Memory Less Acute?

I never had a good memory for names, and now it's abysmal. Many thanks to family and friends who rattle off lists of names of actors, opera singers, politicians, even family members, to help me find the name I'm struggling to say.

The book (by Oliver Sachs) and film, "Awakening," come to mind often. Sometimes people would become very still, and be stuck like that unless someone touched them, jogged them somehow. I'm experiencing a very faint shadow of that stuckness at times.

Stoicism has not served me well in the past. "Everybody has problems," does not justify enduring difficulties without finding out if something can be done. The following quote from Hep C Nomads, a forum, stirs me again.



Post tx Problems

Postby ( ) » Thu Aug 13, 2009 9:11 am
Hi Gang. :)

I did two courses of tx and found it very difficult both times to return to the previous level of "mental agility" that I was accustomed to pre tx.
At first I suspected that I was simply getting old and the "mental fog", the "confusion" and "appalling memory" I was experiencing was due to nothing more sinister than that.
The reason I'm posting this is because I'm curious as to how many of us have experienced this state of affairs because I've just read this.

"I have been treated with interferon and ribivirian in 3 seperate treatments. I was a courier, avid reader, the family navigator from the age of 8 on, self taught in many areas.
As a child, my father made me go with my mother when we moved to a new base in the military, I ALWAYS naturally knew how to get home. Before treatment I was a courier in the St Louis area because I loved to drive and one trip to deliver, the route was a permant memory.

Last month I had an appointment at a Dr.’s office in Lexington KY, I actually looked at the map to make sure I knew where I was going…….. 2 hours later I was in the middle of a panic attack and late for my appointment after leaving early enough to stop at the mall on my way. I couldnt remember with a map how to get there, and had to call the Dr’s and get directions from where I was.

I can read a book, and if I put it down before I’m finished, I have to back up a page or 2 so I know what I was reading. I guess, looking on the bright side if there is one, I can now save money on books, because I can read the same book 3 months later, and not have a clue how it ends, untill I read it again.

So how do I get my memory back…… E Culli

Dr. Silverman responds:

Both you and Dennis S (author of comment #4, above) experienced cognitive deterioration after undergoing ribavirin therapy. Just like certain drugs that are commonly used as chemotherapy agents in the treatment of cancer, ribavirin is a “nucleoside analog” — a class of drugs resembling nucleic acids, which interfere with synthesis of DNA or RNA, or both. And just like many chemotherapy agents, ribavirin can cause side effects like gastrointestinal distress, anemia, hair loss, weight loss, fatigue, mutations leading to birth defects and generalized discomfort. Use of the drug in patients undergoing treatment for viral infections has also been associated with depression, insomnia and impairment of memory and concentration.

Though doctors may say to either of you that what you went through “was not chemo,” your brain may feel that’s a “distinction without a difference.” And for doctors to say that “even if it were. you would have recovered by now,” requires them to ignore the many other people who are also 10 years out (or longer) from their last dose of cancer therapies but who continue to have problems with memory, concentration and other cognitive abilities.

The bottom line is this: though it is not uncommon, unfortunately, for the kinds of symptoms you have experienced to be trivialized or brushed aside by some doctors — whether occurring after chemotherapy for cancer, or after ribavirin+interferon therapy for hepatitis C — it doesn’t mean that your symptoms are not entirely real, and it doesn’t mean that they are not related to the therapy you received.

It may mean that you need to talk to a different doctor, one who will take your symptoms seriously and steer you towards therapeutic approaches aimed at achieving your recovery from them. In the meantime, as a head-start in addressing the issue, “how do I get my memory back?” please see my response to Bob H.’s comment (#1), above."

If this sounds familiar, and I suspect it does, then you can find the passage I've quoted here.

http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/ ... ts-memory/