Speech Errors

[Natka]

Hi guys,

I am 38, male and have a long history of healthy anxiety. This started with heart palpitations when I was a teenager, had a major ALS scare a few years ago due to body-wide twitching and have also had a few cancer scares etc. All have thankfully not led to anything serious. However I am currently experiencing some little memory and speech issues. I can't always remember names of places/celebrities that I used to know. I sometimes feel that there is a word there stuck in the recesses of my memory bank that might better fit during the course of everyday conversation but can't quite find it, and most worryingly of all, lately I have had the odd lapse where I have placed the wrong word in a sentence, saying "balloon" instead of "bubble" to my little daughter or using the name of one work colleague "Matt" instead of "Tim" in mid conversation. I am always aware of these errors and can correct myself immediately afterwards. Other than that I feel some brain fog at times can and find it hard to focus as my mind drifts off to ruminate. My typing isn't as snappy as it used to be too and I sometimes get ahead of myself or leave out words (however none of these issues are yet impacting on my day to day living, nor are they yet occurring too often, just more than before or am I just ultra-conscious of them now that I am obsessing?). When I am focused and concentrated I rarely have difficulty. I am a little stressed at the moment with a second baby on the way and also have had less sleep than normal in recent months. I don't know which of these symptoms I can write off as normal/anxiety-related and which necessitate further investigation?

I actually had a phase of dementia fear about 18 months ago but the dread and rumination on it went away almost as soon as I started on citalopram tablets. Maybe I need to go back on them because I am googling an awful lot on things like semantic dementia and pick's disease which tend to affect young people and can occur randomly with no real history of the disease. Furthermore word retrieval problems and speech errors are one of the symptom. The likelihood is that this is just another one of my occasional health anxiety phases but the chance that it is some kind of early onset dementia is worrying me greatly as I want to be around long enough to watch and recognise my two children grow up and to support them.

Should I go back on the pills and hope these little concerns doesn't deteriorate? They didn't seem to get noticeably worse when this fear first struck over a year and a half ago but maybe it is a very gradual onset. I don't know, I am tired of worrying!

[Beckybecks]

I've found that my long term anxiety has definitely affected my memory and when I'm in a phase of high anxiety it causes me to stutter and say the wrong words. I forget people's names or things that I've known my whole life! I also don't function efficiently in anything that I normally do well and routinely.
The more you focus on these small problems the worse they get.
Our anxiety ridden obsessions leave little space for our brains to concentrate on our daily tasks.
Why not go back on your medication if you found it helped you before.
If not, you need to find other ways to relax and maybe try some CBT therapy exercises to help you with your health anxiety.

[Mojo61]

Anxiety wrecks your memory (don't worry it comes back when you recover) My brain is frazzled and sometimes I can barely string a coherent sentence together let alone remember people's names!

[insideout20]

Omg i have the exact same problems as you

What did doc say ?

[Natka]

I haven't gone to the doctor yet, I presume he will just say I am anxious, lacking sleep, stressed etc. which may well be true. I am just hoping it isn't the start of some neurodegenerative brain disease which of course is where my health anxiety self is focusing on.

However I have read many accounts of people online with similar symptoms and I assume not all of them are experiencing the relatively rare condition that is early onset dementia or similar.

Also I had a similar set of symptoms almost two years ago and it didn't seem to get worse (or at least not that I noticed), in fact once I went on the SSRI's I stopped worrying about these cognitive issues completely.

I may just get another prescription from my GP and I'll try to accept I can't control every possible health outcome and hope that I don't fall into the unlikely category of fronto-temporal dementia or something like that, but instead am simply going through some brain fog episodes that may be caused by a variety of things ranging from poor diet, stress, sleep deprivation, sedentary lifestyle, depression etc.

I can only control what I can control so my resolution is to go back on SSRI's so I don't ruminate or obsessively focus on the worst case scenario outcomes and make some lifestyle changes; more sleep, eating better (anti-inflammatory foods), meditation (to calm the mind and beat stress) and what is sometimes ignored by us folk - find a sense of purpose/belonging, so maybe I could work on some writing projects and socialise a but more.

Oh and even if some tiny unfortunate number of us do end up getting some brain disease let's hope that by the time it really affects us there is some effective treatment. I read yesterday that cannabis is showing promising signs at removing some of the toxic plaques that build up on the brain when one is affected by dementia. So weed for everybody!!!

Honestly though, hope it doesn't come to that and for the vast vast majority of us who get these weird symptoms it's simply being overwhelmed by life. I just need to stop the worrying.

[insideout20]

hi, do you find the same happens when you are typing ? i make errors typing aswell

[Natka]

hi, do you find the same happens when you are typing ? i make errors typing aswell

Yes, I think everyone makes typo's, I tend to write emails quite fast and I don't always check my work, it's happening more lately, I sometimes leave out words or stick two words together or whatever it might be....again the likelihood is that this is related to the fact that our minds are heavily occupied with anxious thoughts and we get sidetracked or are not as focused as we should be.

[insideout20]

thats exactly what i am doing, i keep putting letters in the wrong order

like apple i would type alpple, stupid stuiff like that, i only do it when typing fast not if i was sending a text message, im also stuttering when talking sometimes