I have a question for the medico folks

[DammitJanet]

I want to pick your brains if you would allow me to do so.

For the sake of easiness for me, i am not going to worry to much abut speling if domt minf because im doing it in the dark and my its not realcomfy...lol.


ok, the real issue is that seem to be having some troooouble woth what woul call wrd retreival issues when talking. know what I want to say but cannot for the everloving life of mr grt th right word out. I will go all around aword to come to it. Like wastrying to get to the name of a business that fixes cracks in windows. I think its called something loe safelfe or smething lke that. I hhave a little crack in the wndsheild of the toyota truck. We assume it must have gotton thete during the ce storms. I pointed it out to tony and said oh look we have a thingy. A thingy? Yes...you know, one of those thngs that we need to get the trucks out and put the (picture hands making two cup like motions) things on the wndows and Im still stryig to think of the name of the company so I continue on explainining what I mean! Eventually tony stops me because he has long before he knows knew I was talkng about Safelife or something like but it was fun to watch struggle! I could kill him then.

Another thing I am worrying about is more weird.Did anyone see Harry's Law with that strange litthe DA who had that really bad habit of saying everything double? Well thats me now except I can do it four or five time wth out realizeing it. Its bad.

I forget things. I use memory aids that helps if the stupid phone actually works!

 

[InsaneCdn]

Janet - good news and bad news... depending on how you want to look at it...

1) word-retreival problems can be caused by learning disabilities... I'd have to go get my "book" and look it up again, but its definitely a real, diagnosis-able learning disability. Not that you can cure it - but it helps to know what it is, so hang on, I'll go look it up and edit this post afterwards. AHHH... there it is. Per "Smart Kids with School Problems"... a Learning Disability (LD) called "dysnomia". It affects speaking, writing, listening, reading... the faster you have to come up with the answer, the worse it is, and one-word answers are absolutely the worst.

2) the other possibility that comes to mind, because of either advancing age and/or the extra years that our difficult child's take off our mental health... is "alzheimer's"...

or maybe both?

 

[Hound dog]

Janet

Is this new?

That has to be the first question because if it's new you need to see the doctor about it. That is one of the first indications of a TIA or stroke. So if new, get yourself checked asap and make sure they do an MRI.

If it's not new, it's most likely linked to the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). I don't do the double thing. I do, however do the "thingy" with the little dance thing while trying to get the d*mn word to come to the empty hole that seems to pop into my brain every now and again. And if it makes you feel better.....my family also thinks it's quite funny to let me get through the whole spiel before inserting the word for me. ugh

Mine is not doubling or repeating words. Mine is reversing words or substituting words that make no sense. Not much fun to have nonsense come flowing out of your mouth. lol

Not going to say anymore until you answer that new part, cuz you got me worried.

Hugs

 

[flutterby]

I do this, too, Janet. I've been told I repeat myself a lot, struggle to find words (and often give up - lots of stuff are called "thingies"), and use the wrong pronouns or switch words around. It started with all of my other fun stuff. Like one time I was trying to say, "E's former neighbor..." and it kept coming out, "Neighbor's former E..." and I couldn't fix it. I could hear it, knew it was wrong, but couldn't get it to come out right. The more fatigue, the worse it is. I also struggle to pronounce some words that I used to - or I can pronounce them sometimes but not others. The longer it's gone on, the less I catch the mistakes.

I know that this started before the meningitis. We were a pair on the phone. LOL Has it gotten suddenly worse?

I believe it's called aphasia.

 

[flutterby]

And, Good Lord, whatever you do don't google "forgetting words" or anything along those lines, which I had to do cause I couldn't remember the word "aphasia". You'll get all kinds of sites on Alzheimer's, then you'll click on it and read the 10 warning signs, and go, "Holy Hell! I have more than half of those!" Or, at least that's what I did.

 

[DammitJanet]

well according to the neuropsychologist it wasnt aphasia because I knew what the word was and if I said the word I was to smart o have it..sigh. Lousy np but I doubt I could get another onefor awhile since that one was in 4/09.

I do fear alzheimers. Truly. i think that is why tony is so hard on me too because he doesnt want me to have it either. We have lived this nightmare twice before and I have told him what I will do if I get that diagnosis.

 

[flutterby]

From my understanding, aphasia covers a lot of area - like a spectrum disorder does - and neurologists typically don't use the term unless it's more severe. IOW, they've used that word with me, but it hasn't ended up in a report. in my humble opinion, that does a disservice to those with a less severe form for a number of reasons, including missing possible warning signs and/or symptoms. A 33 year old woman should not be getting the subject and predicate of a sentence turned around and not be able to fix it.

Aphasia has nothing to do with intelligence. And it is only but one warning sign of alzheimer's, and can be indicative of a whole host of other things.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/aphasia.html

 

[Hound dog]

Well since you spoke to the neuro psychiatric about it, I'm going to take it that it isn't new, which has me feeling better.

If you had some trouble with it prior to the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), it wouldn't be far fetched that the injury made it worse. That doesn't mean you have alzheimers. I bet stress and being under pressure probably doesn't help it either. If I feel put on the spot.....like someone asking me quick or just out of the blue.......I've got the gaping black hole thing almost everytime. If I'm lead up to it, sometimes I can manage to get it out. And rarer still is the time it will come without effort.

Me? I went to the store last week with no money. I had my purse and my wallet. I managed to somehow in all my preparation to go out, to leave the money at home. ugh That was interesting. not.

husband asked me some trivial question this afternoon. I went to answer him.......and I still don't know what came out of my mouth 3 or so times in a row. By then he'd figured out, or told me he did, what I meant so I just gave up. That sort of thing comes in spells. I have bad days and not so bad days. Have not noticed any pattern to see if there is any reason one day should be any better than another.

I've also noticed that I've become very dependent on spell checker......good thing too because often I can't figure out why a word is spelled wrong even when I see their correction. sigh.

 

[Marguerite]

Alzheimer's isn't forgetting where you left the car keys, it's forgetting what car keys are for.

Janet, get a referral to a speech pathologist for assessment. it will put your mind at rest. And they may be able to give you some exercises that can help. difficult child 3 has similar problems, so does easy child 2/difficult child 2 (despite her being in the top 1% of the population for IQ and vocabulary).


Marg

Marg

 

[Marguerite]

Yeah, I know. I put my name in twice. As my sister would say, I sound like a dog with a harelip...

Marg

 

[hearts and roses]

I often say the wrong words while speaking, such as "Remember when you're loading up the bags to put the rocks on top"...meaning, "Remember when you're loading up the bags to put the bread/eggs on top". Or, "When I was driving the car into the tire place, seat went completely flat" meaning tire obviously. I once told H I needed a new toilet brush because mine wasn't cleaning my teeth well anymore! Or I will say something to easy child about making dinner, but instead of saying dinner I will ask her to make breakfast (at 7PM). Sometimes when I'm speaking, at word or even an entire phrase will just blank from my mind. Those things are scary, but when I've discussed this with my Dr she says it's due to several factors, are you ready? She states it can be caused by arteriosclerosis (or, hardening of the arteries, excessive plaque in the arteries), high cholesterol, lack of adequate restful sleep, not eating a balanced diet, lack of exercise, and stress. I have all that so in my case it's no surprise.

It does not necessarily mean AH, however, I am inclined to agree with Lisa that it could be caused by your past medical history. I would definitely see a DR to at least go over your symptoms with him/her.

 

[timer lady]

Janet, honey.....I've had meningitis & encephalitis. Still struggling to find words or use the wrong words or words just pop up out of no where.

Don't borrow trouble that may not be there. Speech therapy is a good idea; I carry a LifeScribe (pulse) pen to help me remember all that's said during any & all meetings or appointments. I use memory aids along with word finding aids. If I cannot find a word I use the next best thing. My speech therapist helped me come up with words I can use when I can't find the one I want. I work on that daily.

15 minutes at a time, Janet, 15 minutes at a time.

 

[ski10]

Hi Janet,
As you know I'm really new here so don't really know your story or what's happened to you so I may be way off here but, you might want to look at the symptoms for peri-menopause/menopause, switching words around, sentences coming out wrong are symptoms, not sure if it's allowed here but if you go to this website:

Power-surge.com ........ you will see many, many posts about this, so many women have the same thing.

I will say things like "Can you put the dog in the dog dish" when I mean "can you put the food in the dog dish" and my words jumble all the time, and if i'm trying to say something, often I can't get the right words out.

Until I found that site I thought something was really wrong and I don't think many women or Dr's know of it.
Anyway, thought I'd throw it out there, take care.

 

[Wiped Out]

Janet,
Could it be related to the Topamax?

 

[HaoZi]

know what I want to say but cannot for the everloving life of mr grt th right word out

This is also a known side-effect of Topamax, and why many people on it refer to it as "Stupimax" or some such. Kiddo is also having this problem, and even just handling it (hers has to be split) I get more short-term memory issues and lose words.

 

[flutterby]

I've heard it called Dopamax, too. I couldn't remember if you took Topamax or not, so I didn't mention it, but it would make sense, too. Pain issues cause all kinds of cognitive issues. Studies have shown that people with chronic pain have areas of their brain active all the time that normally are not - or something like that. Fatigue will make it worse. All kinds of things.

 

[DammitJanet]

I know topamax can do this but I have been on it since like 2001 and its just now getting to be a real issue. Sure it was a slight issue when I started the topamax but nothing like this. We have really started to notice a huge issue with the repeating this after my meningitis and then the complete word loss in the last year or so and its getting really bad in the last six months. Now that I think about it, that could be about the time I changed pain medication. I have just changed to another one. Maybe I will see a change for the better.

 

[Hound dog]

The pain medications can be the cause.

I'd never given it a thought really until they had to keep increasing mils pain medications. With each significant increase in dosage, I saw noticeable changes in her speech.

I hope the new pain medication works better.

 

[DammitJanet]

I hope it was the pain medications. They had put me on methadone when I started at the pain management clinic and it seemed like it helped at first but after a short time my joint pain was getting worse and I didnt want to increase the dose and was asking if there was anything else we could do to treat the joint issues besides simply medicate them. Answer...not there. Well, since the methadone wasnt doing such a hot job we decided to Difficult Child it and start me on something else, choices either a b or c. I took MS Contin which is a long acting morphine sulfate. I begged for the lowest possible dose which I was given. I have always kept these medications in my back pocket because I knew eventually the day would come and I guess its here. I despise the idea of being on morphine each day..just hate it. Thankfully I dont feel anything when I take the pill or I would be very unhappy. I think it is helping but I started on it about a week or so before this whole tooth thing happened and I have been in agony with that so its hard to know just how well anything is doing right now since I am one really grumpy and in pain person right now. You would thing that nothing would hurt on me when I am taking as much junk as I am taking right now! 15 mgs long acting morphine twice a day and 5 mgs of vicodin every 6 hours! But no...I still hurt and I am still wide awake in pain...lol. I have the tolerance of a horse.

 

[Hound dog]

Janet you're wise to attempt to keep the pain medication dosage at the lowest dose that will manage your pain, because the body does develop a tolerance for it and over time it takes increased doses for it to work the same.

How is the tooth healing?? I'd think you'd be having some relief by now, it's been a while now hasn't it?