Worsening Autism or Early Onset Alzheimer's?
Lately, I've been having some short-term memory problems, which I never really had before. I couldn't even hold the digits of a phone number I was trying to type out for my mother. I've also been forgetting instructions and locations of items while trying to clean this house up for visitors that my parents want to have over today. Even worse, I guess I forgot the limit for toilet paper that a toilet can have in it before a flush and clogged it, further exhausting my already-exhausted-from-marathon-cleaning-the-house mother to the point of tears.
I generally feel like my intelligence is declining, and my repetitive behaviors are worsening. Even my meal choices are becoming repetitive. I'm kinda scared that this decline will continue until I lose skills. Does Autism worsen in the mid-30s, and could I really develop early Alzheimer's. I do drink a lot of diet soda. Does that have something to do with it?
What medications have you been taking? Is there dementia history in your family? I suffer from memory decline, too, but I know it's because of the pills I take. Although I found out that I have over-estimated other people's intelligence a lot. Even 20 year olds are not necessarily better at memorizing stuff. You might be totally normal.
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Aspie mom to two autistic sons (21 & 20 )
auntblabby
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when one is stressed out in general, the brain has to labor a LOT harder just to do the normal things, think of it like an underpowered car on a very hot day that is doing all it can to keep from overheating and it is pressed to climb a 15 degree grade for over an hour plus the a/c is running full blast and it is in 2nd gear and the car is fully loaded with passengers and cargo. a lot of our brains are like that poor underpowered engine in that overburdened car. something's got to give, and often we have to just dump all non-essential loads by the wayside just to keep functioning and not crash.
Autism and Alzheimer's are two completely separate things but they do share a lot of behaviours. But don't worry, I very much doubt you are getting early onset Alzheimer's, as it is very rare to get it the younger you are. Do you have ADHD? That can be the cause of some short-term memory problems too, especially when stressed.
I had a week like this not so long ago, where I kept forgetting things to the point where it was out of character for me, and I worried I might be getting Alzheimer's too (I did actually post a thread about it here like you ).
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Female
She pushed herself to exhaustion with this marathon clean and has been asking me to help her out with the various projects she felt needed to be done. She was moving from task to task in pretty quick succession and seemingly dragging me along to help her out. I considered advising my parents to cancel or postpone this gathering so that my mom (and I) could rest, but decided against it. I was also dealing with my allergies and narcolepsy, which probably weren't helping.
As for medications, I was taking Prozac for over 6 years, but recently stopped because I think it was affecting my cognitive abilities, along with appetite, weight, and sugar consumption. The medication wasn't very well monitored for the longest time because I depend on my parents to take me to doctor appointments. When I moved last year, I switched to another doctor who insists on office visits for prescription renewals. Since my stepdad is busy with my mother's more pressing medical issues, I decided to go ahead and go off the meds. Unfortunately, if I think or say the wrong thing in front of my mom, she said I'll have to go back on. I really don't like to think of my mother as an Ableist because sooner or later, I'll say it to her face and upset her to the point of tears.
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