me to continue doing it, as well as my history of distordered eating.

Recovery from GERD and Fatigue

I feel free! Except for the days that I forget to take my pills - one missed day can throw me into a bad week. The contrast of having a bad week now, compared to my new energy level, is so stark. I don’t know how I dealt with fatigue so quietly for so many years.

My body behaves differently than my brother’s and my mom’s because I have different immune issues and health history than they do. As I’ve come to understand, immune disease can take so many forms and affect people in vastly different ways.

Connecting with the chronic illness community on Instagram has helped me discover more about myself and put into words what I have been feeling inside but was too afraid or embarrassed to share. Fatigue is nothing to feel guilty about. And I’m so fortunate that I now have the language to talk about it.

Looking for more content about how I managed my allergies in different work scenarios? Watch the video below about how I managed my allergies as a barista and server, or read my post about how I managed my allergies as a retail worker.