Audio Processing Problems and Info Retention Problems

[Calathea]

I'm not sure. I sometimes get tinnitus, but despite being told by that not-very-well-informed hearing therapist that tinnitus is either caused by deafness or it's psychological, mine is a vascular form called pulsatile tinnitus, which was triggered by flu and tends to re-emerge when I have a cold. Those white noise generators are actually aimed at people with tinnitus, if it's any help, and they did help mine a certain amount. What sort of tinnitus do you have? I think tinnitus is far better-recognised than APD, so you'd be better finding somewhere that specialises in APD and asking them if they know of a connection to tinnitus, rather than going to a random tinnitus clinic and finding out whether they've even heard of APD.

The verbal paraphasia thing - me too! Much worse at certain levels of gabapentin, and oddly, it seemed to improve when I went up to the higher doses, only to come back now that we have me down to a medium dose again. Well, either it's that or a hormonal thing, I'm having bad PMS this month. When I'm typing, I'm more likely to do things like substitute a different form of the same word, such as an adverb for an adjective, and usually a longer form. Plus my ability to spell has worsened, of course.

 

[hurtingallthetimet]

i have problems with short term memory..sometimes i cant seem to remember the right word that i want to say...i may think something but cant seem to remember the word to say...or either just cant remember the word to think it in the first place...i have trouble understanding things and get overwhelmed extremely easy...its embarassing at times...i use to be very productive and stayed busy and could multi-task like crazy...now i just feel crazy....everything seems to overwhelm me...movement...sounds..lights..crowds...i will feel dizzy and sweaty...and panic...ive asked the doctor if it could be the onset of alzeheimers..but the doctor said that they dont think so thats its probably just the fibro...like all the other million things that come along with fibro i guess...sigh

 

[Calathea]

The sensory plus memory stuff really does feel like how they describe Alzheimers, doesn't it? Don't worry, it really is a well-known feature of ME, you don't need to worry about it being something else.

Someone on the LJ ME/CFS forum suggested taking a low dose of valium, 1mg as I recall, to combat sensory overload when you go out. I can't remember why it's meant to work, would anyone care to speculate? Anyway, it's worth a shot if you get on with valium. I do get on with it pretty well, I use it plain for PMDD and also for migraine or muscle pain in combination with co-codamol, but it can knock me out sometimes, and I'm wary of making myself woozy if I'm going to be out and about.

I've found that cutting down on sensory input from one sense can help with the whole sensory overload experience. When I was getting white noise therapy from the hearing therapist, it involved little in-ear white noise generators. Worn at home, they were to help my brain get accustomed to dealing with noise, and helped my hyperacusis problems noticeably. Worn outside, they cut down on the sensory input and were particularly useful in shopping centres and such. The snag was that if you needed to talk to someone, you'd have to pause to take the white noise generator out first. I'd been using earplugs before, but she said you should never use earplugs unless the noise level is so high that it would actually damage your ears. If you use earplugs for this sort of thing, you're making the hyperacusis even worse. You need to be masking the noise rather than blocking it. The in-ear white noise generators are pricey and hard to find without prescription, but I believe you can do fairly well with an MP3 player and a recording of some white noise instead.

I also do a lot better now that I have prescription tinted glasses from my eye specialist (who specialises in ME eye problems), which help with the visual processing problems.