Have I got dementia? Or just stress?

[babysteffee]

Please don't tell me this is PND...

Since BEFORE having my youngest baby (6.5 months) I've had a little trouble with forgetfulness, e.g. peoples names, appointments, things that need doing, but this has just got worse and worse, so that now I forget my kids names, and even how to write. I'm doing an OU course and my marks are getting worse and worse (started off with 90% for 1st assignment, down to 52% for 4th) because I just can't remember what I've learned. Sometimes I even forget how to write a letter, e.g. what a 'b' looks like.

Other symtpoms: weight at due date + 1 (5 days before giving birth) = 11st 2lb. Weight loss due to giving birth 9st 7lb. Weight now = 12st 12lb(despite following weight watchers for last four weeks and putting on a stone in that time!!)

• fatigue, sleepiness (10 hrs+)
• lots of illnesses (so far this year had 5 colds, mumps, ear infection)
• tearfulness and irritability NOT depression but possibly BECAUSE everyone insists it is depression. I am HAPPY though.

New symptoms:

• double vision
• pains in arms from typing or holding anything heavy, can't hold toddler anymore
• pains in legs just walking upstairs, followed by wobbly feeling in them
• shortness of breath just walking upstairs (I don't smoke)

These symtpoms are all mild, not like CFS/ME or anything, but enough to interfere with normal life, and I'm worried that I won't be able to go to uni in September and be normal.

Doctor, of course, diagnoses PND. Well, of course, I've got a baby, it must be.

Babysteffee - who contributes more to the overall good of society - radiographers or lawyers - not a hard one really!

Very sweeping statement.

a tongue in cheek statement CD (I am a solicitor not a lawyer basher!) - and meant as a self-deprecating comment to baby steffee commenting on me being very clever for being a solicitor. i felt that the work i did was merely moving money from one bank a/c to another, but appreciate that some solicitors/barristers do v worthwhile work in human rights/family law etc

good

mummytosteven - I think I had just a couple of days of feeling a little bit spaced and then I was fine. Cipralex work very quickly. Cipramil take longer to break down and work.

Thanks Flip, will do. Messages on this thread are reminding me of times when my brain has left me too, like a few weeks ago when the team steriliser broke, so I boiled the babies bottles. Three hours later walked in the kitchen to find a blackened pan full of melted plastic. The house stuck and I was completely oblivious, and still can't remember putting the ring on!! Haven't dared drive a car for a while tbh, so it's obviously affecting day-to-day life and I have a right to the tests?!

Just trying to summon up the courage to see the doctor about it.

As for who benefits society most mummytosteven, my current coursework is on how we have all become subordinate to medicine instead of it being our servant would probably regard radiography as limiting a persons capacity of managing illness themselves. So, who knows?!

starting to get very intellectual this - so how are we meant to diagnose illness then - or is the suggestion that there is too much emphasis on categorisation, and treating a bunch of symptoms rather than the individual? Philosophy and giving people enemas - sounds very demanding training to be a radiographer . How long is the course?

3 years.

Just an alternative view that medicine has taken over religion and the church as a form of social control, and the reductionist approach (reducing the illness into specific localised complaints) is only one way (and typically Western). Other models of diagnosing/treating illness are equally as effective and couldn't care less what the inside organs of the body look like on a scan.

Just wondered how you are doing Babysteffee.Did your Dr do the thyroid tests for you?
Hope you're feeling better now.