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I know this is annoying to others...
... when people say they might have something and they are probably just worrying and other people have it worse cuz they have the real thing.

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Hi Fadetoblack,

This is not annoying, you have a valid issue regarding the workings of your brain - the most important part of oneself. My dear Mum suffered terribly with Alzheimer's before we lost her to complications - mercifully. I feel nothing but concern for you as you attempt to navigate this.

Of course, it is also an issue for myself, not now but in the future. My language skills have taken a severe battering, from perfect to searching for simple words, meanings, even spellings and grammar. I tend to ramble and lose track of my thread. But for now I put all this down to high doses of medications and stagnation.

I fear the day when I come to believe my cognitive issues are due to any form of Dementia. I have high hopes my ailing body will pack in long before I reach that time.

So never feel negative in any way about voicing your health concerns anywhere across the Forums.

Dave.

Thanks.

Sometimes I think I'm getting punished by a higher power in the worst way. I've always been good with words. My words have been key to understanding my environment since I'm really bad at reading facial expressions and understanding social cues.

Now I forget "everything", it's like I have no working memory. I was going to hand the dog back to my friend after dog sitting and I brought the leash and my house keys. I DID NOT BRING THE DOG.

When I have to remember more than one thing, something else just disappears.

This probably does not belong in this section anymore but here goes... Half of us Lupus/Lupoid disorders sufferers have iron anemia. Not once, but most of the time. Still, this is not seen as a symptom of Lupus. It is always blamed on something else, like poor eating habits. Then why do half of us have it? Why does it come back over and over?

I've cheated on my checkups since my last clinic lost my labs and their doc verbally abused me and also took back my referral simply by pushing a button making it look like it never existed (because I knew something he didn't.... dang narcissist!). Anyway, it took me almost two years to reschedule my "yearly" checkup somewhere else. I'm tired of being pushed around in this crappy system of ours...

Anyway, came out I had very severe iron deficiency with anemia. Maybe no wonder my brain's Swiss cheese. I didn't know much about the mental side effects of it, but now I do. I've been treated "aggressively", retested and they say I might have more treatment. My fear is now because I do fear quite well!.. is that they will tell me that "Oh, you only needed one treatment, you're fine now!" because I feel the same as before treatment. Out of breath and totally stupid/forgetful.

I do hope you did seek a medical assessment for your symptoms, because they are not typical of normal aging. I know your post is a few years old, but it would be great if you could let us know how you’re doing now, if you come back on sometime.

I have similar symptoms to those you have described, but I only recently considered that there might be something wrong. I think my diagnosis has been delayed because I have ADD/ADHD, which does affect executive function, as well as Fibromyalgia, which can cause brain fog. But, my ADD symptoms were getting much worse, and like you, my working memory barely seems to be working at all. My ADD meds just didn’t seem to be working nearly as well as they used to, even after changing from one medication to another.
Because I thought my grandmother had Alzheimer’s, my psychiatrist referred me for a brain MRI and a SPECT scan. He didn’t expect to see much, but thought it would at least give a baseline to compare against, as I age (I’m currently 51).

Unfortunately, the SPECT scan, in particular, was abnormal, and the radiologist’s comment was that the scan “shows a pattern of hypoperfusion of a neurodegenerative disorder such as Alzheimer’s disease.”

I’m still going through the diagnostic process, but as the hypoperfusion is primarily in the frontotemporal region of the brain, combined with the type of symptoms I have, I think it’s very much more likely that I have Frontotemporal Dementia than AD.


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