Speech Difficulties

[ithought]

I am aware of ' not needing speech therapist' however there expertise can advise you on equipment that is most suitable to enable you to communicate. I have had no speech for over a week now, this isn't slurred speech it's a totally inability to process thoughts into speech or for them to even get as far as my moth muscles. Some people with very severe me will lose all ability to communicat via speech.

 

[Santilion]

I've been stuttering for almost my whole life and since I got afflicted by ME it got considerably worse. I used to think it was merely due to a decline of my psychological health or because of my general drowsiness and tiredness.

However, after reading a recent study about a possible cause to stuttering, I got pretty bewildered. It was shown that stuttering could possibly be caused by a reduced blood flow to two certain parts of the brain that, not too surprising, are heavily involved with the speech.

Since me/cfs is believed to decrease the blood flow in the body, especially the brain, this could possibly account for an increased stuttering due to the applied decrease of blood flow.

The study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.23487/abstract;jsessionid=F90FA1071AD28550B94CB5EDDB7FBE7D.f04t04?systemMessage=WOL Usage report download page will be unavailable on Friday 27th January 2017 at 23:00 GMT/ 18:00 EST/ 07:00 SGT (Saturday 28th Jan for SGT) for up to 2 hours due to essential server maintenance. Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

[tudiemoore]

Once again, it's not just me!
When I'm with others it sometimes seems that I can't get the word from my brain to my mouth or I am still choosing words I want as I am already speaking.

When I am writing and or thinking about a specific topic, at times I cannot, absolutely cannot, come up with the word I want to use. This goes beyond word lose that so many have for a brief moment.
My mind is a bottomless hole, there is no word, not even a hint of one. It passes and the word comes.

Almost as distressful is searching for a word and coming up with a mental picture and a word for something either in the same group, shovel--rake, or that has the same function, spoon--ladle.
This disturbs me, especially due to having watched my mother as the devastation of Allzheimer's took her away.

And so it goes--
tm

 

[PracticingAcceptance]

So interesting to see all these descriptions. I'm finding recently that if I stay out in the evening with friends, I seem to get as drunk as them without drinking a drop. I'm on water, baby! I slur words and I forget things and I feel dizzy. I probably seem drunker than them. I also speak longer sentences cos it's harder to communicate efficiently/ succinctly.

So... at least I can get some of the effects of being drunk... without the pleasure feeling and without the tastiness of drinks. Oh well.

 

[6666]

I get the speech difficulties. Slurring and stumbling over words is worse when I have jaw-lock and my tongue seems to be numb and won't move properly.
.

My tongue doesn't get numb, but I can't always move it that much...and then it can get hard to eat. Not very pleasant!

 

[Dave232]

This conversation was a long time ago but I totally understand you here. Especially about being able to write well but not speak. It's interesting how a lot of people here bring up the feeling that others would judge them as stupid. And it's so easy to imagine you are being judged-and in truth you do get judged to an extent.
It's even more interesting to me how everyone on this forum understand what the other is talking about with speech problems and crashes and the emotions that go with it. ..and that most gp's really have no idea.
I really appreciate the emotional honesty and science put in this thread.
Cheers

 

[Dave232]

I knoooooow, your mouth is all numb and '3 pints inn', but the rest of u is sober. Ha.

 

[Dave232]

I have this when I'm crashing. I have difficulty finding the proper words and even when I find it, I have difficulty pronouncing it. This, for me, has nothing to do with social phobia. I believe it has to do with pure exhaustion of body and mind. It feels like when one is woken up in middle of a deep sleep and is trying to speak.

Hi.

Maybe it's both ? When you are brutally fatigued you go all out to say 'Where are the toilets? ' ...then it comes out slurred or croaky, like its the last bit of energy you have in you. Or maybe not. Just a thought. Cheers.

 

[skiesareclearing]

Does anyone else suffer from "speech issues"? I notice that when my CFS is at it's worst, I slur, stutter and stumble through each sentance and I appear dyslexic at times. I'm sure many people at work think I'm intelectually disabled. I'll have a day or so out of the month when I'm feeling OK and verbal communication is much more smooth and easier to perform. This is rare, however.

Junto

Lately I've been noticing what you describe. I'll have a quite straightforward call to make and once I get on the phone I start to stumble over myself, leave huge gaps because I've forgotten what I mean to say, and end up apologizing for being incoherent. I've had a problem with conversation for decades--how tiring it is for me, how long I have to recuperate-- but I've never before experienced this kind of confusion. It's scary. I'll be interested to see if anyone has a clue about this. Oh, and I have also been having trouble writing--dropping out words, repeating things, substituting one word for a similar one-- and I used to be an editor!

 

[skiesareclearing]

Once again, it's not just me!
When I'm with others it sometimes seems that I can't get the word from my brain to my mouth or I am still choosing words I want as I am already speaking.

When I am writing and or thinking about a specific topic, at times I cannot, absolutely cannot, come up with the word I want to use. This goes beyond word lose that so many have for a brief moment.
My mind is a bottomless hole, there is no word, not even a hint of one. It passes and the word comes.

Almost as distressful is searching for a word and coming up with a mental picture and a word for something either in the same group, shovel--rake, or that has the same function, spoon--ladle.
This disturbs me, especially due to having watched my mother as the devastation of Allzheimer's took her away.

And so it goes--
tm

Same issue, my version. Can't think of the word at all-- tip of your tongue but ever elusive. And people's faces--liike actors whose names I do know, and I can't think of the names. I feel like I'm losing my mind. I seriously am afraid that I am.

 

[PoorlyPixi]

I had to click this, I've had difficulty with my speech the last few days, stammering and stuttering a lot, and saying words the wrong way round or getting them entwined and topsy turvy. I have to stress here that I haven't managed to get a doctor to consider my symptoms yet, so I can't say that I have M.E. I began stuttering last spring, out of nowhere, and was swaying more towards the theory that I was possibly a celiac then, getting the tests, reading a lot about it. I remember reading that stuttering was a symptom of celiac. My results were negative, but I went gluten free anyway in September and have only just started stuttering again now. It's like a spring thing! I'm still experimenting with the GF diet, but I'm honestly moving away from the theory now and more towards another illness. I was talking about my speech last night to my father (who has had M.E for 20 years), about whether it's a sign of a neurological problem. He doesn't know - I read up a lot more than he does! Is it an issue of the brain or just a natural consequence of fatigue or concentration problems?

 

[PracticingAcceptance]

@PoorlyPixi I am no expert, but as I understand it, it's brain fog that stops me from remembering words, and it's severe fatigue that stops me from physically forming words with my mouth. I don't know if brain fog is just because of severe fatigue or because of neurological issues, or if there's causality btwn severe fatigue and neurological issues.

I would guess that stammering is at least partly an emotional/stress thing for most people? I have stammered very mildly in the past when I am stressed with new people to me.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

@i I am no expert

Except we experience these issues with great frequency.

So in the olden days, all the ladies sat there with the telephone wires and plugged in and connected the phone calls.

It feels like those ladies have all gone home on lunch break.

Much information from the past still resides in my brain. Rapid retrieval is impaired. I can still: pull that outta there, but its just so tiring to EXERT.

New information is really skidding off the teflon.

But then the: abrupt all the energy just left feeling takes over and it goes to another level of impairment. So the energy to keep going connecting dots, or correlating info, seems to just be inadequate: and type of give up already sets in.

That New Yorker article looks interesting..but gosh the print is lousy, its hard to see, a couple of paragraphs the energy to keep wading thru info is gone. Lose interest. Go sigh.

 

[JS68]

Does anyone else suffer from "speech issues"? I notice that when my CFS is at it's worst, I slur, stutter and stumble through each sentance and I appear dyslexic at times. I'm sure many people at work think I'm intelectually disabled. I'll have a day or so out of the month when I'm feeling OK and verbal communication is much more smooth and easier to perform. This is rare, however.

Junto

i get this all the time too, esp when im more tired from pushing myself or i am in a stressful situation or doctors office etc .. when any pressure or symptom flares. its so exasperating as mostly i have been quite able and confident and not issues, until now. it was quite scary the first few times as i had no idea what was wrong with me..