I was typing the word 'Lyme' in an email a little while ago and literally typed it backwards before I realized it - emyl. I only type with my right hand, if that is significant.
In recent years I've noticed that words I type a lot - like my name - I tend to swap letters around.
For example, instead of typing Carol, I'll type Craol. And typing the word lyme in reverse really freaked me out since it was several letters in a row backwards, but in perfect order.
In fact, I goofed again in this last sentence, typing 'reason' when I was thinking 'reverse'. This has been happening a lot, too. I'll 'think' a word and type something else.
Is this dyslexia? What part of my brain is messed up? And does this happen to you?
Posted by hshbmom (Member # 9478) on :
Hi tailz,
I don't type entire words backwards, but frequently make letter reversal errors.
One side of my body is slower to respond than the other, leading to typos.
for example...listen might come out litsen
I'll have the right letters, but in the wrong sequence.
I think mine is due to impaired motor function of one of my hands...like a delayed/impaired mind to muscle command. I know what I need to type and know how to spell the word, but it doesn't come out like that on the page.
When I was first infected when I couldn't remember how to spell simple words and didn't recognize the mispelled words. My typing skill plummeted fast. That's scary.
I have similar problems with speech. I might want to say table and end up saying something related, but incorrect, such as refrigerator.
There is never a dull moment with several Lyme brains in our house. At least we can laugh at ourselves.
Posted by tailz (Member # 10014) on :
I do the same thing with my spoken words, too. A lot of forgetting of words, along with word misuse.
I can actually stutter when I'm talking if something upsets me, too. I never had a problem with stuttering either.
I freaked me out though when I typed the whole word backwards in perfect order. This was the first time I ever switched more than 2 letters in one word.
I am taking mino though and quinine powder, and I think the mino has given me an intense metallic taste in my mouth.
I took cilantro, and later charcoal - it was that bad.
My tongue turned BLACK after drinking grape juice, too - my tongue is usually white - before the mino anyway.
Posted by tailz (Member # 10014) on :
My tongue is still black, and I didn't drink any more grape juice. I don't think it's the grape juice.
I think I'm iron toxic. I was on prescription iron following my hysterectomy, too, in 2001. I was anemic, and they put me on iron.
When I still complained of weakness, my red blood count was fine, but he said my iron stores were low, so he doubled my dose.
I think he basically gave my bugs a meal.
This would explain the intense taste of metal I've had in my mouth, especially since starting mino. I had to take charcoal earlier to recover.
Posted by Andie333 (Member # 7370) on :
tailz,
I've done the same thing and continued doing this until I'd been on abx for about 18 months.
For me, it was stuttering, substituting words for others (as you described): wanting to write the word "bother" but instead writing "brown" or somehting entirely unrelated.
I couldn't seem to spell, either (not that I've ever been a spelling wizard, but still...). Plus, I would leave words out of a sentence completely and never realize it.
For me, all this was extremely disconcerting, because I'm a writer by profession and nothing like this had ever happened to me.
It has gotten better with time. Now, ironically, part of my work involves proofreading both ads and web pages (in addition to writing them) for an international company. I'm always so cautious, very nervous, since these aren't the types of errors caught by spell check.
One thing that's helped me is doing mental exercises. I have a reading program I use; in addition, I go online each day and play boggle. I'd once been a formidable player. Now, I struggle near the bottom of the pack (just typed bottle of the pack). Still, I think it helps.
Hope this improves for you!
Andie
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by hshbmom: I don't type entire words backwards, but frequently make letter reversal errors.
One side of my body is slower to respond than the other, leading to typos.
for example...listen might come out litsen
Me too. I do A WHOLE LOT of correcting when I type something!! My fingers get ahead of or behind my pea-sized brain!!
Posted by tailz (Member # 10014) on :
Boggle? Is that something anybody can play online? Or do you need a program to play it?
Actually I do those things, too - and though not a writer by profession, I always was an ace speller and quick to notice missing words in anything I wrote myself or read.
I'm trying to think of an example here - hmmmm? I can't think of one.
I know there have been times though recently when I've taken a simple word that most everybody knows how to spell, and I've had to mispell it a few times and either examine it to figure out what was wrong or actually look it up because it didn't look right to me.
I leave words out of sentences, too, a lot more.
The letter swapping though started to become more frequent several years ago, but I blamed it on stress.
I'm glad there's hope though. I hope there's equal hope that my math brain comes back, too. I tried to do long division the other day and I forgot how! If my calculus teacher could see me today!:-(
Posted by mjo (Member # 7876) on :
I do the letter reversal thing constantly but never wrote a whole word backwards, that's really scary! Does anyone else drop a first letter or the last letter of words? I do this in typing and hand-writing. I used to be an excellent speller until Lyme took over, now it's a real struggle.
Got the same speaking wrong word problems too. Maddening!
Math skills also went in the toilet. I make constant errors in the checkbook, easy to do when you reverse numbers. Anyone else?
One of the scariest things for me was trying to read and seeing a word and not knowing what it meant. A simple word like breadboard or something. I'd have to THINK what the word meant. Sometimes I'd have to skip the word! When this was happening I'd also see doubled consonants that weren't really in the words I was trying to read. Like memory might be memmory. What is this?
I play endless games of Scrabble and Bridge to help my brain fight back the bugs. In spite of neuroLyme, I've actually become a better Scrabble player than I ever was. I play well even at the Championship level!?? And I make it extra hard on myself: No matter what, I do not ever get to trade in letters. Maybe this pushed me to being better?
Whatever short-circuited in my brain left open pathways where obscure words that I've seen Maven--the computer opponent--use, or words I've cruised over in the Scrabble dictionary (that I don't use anymore), or words I've used in the past Lyme years come to the fore fairly easily. Sometimes the words are so far out there it flips me out! It's almost like the word storage bin is open in my head and when pushed hard to win I can dig deep with no conscious knowledge of what's in there.
How about that? A good? Or freaky but not bad change from Lyme! (Might be my first positive post ever!)
A word of warning though, the Scrabble opponent cheats sometimes. You should look up all the seven letter words Maven uses.
Posted by tailz (Member # 10014) on :
mjo - Here I was blaming my 'letter drop' on my typing skills - that I wasn't hitting the key hard enough, as opposed to forgetting it. Now I'm not so sure.
I actually threw my checkbook register out. I was replacing the old one with a new one, and threw the old one out. I was even careful to check what I was throwing, so I'm not sure what happened there.
I was doubling up on consonants, too. I still am. I don't see them doubled though. I just type them that way and then examine them because they don't look right. Like I might spell cinnamon - 'cinammon'.
Typing a whole word backwards though without thinking about it was freaky though - in fact, I HAD to think to type 'emyl' for Lyme when I posted this. It only happened for a whole word once though. Usually it is only the reversal of two letters.
That's pretty freaky though that you've become a better scrabble player because of this. I haven't played in awhile, but it seems when I'm writing now that I am better able to retain words that I would have forgotten after a spelling test years ago, yet I can forget a more commonly used word.
Like the other night I was looking for the word 'hypothesis', but could only think 'theory'. I had to email my friend because it just wouldn't come to me.
Posted by just don (Member # 1129) on :
My main brain excercise is doing a few su-do-ku a day. NO math,,,just counting to nine. And mental patterns of where to put little numbers.
You can start real easy ones and work up in difficulty. I wish I could get somebody to explain a few 'advanced' techniques and WHY they work that way.
I use Pauls pages dot com and can handle MOST of the HARD ones,,,just not to the extreme level YET!!! need somebody to 'explain with whys conjucate pairs, remote chain pairs,,,and swordfish patterns!!!remaining--just don--
Posted by Andie333 (Member # 7370) on :
One online boggle site is:
weboggle.shackworks.com
And, yes, you're playing against other people--sometimes as few as 50 or 60 but often more than 100.
Don, What you said about suduko made me laugh. I picked up the MOST elementary book I could find (this was at the worst of my illness) and couldn't finish even the simplest problems. I suspect things would be a lot different now, but I haven't tried again.
Andie
Posted by mojo (Member # 9309) on :
I transpose letters and numbers when I type OR write. Sometimes I can't write at all - this is getting better with treatment. It was so weird like the pen didn't even belong in my hand.
I also sometimes read words backwards or read it as the wrong word.
Seems like a lot of us "Lymies" have these types of issues.
Posted by mjo (Member # 7876) on :
Whoa! Don! I am impressed. I don't think I could do Sudoko for a second grader!
Andie, thanks for the Boggle site. Will try.
Posted by Ruth Ruth (Member # 11059) on :
I know all of these symptoms and more from personal experience! _______
* Attention Problems: Easy distractibility; difficulty handling multiple tasks at the same time; trouble sustaining attention on tasks and completing tasks; trouble following the course of conversations or the text of a book.
* Memory Problems: Retrieval difficulties are common in which patients may have a hard time recalling what they know; patients may forget conversations or children may forget that they've done homework assignments. At other times, patients experience a problem with the "working memory": as if the material can't be kept on board long enough. Patients may find themselves keeping multiple lists, but then they lose track of where they put their lists. ( That's when I feel 'listless' )
* Slower Processing Speed: Patients may find it takes them longer to respond to questions or to complete tasks. Reaction time and thinking feel sluggish.
* Verbal Fluency problems: the ability to engage in normal conversations is impaired by the inability to retrieve the right word for the moment or the ability to "name" well-known people or objects. Patients may experience word substitutions or "paraphasias". A patient trying to refer to a "microwave" might, for example, say "radiator". Or, trying to refer to "Amazon.com" the patient might say, "AOL". Or, trying to refer to "fireworks", the patient might say "skylights". Patients may also experience an impairment in speech production, such that they stutter, particularly at times of sensory overload. _______
But after 6 months of doing sudoku puzzles and jigsaw puzzles and treating the infections, some parts of my brain seem to be doing a little better.
Our brain is a muscle that improves with exercise, right?
I sure hope so.
Posted by ks mom (Member # 11626) on :
Tailz, Your PM box is full.
Part of why i haven't been on is this. It takes me forever to read and post.
Seeing, but not understanding simple words.
My favorite is talking and forgetting what I was talking about in mid sentence.
Also, having in mind what I want to say and then when I go to type it....NADA, nothing.
Spelling words backwards has been a thing for my husband lately.
Frustrating.
The heat isn't helping either.
ks mom
Posted by luvs2ride (Member # 8090) on :
I have been an excellent typist for years but since this bout with lyme began I hit the back button as often as any other key. I'm constantly typing letters backwards.
Luvs
Posted by micul (Member # 6314) on :
I t'nod kniht taht I od siht, tub ohw swonk? Posted by mjo (Member # 7876) on :
Ruth Ruth. Good post! Thank you. Up.
Posted by hardynaka (Member # 8099) on :
I didn't do the typo during my worst neurolyme months, but I did forget simple words and couldn't barely understand a text from the newspaper, no matter in which language I read.
I started having these symptoms only 3 years after I defended my PhD, that was written and defended in two languages that were not my native languages!
I couldn't count the money changes when I bought my bread!! I couldn't sometimes find my way back home (I live in the country side, very easy). I forgot to take my keys, my wallet, my glasses, my documents many times a month and usually discovered the problem in the worst situations...
Everything now is past. I swear you. But it WAS THE MOST SCARY SYMPTOM FOR ME - loss of language, cognition, ability to think, total lack of memory. I guess dyslexia is another similar symptom!
It WILL get better with treatment, even though there's an intermediary period of time that the brain needs to have to get used again to think, understand and remember after the months (or years) of rust.
Selma
Posted by mjo (Member # 7876) on :
Geesh! Hardynaka. When you are smart enough to write and speak in two languages besides your own, what you were reduced to from Lyme is hard to imagine. Thanks so much for saying all your loss was reversible! We need hope.
What languages do you speak and write? Just curious. You can PM me about that if you'd like to keep that part of your life private.
Posted by tailz (Member # 10014) on :
I don't know what it was, but this morning I ate buckwheat in an attempt to see if I was allergic. My head hurt like a bugger all day.
The scary part though was not being able to think - like I panicked briefly when I could not remember my age, my daughter's, etc...
There was something else I couldn't remember, too, but now I forget! Aagh!
From the looks of it though, I guess typing words backwards is pretty common, along with other cognitive difficulties. Thanks for your responses!
![[dizzy]](graemlins/dizzy.gif)
That's when I feel 'listless' ![[lol]](graemlins/lol.gif)
)![[loco]](graemlins/loco.gif)
![[bonk]](graemlins/bonk.gif)