The speaking of B12.. If you are deficient to the point of having Anemia, it affects your memory and cognitive skills.  Has little to nothing to do with having Bipolar.  Yet, if you have Bipolar with it's own cognitive difficulties and you also have B12 anemia... you have a double whop of cognitive dysfunction.

I'll be 45 in October and I have the brain workings of an 80 year old.  How do I know this?  My father is 80.  I am as forgetful, confused, and disoriented as he is.  There are days I literally have to think of what my own name is and I do not remember much of my childhood anymore.

I used to be a Pharmacy Technician in my day.  I could not tell you one ioda now.  I simply do not remember.  I once studied Computer Programming back when Bill Gates was not even known yet.. have no ability to remember any details, not 1.

I work with numbers and reports and $ for a local MH agency (ironic, I know) and I have deadlines each week.  Whereas a year ago I was fairly up on point... I can't remember, turn in reports 1/2 completed but only because I thought I had them finished, and I'm making more and more common mistakes at the $ figuring.  Folks are being kind but that will last only so long.

I'm more agitated and prone to bursts of anger.  My thoughts become more jumbled and twisted.  I'm having more auditory and visual "disturbances" of a psychotic nature (what the pdocs call them with me).  I'm having more anxiety and even more frequently, panic attacks than I used to. 

Find me in a fast and furious situation at the front desk with phones and people coming at me... or even at the local Walmart... and I want to run and scream.  I can't process it.  I have no patience, no tolerance, it's all to fast and I become so confused so quickly and I'm so utterly exhausted that I want to lay down. 

My memory loss, inability to focus or concentrate, word recall and speech deficits, and inability to calculate simple math at times... is not ALL med driven.  I am on a lower than most anti-convulsant for seizure episodes BUT even the neurologist does not think it high enough to cause the level of dysfunctioning I'm having - or the assistance for the seizures, by the way.  She wants me to go higher but the higher I go the more dimmer I become.

As it is... I fear early dementia or alzheimer's.  I'm already diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, meaning that my age vs. my cognitive abilities are out of whack for each other. 

Is it kindling of the Bipolar?  Is it the B12 anemia and Iron anemia I've also been diagnosed with recently?  Is it the constant poverty, chaos of never knowing if I have a job, and the always ongoing stress I'm finding myself under thus, meaning ongoing and chronic life stressors and triggers? 

I am beginning to believe it is all of it, combined.

Donna-1

8/29/11 4:06pm

Tabby, I went through several years of what you describe, from about age 37-46.  Accounting was one of my main job tasks, plus I was an administrative assistant for 12 yrs doing just about every task you can think of, from proofreading, hiring and firing, computer training, chairing computer and lab equipment purchasing committees, supervising, newletter design, and so many other things I can't even begin to number them.  Then I was diagosed as bipolar during a breakdown.  I had severe cognitive dysfunction although I never went to a neurologist.  I lost my ability to think from point A to point B, sometimes did not recognize where I was, had bouts of amnesia, could not read or follow movies, and spent many of my days (after finding myself unemployable) lying in bed in a stupor.  Since it started before I took my first psychiatric meds, I know it wasn't all side effects from them.  It was like someone turned my brain down low and I was only marginally aware of what was going on around me.  Some people have called it "feeling like a zombie."  Well, that was me.  And depression, I admit, was a big part of it.

 

Slowly, very slowly after almost 10 years, I began to recover.  I don't know what your situation is at all, of course, but I thought I was done for and would never see the light of day again.  I doubt I will ever be able to work because stress quickly waylays me, but that may change, too.  I am 53 now.  I enjoy reading and finish about a book a week.  I can make it through a relatively short movie and remember the plot and chacters.  I am writing poetry again.  I have lived independently for the last 2 1/2 years.  I am my elderly mother's chauffeur and caretaker even though we do not currently live together.  I can manage my money fairly well (and a lot better than some).  I enjoy music again.  My life is changing for the better.  I finally feel I have a life again.

 

So don't give up hope.  I know "mild cognitive impairment" can sound like a death warrant and is very disturbing and makes you wonder what your future holds.  But take heart.  Sometimes these things turn around.