Hi all,

This is my first new thread (other than the welcome post in the general forum) so bear with me.

For context, I’m taking Lithium 600mg 2x/day, Levothyroxine 100mcg, Fish oil, and Seroquel 50mg.

I had quite the manic episode, due to the fact that I used a rescue inhaler (because I couldn’t breathe). I’m currently mostly back to normal in terms of mood, but I have the worst case of fog brain. I’ve had this before after manic episodes, but usually I don’t have anything else to do, because I’m so manic I’ve dropped out of college for that term or whatever. This time around, my manic days were thankfully during Thanksgiving break, but I’m going back tomorrow morning. Currently, I’m having trouble reading more than a page of text or concentrating for more than 10 minutes. I went to Walmart and after 20 minutes I got really overwhelmed by all the colors. Everything seemed too bright. My head feels like it’s full of cotton or Jell-O. I can do useful work for 10-20 minutes at a time, but then I can’t even comprehend what’s going on or speak in full sentences.

Part of the problem is, it seems like my brain was overstimulated by the brief and intense mania. I really don’t seem to be having any mood issues currently. Just cognition issues. When I’ve really experienced these cognition issues before, it’s been in the context of major depression. It seems weirdly out of context.

Does anyone have any advice for how to recover from this? I have 2 weeks of school (starting tomorrow) that end in final exams, and it would be nice to be able to concentrate. I’m not against making arrangements with professors, but I have already had to do that for physical health reasons this semester, and I don’t want to be that annoying student.

I just don’t know if my brain will be able to recover in time!

Hoping someone has a helpful hint of what to do - mood seems fine, and meds seem fine, so I'd rather not mess with the meds I'm already taking.

~unicornlady