Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Issues of Aging Memory Loss

I may have posted some of this before. If so - apologies. Oh, I recently turned 86. I have a neurosurgeon that the VA has me going to. I see him about every year and a half. He asks me a bunch of questions and gives me tests and sends me on my way after I ask him questions about what is going on.

My dad's wife once told me that my dad had Alzheimer's. At the time there wasn't really anybody in town who was competent to actually diagnose that so I sent both of them up to Seattle to get tested. She was fine and my dad had memory problems. At the end he didn't really even know where he was or who he was but there was no dementia. After I got tested I was told that I was not a candidate for Alzheimer but I did have some memory problems. Since then (about 5 years ago) my memory problems have become more defined so I thought I would pass on some of the stuff I now know about.

My problem with my memory has more to do with my memory span than my actual memory. What happens is that I can no longer deal with multiple things. I used to be able to balance several conversations at the same time, for instance. That is no longer the case. If I am talking to somebody, and somebody interrupts me, I will likely forget my stream of thought and have no clue what I was talking about! If anybody is having something like this going on its NOT Alzheimer! As far as I know there is really no solution to this one and is what it is. The best plan is to understand what is going on and proceed with your life! I also checked for existing stuff being sold for memory. The most popular is Prevagin. If you google it you will find out that there is no basis for the claims made by this one and doesn't really help. Those that think it does are deluded (sorry). Fish oil may help and may not but there is a lot more studies with that than Prevagin.

My personal view is that the trick is to understand what is going on then get advise as to how to deal with it. For myself I have found that just almost understanding what I am dealing with has been half the problem. I can no longer deal with interruptions, for instance. If I get interrupted whatever I was doing is forgotten, pure and simple. I also have serious speech aphasia (forgetting words). This one is constant and frustrating. If you have access to something like google you can ask and chances are you will find the missing word! I also have no problem remembering things in the past, say, 40 or 50 years which I have always wondered why and about.

Anyway, I thought I would throw this in for those of you who might be aging with minor problems. Oh, you will also learn that to say "where was I" more and more as time goes on (I also remember a song by that name!)

Sleep apnea is a big factor in member loss. Just saying.

I use google multiple times a day to look up word spelling or the names I block on. I do remember what I'm looking for, but the name escapes me temporarily. The way I look at it, is that computers are more and more auxiliary storage for my brain. Fine with me. I have experienced tons of stuff not worth primary memory storage. Secondary storage (like google) is fine.

I think a lot of the American public is going to be doing that more and more in the future. So many people have brain problems from Long Covid now, it's sad. This may be one of the most common symptoms, and most of these victims had asymptomatic cases. So they may not even be aware they had it. It's not like young athletes who can't run up and down the soccer pitch for a whole game any more.

I can still do Level 6 Sodokus, so my logic is working fine. Taking 3.5 mg Melatonin every night, so I'm getting a lot more sleep than I used to. But I have to google for "Melatonin" every time I want to name it! Maybe it's just swiss cheese brain from my MS.

My bipap machine deals with that

Welcome! What you are talking about is (again) Speech Aphasia. Its not gonna get better. If you are not used to it yet you will be! Just one of them things.

Then there is tennitus. As far as I can tell there is no cure but it really doesn't interfere with hearing its just one of them things you can get used to. Its kinda interesting. There are a pile of the famous who also have it.

I'm so deaf I can't hear the tinnitus anymore.

Can't tell you how often I open a new tab to Google something and forget what I was gonna Google...

But I smoke a lot of weed.

First tinnitus, that really doesn't have much to do with hearing - folks just assume that is the case as it seems it does. You can google that one.

When you start to do something, and then forget you what you were going to do its not that you forgot what you were doing. What happened is that you lost your train of thought because you were somehow interrupted. This is something that happens when you get older - you can no longer do several things at the same time and you are blaming your memory. All being said, however, it really makes no difference.

A few years ago I bought myself a digital voice recorder and carry it everyplace. If I see, hear, or think of something that I want to remember I tell my recorder and, later, it tells me what I recorded. That works for me. Digital voice recorders are cheap. Lots of them on EBAY for the right price.

Smoking will just wreck your lungs, not your memory. After I got stuck with stuff like bi-pap machines, etc. I quit smoking ANYTHING! Got myself a magical butter machine and solved that one <G> I also learned something. When you have lung problems - you have lung problems for the rest of your life and there is no going back. I quit over 20 years ago and still have problems from smoking. I tried to quit smoking about 10,000 times and failed. I read all about it. If you can quit for 2 weeks the only other thing you have to beat is the habit which is also not real easy. To do the 2 week thing I went to a doctor and whined about my throat (forget what I said). The doctor peered in and decided that the best thing to do was to take everything out of my throat that isn't really necessary. I still had my tonsils, that thing that hang down from the top of the throat, etc. After that I couldn't eat anything but soup for two weeks and was not interested in smoking either (it was a miserable two weeks but I survived). I know that all sounds a bit insane. On the other side I got smoking under control (no more smoking) and didn't miss the stuff the doctor took out.

I used to have horrible tinnitus, I don't anymore. I quit cigarettes ten years or so ago. Took up hookah for a few years, quit that so I could afford weed.

My lungs are shot, but so is the rest of me. I still bum cigarettes every chance I get. I vape weed so the lung damage is fairly minimal.

Did the tinnitus just go away or did you cause it to go away? If you did something what did you do?

Just discovered this thread. Perhaps I should peruse the board more than I do other than the very first thread. So yeah my lungs are shot too. I used to smoke a s*** load of pot from my mid to late teens into my mid-20s. Grew it too on the Big Island. And it is said that the pot today is so much stronger than it was back then. That is total bullshit… when we used to grow that stuff if you could take two deep hits of it you were pretty amazing. Approaching speechless I might say. Never smoked cigarettes because nicotine would cause a huge allergic action reaction in me. I suppose I should pray to Lono for that. But I loved that Pakalolo back then.

Long story short I developed severe asthma and even to this day I take the Advair to 250-50 discus but it’ll be one or two puffs a day to keep the asthma at bay. Or is it bey?

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