<p>This is embarrassing for me to talk about, but maybe someone here will understand. A little history may be helpful and I apologize in advance if I give too much information.</p>
<p>I am in my early 50’s and as a child I had some reading “issues.” I was a sight reader from an early age and it wasn’t until 3rd grade that anyone noticed that my reading skills were lacking. My school grouped students by ability and I was in the top class until 4th grade. My parents sent me to a reading tutor for a while; I do not remember what I did there or if it really helped. When I was in college I realized I could not read phonetically, but was always able to compensate. If a word was new to me I used the limited skills I had to sound it out. For example, the name Mortimer to me was more-timer like on a clock. If I were a child of the 90’s, I am sure I would have been diagnosed with a learning disability. Fast forward to my 30’s when I had breast cancer and chemo. There is literature about chemo brain, so I used that excuse for any time I would forget something; it was easy to blame chemo for my forgetfulness!</p>
<p>Over the past several years I have had a couple of instances where I will go to write a work and I have no earthly idea how to spell it. I am not talking about supercalifragilisticexpialidocious; the word I had trouble with yesterday was “root”. For the life of me I could not come up with the letters after r. I sat there writing down different letters and knew they were not right, but until I asked my husband, I was not able to write the work correctly. When he told me, I was like, of course. This has happened a few other times with equally simple words; words that are so simple and I am so off on the spelling that even spell check or a dictionary can help.</p>
<p>I know that I am a horrible speller, but usually I will know the word is spelled incorrectly and can look it up. With these simple words, there is no way I can come up with the spelling.</p>
<p>So someone please tell me I am not damaged!</p>
<p>Are you taking an aromatase inhibitor for your breast cancer? If so, I wouldn’t be surprised if your memory is impaired, but supposedly, it’s a temporary condition while on the medication.
I have found that ample doses of fish oil and exercise have improved my memory. If these lapses are just occasional, it may be related to aging and your previous spelling problems, and you might be able to find ways to compensate- like keep a pocket dictionary close by. :)</p>
<p>And yes, menopause. It’s the lack of estrogen, similar to the effects of the aromatase inhibitors.</p>
<p>It could just be a “brain fart” (as my neighbor calls them) I am 52 and lately if I have a thought I want to jot down, I lose it before I walk across the room to a notebook. I just stare blankly at the paper and NOTHING comes to mind. Grrrrr I have also become horrible at spelling.</p>
<p>Talk to your doctor. Chemo brain is a real byproduct of treatment. But, this could be menopause, lack of attention, or nothing at all. But explain your concerns to your doctor, and if one brushes you off speak to another. </p>
<p>As the parent of kids with ADHD one professional that they saw (who can differentiate the difference between learning disabilities and other stuff) is a neurologist. She was amazing, comforting and proactive.</p>
<p>Snowball - I have the same problems. I am now in my early 50s, experienced chemo for BC 10 years ago. The chemo brain at the time of treatment was AWFUL - I couldn’t even do simple algebra to help my children with homework, and I’m a math savvy kind of person. My spelling issues have recently escalated - total “brain cramps” about simple words. </p>
<p>I started taking Arimidex last summer, part of my treatment for a new primary. That definitely escalated my problem. Menopause has also proven to be hard on my spelling ability, I think, so it’s really hard to know for sure where the “root” may be. I’ve never had any reading issues, but have never felt good about the strength of my vocabulary in spite of a being a life long, avid reader.</p>
<p>We have multiple dictionaries in our home and I always have one on my desk. I have also downloaded a dictionary “app”. Whatever i can do to compensate when the brain cramps hits.</p>
<p>(My docs have not been very sympathetic to my inquiries about long term chemo brain. And I’m not sure what can really be done to address it, except to learn coping techniques - like me and my dictionaries. And list making. I’ve got an app for that too.)</p>
<p>I have been in menopause for 10 years due to a complete hysterectomy. I really don’t believe this is a serious issue as the spelling of simple words has only been an issue a few times. It is just frustrating when I know it is a simple word and I can not come up with the letter combination. The dictionary will not help for the words I have in the past not been able to spell. I use to cry to my parents when I was younger, “How can I look up a word if I don’t know how to spell it?”</p>
<p>As far as forgetting things, that happens all the time; but it happens to many of my friends as well as my husband!! I call that having a full brain and there is just so much I can store at any given time. I figure that is how I get my exercise, by forgetting things. I tend to go up and down the stairs all day, heading upstairs to get something and forgetting what I went up for only to remember when I get back down!!</p>
<p>Kajon, we also use the tern brain fart, I was just trying to be polite in my title!</p>
<p>Snowball, I haven’t had chemo, but I have experienced this. </p>
<p>Someone mentioned stress. When we moved to Germany, it was the most stressful time of my life. Couple that with trying to learn a new language. Suddenly, not only couldn’t I spell (and I used to be a fantastic speller), but I also couldn’t speak. I’d be having a normal conversation with my family, and suddenly they would all burst out laughing, and I would stop, embarrassed to my roots at having substituted a completely random word in my sentence. One time I remember, I substituted the word “book” for the word “home.” No rhyme or reason to it.</p>
<p>It all but disappeared after we moved back to the US, although every once in awhile it creeps up on me, like at Christmas, with 17 relatives here. My family has learned to recognize my deer-in-headlights look, and can often offer a word to me before most people notice I lost it.</p>
<p>I seem to have permanently lost my ability to spell, though. Thank heaven for Google. When I am typing here, and come to a word I can’t remember, I quickly open a new tab, type it into “search”, and it usually comes back, “Did you mean…?”</p>
<p>But it duz! Not sure how you turn it on/off, but I have it. Is it part of cc? or is it my browser or is it my computer? (BTW, on my comp “duz” is underlined in red)</p>
<p>I would worry if these “spells” happen with noticeably greater frequency. If just once in a while, I think it happens to all of us. I have problems on those rare occasions when I write a check, with the word forty… why not “fourty” ? <- ah, “fourty” gets a red underline! But my checkbook doesn’t have spellcheck. I need a spellcheckbook!</p>
<p>I think it is your browser with the spell check; I use Firefox and it will underline in red also.</p>
<p>I wish I could blame the spelling burps as stress, but nothing too terribly stressful going on. </p>
<p>Binx, I am sure being in a new country and with a different language would cause many to have problems. That said, I have had the “insert wrong word here” happen once before. I think our brains like to play tricks on us to keep us on our toes!!</p>
<p>Not to make my spelling problem into a mountain, this isn’t just a misspell, it is truly not being able to come up with the correct spelling of a 3 or 4 letter word. The time before last when it happened the word I was having trouble with was “what.” I could not come up with the “wh.” Try looking that up in a dictionary when you don’t know the first 2 letters!! Like I said before this has only happened a few times over the last couple of years, so we are not talking every day or even every month.</p>
<p>I am in my 40s and no history of chemo…yet I have this kind of thing on occasion. Last week I’m standing in line to watch a movie, I see an ad for the movie ‘Legion’ and I say to myself, “does that read Legion or Legend? hmmm…how funny, I never realized before that the words Legion and Legend are spelled the same way…” </p>
<p>I tell my husband and he looks at me funny, and points out my error and then of course, I realize these are different words! DUH! They have always been very different words in my mind and I’ve always been a great speller! I have a PhD! I write for a living!! How can this be!? </p>
<p>I think it’s age and hormones and it scares me.</p>
<p>Unless you have a specific family history concern, like Alzheimer’s, odds are very good that it’s nothing to worry about and that you can fight the trend by playing some memory games. Studies show that you can improve your memory and some of that may be keeping those pathways open so your brain can find those old spellings.</p>
<p>snowball, what you describe sounds different from the usual menopause mind quirks people are mentioning here. If it keeps happening, I would go to a doctor. It sounds a little like some kind of aphasia. Also, I don’t want to scare you but my father had a similar episode and it turned out to be a mini-stroke. He was fine, but for a little while, a couple of hours maybe, he couldn’t remember simple things like whether he’d eaten breakfast. No one but my mother noticed that he was acting differently (don’t know what that says about my father!).</p>
<p>My husband lost the ability to spell certain words when he had chemo. Parallel, stationary, anything with an ie/ei question. Ten years later, they’re still gone. But a few words is not a big deal, since he also lost the cancer.</p>
<p>I took Tegretol for a while about ten years ago for nerve pain in my leg and I couldn’t stand a side effect I had: I would be unable to think of words. Simple words! I just couldn’t find them in my brain! You haven’t gone on any new meds lately, have you? (I have been told that if you are one of the people who get this side effect, that after you have been on the drug for a while, that side effect goes away.)</p>
<p>After having 12 hours of surgery my mind took 12 months to recover. The anesthesia did something to me, or maybe it was all the meds I took afterwards. I think this sort of thing is pretty common around our age. Most of my friends who have not been on chemo or had long surgeries complain about the same thing.</p>
<p>I have never had chemo, and I have always been a great speller. I don’t like to brag, but I was spelling champion of the 6th grade! I noticed in my 50’s that I had lost a particular ability - I have trouble now knowing whether letters are single or double - occurred? ocurred? occured? I can tell that “ocurred” is wrong, but I would have to look up the word to choose between the other two. I sometimes have trouble coming up with the right word. I know that the perfect word is in my vocabulary, but I can’t access it. Often it will pop up later. I also sometimes say the wrong word; I know right away and correct myself. This happens when I am stressed out. </p>
<p>I think that these kinds of problems are common with increasing age, menopause, stress. Previous chemo or radiotherapy can also contribute. I take fish oil and I think that it is great for all kinds of issues. But I think that you should be evaluated just to be sure that nothing more serious is going on.</p>