@Skycloud, your suggestion is actually a good one. What about just lying down? Do people get any relief from cog symptoms when horizontal?
Yes I think so. I don’t think I have OI (as others on the forum describe it) but I do now (only figuring all this out over the past few months) find that lying down means I can carry on reading and even commenting on the forum far longer than I can when sitting or standing.
But I'm still not sure, no-one has really talked about everyday memory problems of the kind you get in diseases affecting the hippocampus, like Alzheimer's. This would be things like not remembering that you just saw a person the other day, not remembering whether you had a shower earlier that morning.
That was an early clue: not knowing if i’ve just been to the toilet and having to deduce it from observing that my hands are faintly damp.
(And, oh dear, this comment inserted here: below I responded to this whole paragraph but the screen flicked and I thought this was a new comment I wanted to reply to, not the middle of one I’ve only just answered.)
Early Alzheimer's people mention experiences where suddenly they find themselves in a situation, and they have no clue how they got there - no memory of what just passed before.
Definitely happens. See ME moments thread. Story of my new life.
I get that too, though, despite not getting many other cognitive symptoms (if any really). I'm especially good at swapping cognates (e.g., similar sounding words in French vs. Spanish). Maybe that one's just lack of practice/ageing?
Swapping words in other languages was a sign I was getting fluent for me in the past. I remember being in the car on the way home from the airport, after a year in China and Switzerland, thinking in Mandarin then switching to French and German looking for English somewhere. Took an hour to get into consistent English.
Or I’d be looking for the word in a new language and keep inserting one from French or Mandarin. Or getting lazy in French and using the much simpler Mandarin (skip tense and just use a word to say it’s a completed action: le).
That was all pre illness (unless you subscribe to the idea that my illness -got ‘the flu’ and was unresponsive to voice and touch for 2days- decades ago in China was my starting point).
Swapping unrelated words in English is my new thing. Sometimes there’s a sense to why I picked a word, sometimes it’s just a word that existed in my brain when the one I wanted fled.
The snag is I often forget the symptoms till someone says or describes something and then think: "Oh, yeah! That happens."
Yes! I hate this, it makes me feel like any impartial observer like my doctor will think I’m a hypochondriac. He asked me the other day if I get tingling and numbness in my fingers and toes and I said “yes!” and then my heart sank because surely I can’t say yes to everything.
With limited doctor time, i tend to accidently focus on the new curiousities and forget about the big every day issues.
Sometimes I've been in the phone when my husband comes home. He sees me chatting and wanders off. When he sees me again not 5 minutes later he might ask who was on the phone and I look at him in bemusement - "was someone on the phone? Did it ring?". I might remember in a few hours or I might not.
If we're out and having a decaff coffee somewhere he usually gets the drinks while I go and sit. Sometimes if I'm feeling cognitively overwhelmed I'll stay by his side in case I get lost - it has happened. I'll look at the menu board and tell him what I would like. Then I'll tell him again. And again. Eventually, I might notice that he's got an incredibly patient look on his face and ask him if I've told him before. "Yes, love, but don't worry. Just 5 times."
My husband isn’t quite as sweet or calm as Invisible Man, mine gets ‘out of the blue’ exasperated with me. I’m entirely bewildered with the sudden turn of events. I’m trying to learn that probably it really is me who is being unreasonable.


At the moment it happens though, it’s hard to understand why asking if he could please do x when he gets a moment unless he minds ...goes so horribly wrong.

Just this morning I recall desperately trying to tell him i’m not a nag. ...oh dear. That doesn’t sound right does it?
We can have whole conversations about food shopping or arranging booking the car in for a service or whatever. Conversations that I have been fully participating in - 30 mins later....gone.
I'm not that bad ALL the time, but if I push myself it can get scary.
Yes, it was this sort of thing that made me realise I really was having cognitive difficulties.
And I always reassure myself that because it’s not always like that it can’t be ‘real’ (permanent/irreversible) damage.
I find it hard to recognise general problems in intellectual functioning that are ongoing. As discussed in other threads problems can just become the new normal.
However at those times when my brain actually works well it becomes very apparent that in general it is not working well.
Yes.



The double edged sword of the good day. Balancing.