Cognitive issues-what are yours?

Everyday living
21

Hiya

I’ve had loads of cognitive problems, mainly to do with short term memory, like a lot of people, but I also have problems with planning tasks etc.

I’ve had a couple of times when I’ve made several cups of tea for myself (made a cup, sat down, ooo I fancy a cup of tea, made a cup, sat down and only when I ran out of cups did I notice that I already had 6 cups of hot tea lined up on the counter!!!).

I’ve also forgotten how to get somewhere when I’ve been driving…Happily driving along to a friends house or supermarket, got 1/2 way there and thought 'I’ve never been here before, so turned back to the last place a remember and start again, only to end up on the same road that I don’t remember and feeling completely lost again. Eventually I’d carry on down the road and eventually get to a point that I remember again and be ok.

I now use a list when I go shopping and don’t buy anything that’s not on the list. I learned that after building up enough coffee and toilet rolls to last a year, after forgetting that I bought them on the last trip to the shops (and the time before that)!

I also struggle when talking, remembering what I’m saying and have been known to drop the word elephant into conversation at random…that always goes down well! lol Also when making tea, I can forget 1/2 way through what I’m doing and how to do it.

I’ve managed to find lots of ways of dealing with most things, like using reminders in my phone, making lists and having sat nav on standby and make sure if I start to do a bit squiffy, I go away from what ever I’m doing and take a break for a few mins, I can normally go back to it and carry on.

Sue

22

smh ~ Now that is really interesting, probably just coincidence, but the word ‘elephant’ is one I have used at the wrong time several times!! How strange is that??? . …

23

Chelsea Girl

It’s strange isn’t it. I met another lady who said the same, when I was on a cognitive course a few years ago. We thought we were the only ones, I wonder what it is about the word (or your brain) that makes it just fall out of your mouth. ;o)

Sue

x

24

Hello Eski,

I have several cognative problems with my MS. Most members of my family are understanding with this. I very often forget what on earth I was talking about half (or less!) way through a sentence. I do see a neurological psychologist for this, and she is a great help, but I just can’t help but feel as if she is there just to alay my fears. Yes, I now know that MS can cause this, but as there is absolutely diddly-squit that can be done about it, then I do often feel very much alone.

I think that my worst symptom has to be a very poor memory for faces. I must often offend people because I just don’t recognise them. My blank face is then often met with a ‘well if you can’t even be bothered to remember me, then I won’t remember you’ type of face from them!

I feel for anyone who is in the same position,

Moira

25

i often struggle with ‘what day is it’, where am I supposed to go, where did I put so and so? In fact the more fatigued I am the worse it gets. Also under stress Im dreadful plus I tend to drop things and walk dreadfully when affected, thus one denotes Im about to go downhill.

Cognitive issues seem to affect a lot of msers, some permanently others fleeting but its not a nice symptom. I did ask if I suffered alzheimers at one point but nah - ms related.

We cannot be brilliant at all times but we are lovely just the same (:o)

bren

x

26

SYNONYM!!! (Googled it) x

27

Memory, concentration, stumble over words and muddle speech. I have found (for a good few years), that it is hard to take in information from people, particularly on the phone. My brain does not work quickly enough and can never find the word I am looking for when dealing with ‘normal’ people.

I found that I ‘drift off’ at times and therefore we decided that I should not drive any more. (2 minor accidents was enough). I do use a brain trainer machine which has helped me to improve the range of words that I remember but like a lot of things to do with MS, I have found that you have to continually work at it and sometimes you get nowhere but I keep trying.

Wendy

x

28

I am 45 on friday I think thats my right age, I feel like I wrote all of the above comments, I used to be able to spell perfectly, used to be able to speak with out getting stuck mid-sentence. oh the frustration of not noing if its my age or MS, as I have wrote this I have had to correct spelling mistakes, add the words that I said in my head but forgot to type, oh what a journey my mind and body takes me on everyday. Juliet

29

I think most of my cognitive issues actualy stem from fatigue!

30

Mine are more pronounced with the fatigue. I once came home with 2 cartons of milk as I didn’t remember or even recognise the milk in my basket. I forget words, drift off mid sentence, forget to give my son his epilepsy medication, gt directionally challenged in a familiar place, and I used to have a really good memory. I never get my childrens names right, I have 2 daughters, a step daughter and a son. I quite frequently tell him he is a good girl, then realise as soon as its left my mouth. I try to make a joke of it.

The worst thing is I am always really terrified I will call my partner by my ex husbands name! Hasn’t happened to his face yet, but I have forgotten myself and talked about something my partner has been doing but said that my ex did it!

31

One good thing about it is I often watch films and tv programmes and don’t remember what happens at the end, I can therefore watch and enjoy them again. This happens quite often.

I watched a film last year (Taking lives with Angelina Jolie and didn’t remember until the last 5 minutes that I’d seen it before and was once again surprised at the twist at the end of the film!

Wendy

x

32

Corkie - the film thing has been a standard joke in my house about me ~ I often watch a film and swear that I have never ever watched it before ~ but apparently I have! and watching series on the tv, i always forget what has happened before and am eternally grateful for the catch up bit at the beginning on some of them, like holby and casualty!

I like to think we are getting extremely good value for money with the films!!

33

My biggest issue at the moment is concentration , i am currently off sick and on A/Ds and i managed to drive to macdonalds which was a struggle and then when asked what i wanted couldnt remember , then ordered the wrong item , then gave the wrong money , then put my straw in with the paper on then struggled driving back like a 90 year old learner . Will it get easier or is it the anxiety , depression , the meds or my m.s , my wife says i need to go back to work !?! Im a field based engineer , she says i look fine !! I can talk relatively well and type but ask me to listen to tv and do anything or talk on phone while writing down what they say and im buggered.

34

a really interesting thread, I recognise myself in so much! …making endless cups of tea, always forgetting things, giving the wrong change, buying the same thing twice only to find I’ve already got it…- and what day is it? in which month? - actually, I lost my job as uni lecturer as I couldn’t remember the students names…not to mention I constantly get lost, even in my own neighbourhood…

35

why has this old thread reappeared,the date it was posted is febuary 2012 !!!

its over 3 year old lol.

36

I think my MS has affected me more cognitively than physically. I had a bunch of tests done by a lovely neuropsychologist, her tests highlighted how my short-term memory’s pretty much fried, she also pinpointed executive dysfunction as a problem for me, which impacts on a whole bunch of things, my brain really like to say NOPE when I want it to do something! Conversely, it has other moments when it decides I need to do a thing, and I have to do whatever this thing is, IMMEDIATELY. The last time it did that it was last weekend, which was cooking a meal at 1:38 in the morning…it tasted good but seriously brain, it’s bedtime, cut that out!

My focus/concentration is pretty terrible right now (it’s been bad for several years, but since my current relapse it’s got worse). I’m ringing my mum a lot, because if I think of something that I want to talk to her about I need to ring her right that instant, or I’ll forget. I could write it down, but writing anything down gives the executive function troll a chance to just sit and look at it and not let me actually do it.

I like to call this stuff Chronic Involuntary Procrastination. Really hoping that when I go on the Lemtrada I’ll see some eventual improvement in this area.

I’ll join the tea issues group! I tend to get halfway through making a cuppa then wander off. I don’t ever remember that I was making a drink, I just see it sat there stewing the next time I go into the kitchen. Also, since this last relapse I can’t for the life of me remember if I’ve put sugar in it or not. Many times I’ve been absolutely convinced that I didn’t put sugar in it, but on tasting find I had. Now I make it in a pot so I can SEE the sugar in the mug.

Fixating/sticking on things too, yep. I do notice when I’m doing this (sometimes this is eventually) and it tends to be more when I’m playing games online. The sudden realisation that I don’t have to do something that way over and over again, and then sit watching myself die…

Reading big blocks of text is something brain struggles with, it doesn’t want to process anything more than nice paragraphs. Which makes reading some forum posts tough.

My spelling went out the window rapidly. I have a habit now of putting the wrong ending on words, a lot, -ing instead of -ed, etc. Also using entirely the wrong word, maybe instead of many is a common one. Sometimes I’ve written stuff and even I’ve not been about to understand it after hitting submit

I liken my processing speeds to some old Windows 98 desktop, similar reaction times too! The tip-of-the-tongue word loss thing gets worse the longer I’m in conversation. Once it’s reared its head it’s gonna pop out and say hi a number of times until I stop talking and brain gets to recharge.

Sometimes when I’m reading a sentence just will not make sense, no matter how many times I read it. Also, the built-in spell check that we all have, that fixes typos in books without us realising, no longer works for me. I thought I was going insane when I read a book that I’ve read many times before, and suddenly there’s all these typos that I’d never noticed before; and the same happened in each subsequent book. Then I realised what was going on!

This is getting a bit long-winded isn’t it, time to hit post!

2 Likes
37

what a brilliant post! sounds so much like myself the Ms is affecting my brain far more than anything else. Constantly doing stupid things which I can’t understand nor can any body else, but completely invisible…as physically I am not affected.

38

I am fifty nine and my eldest brother is seventy two if you could hear us having a conversation together we would both be certified, he starts out then forgets his thread, I finish for him and then the role is reversed. Trouble comes she neither of us remember, we then start another conversation, when he goes home of course we remember the word or place we were struggling for. He gets home and phones to tell me or vice versa. It really is amusing.

I often forget what I had for dinner yesterday but can remember work twenty years ago.

It’s life unfortunately I don’t think it’s age related because in my head I am still seventeen

Don

2 Likes
39

Oh! My post’s visible already? I thought it was gonna be sat in the moderation queue until Monday :open_mouth:

Ginger, thanks! Do you manage to laugh at the stupid things that you do? I find I tend to treat the broken part of my brain as a separate entity; that was nothing to do with me, I didn’t do that, it was Brainbork, blame them! Another thing it likes to do lately is jump in with a totally ludicrous reason for something; a sound, a smell, etc., before the non-broken part has got to figure out what something actually is. Of course I can’t remember a single example, but that’s par for the course, isn’t it! But I regularly end up saying things like, “No, Brain, that’s not an earthquake, it’s just the bins being emptied…” and I do talk to it when it does stuff like that, lol.

You sound positive, Don, that’s great :smiley: One of the reasons I signed up here was to be able to interact with fellow suffers to prevent me from sinking into feeling too sorry for myself. Does your brother have MS too, or is his brain just doing the 70 year old thing?

40

Hi all

I also recognise some of these too. However I’m 49 and in the menopause, my friends are too but they don’t have Ms.

They also have a lot of these memory lapses, one friend said she was reading and completely forgot each page that she had just read.

My best friend and I often go to the cinema you should hear our conversation after, whatsa ma called was good wasn’t he,especially after he killed oh you know thingy, and shall we go and see um! Um! You know the one I mean! Next time.

But I do recognise the light switch thing! Fumberling for them in the middle of the night on the wrong side of the wall.

And saying a completely wrong word in the middle of a sentence mine funnily enough is CARROT!