What causes short term memory problems?

[Anonymous]

Is this a medical emergency? This has been a problem in my dating life and I have autism. What tests do I need to do?

Updates

2 mo

Could bipolar also cause it?

Updates

2 mo

What’s the treatment?

[nolabels]

Your situation is obviously much different than mine.

Severe ongoing trauma has caused me to have terrible short term memory difficulties over the past few years.
I hope it gets better.

I don't know what to say to help you.
I wish you the best.

The medical community has been overloaded by people with memory problems since COVID came to town.
They don't seem to pay much attention to the malady.

Making consistent efforts in exercising my memory in even small ways has been a bit helpful.

Good luck to you! 😊

[Asker]

Thank you so much! So it’s probably the Bipolar thats causing it?

[nolabels]

It appears that you know something of me.

No, bipolar is absolutely not the cause of my memory problems.

For starters, I had COVID very badly on 4 separate occasions.
Very badly.
That can cause severe memory problems.

In March of 2024, I twice went into cardiac arrest as a result of a widow maker heart attack, due partly to my having antiphospholipid syndrome, possibly brought on by my COVID illnesses.
APS causes very abnormal, dangerous blood clotting, most often diagnosed in women.
I'm a man.

Those cardiac arrest events were extremely horrifying to me, causing severe PTSD.
Among many other symptoms, I completely lost the ability to speak for close to a year afterwards.
I still stutter terribly when I become even the slightest bit upset about anything.

A few very short weeks after my cardiac arrests, my wife was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer, which explained her behavior of standing above me, staring blankly at me as I begged her to call for help for me while in the throes of my heart attack.
Her cancer diagnosis threw my own severe difficulties on the back burner as far as everyone else in my life was concerned.
I felt completely alone in dealing with what I'd gone through.

After caring for my wife in her final days, which was additionally extremely stressful for me, she passed away a couple of months ago.

Going through all of that and now dealing with the aftermath, finding that she'd hidden hundreds of thousands of dollars of high interest debt from me over the years, has been mind-numbingly stressful.

I wish you much luck in your struggles. 😊

[Asker]

Ok what can cause it?

[nolabels]

If you think that autism may be the problem for you, I don't know.
I'm not familiar with the problems associated with autism.
Have you had COVID badly?

What I know of the origins of my own memory problems were very specifically described in my above post.

The causes for me, I believe, were COVID, severe stress, and severe trauma.

Previous to those issues, I had an excellent memory.

I'm not a doctor.
I'm a sufferer of very poor short-term memory problems, trying to get back to a more normal life.

[Asker]

Yeah I have

[Asker]

But many people have but never had memory problems

[nolabels]

I know.
COVID is one weird set of diseases.

[Telekinetic-Potato]

Among other things, memory loss can happen from:

Depression

Brain fog

Too much sugar

Too little water

Ineffective sleeping schedule

[Asker]

Or mild intellectual disability?

[Telekinetic-Potato]

I've never heard about that connection. I've read research papers mostly about sugar, stress and depression causing it. But the mechanism behind why doesn't seem to be very well understood.

So my guess is it depends on your disability but if you're having short term memory problems recently, try to identify any new sources of stress, diet changes, environment changes that's happened a few months before the issue started.

I had a terrible short term memory when i was in highschool and at the dentist one day a magazine said sugar was linked to it. So I went home, read some papers, cut out my 2 liters of brisk iced tea I was drinking every day and in less than 2 weeks my memory was notivibly different.

So you gotta figure it could have been building up slowly for years. Everyone's different.

[Agape93]

Depression, brain damage, bad sleep, autism etc.

[In_Trance]

What tests do you need to do when you already know what the problem is?

[Asker]

Like tests to see what is causing my short term memory problems

[jahaims]

A lot of things

[Asker]

Like what?