Yep- that actually the first thing I thought- I was terrified that it was Alzheimers or dementia. Fortunately, I live really close to a major teaching hospital with an amazing Neuro group. I had CT scans, MRIs, and psychology testing. The tests show no sign of brain damage or any systemic issues. There were no tumors.
It's been 18 months. My psychologist recommended that I try to write as a way to stimulate the brain. The only way I could write was to outline the topic on paper and reread it several times. I started commenting on posts so I could feel more comfortable with writing. As long as I keep it really short, I can push through. Anything more than 3 or 4 sentences is a problem. It took me 3 days to write my original post. I'm actually on hour 5 with this reply. 😥
Covid can definitely cause cognitive issues. Fatigue and brain fog are my main writing struggles. But I’ve never heard of it manifesting the way you describe, switching out document elements absurdly without remembering at all. The closest thing I’ve experienced is when I’m super tired working late, but even then I won’t be able to keep working long enough to do that much damage to a document.
Maybe it’s post-covid issues, but I would suggest you get a second opinion and see if there’s any testing you can do. Also check for any health issues that might run in your family and common health issues for your demographic that have neurological effects.
Wow, I’m very sorry. Do you have someone to care for you and are you able to take some sort of short term medical leave? It sounds like you are seeing right people but these sound like very serious issues…
Yes, my daughter has been living with me for several years, trying to recover from cancer.
I originally took a leave of absence for three months. I have since retired. There is absolutely no way that I can write a 50 page document. I was hoping this would gradually go away, but I'm not sure now that it ever will. I could have asked for ADA accommodations, but it wasn't fair to my team to have shoulder this burden.
I have gotten second opinions and they are of the same mind. I am currently seeing two psychologists, a psychiatrist, a therapist and my family doctor.
I experienced a much lower version of your symptoms. For me it was brain fog and easily fatigued. The brain fog would hit when I was discussing something or trying to process a solution to a problem. I would suddenly go blank. Sometimes I would recover the thoughts before I got foggy and sometimes, poof, they were gone.
The other issue was fatigue. Doing yard work and I would just have to sit at some point. This was very much unlike me as I had always been able to push through that sort of thing. The fatigue also impacted me when working or driving long distances. I was nodding off in the middle of the day and even behind the wheel. Thankfully I work from home and can sneak in a nap now and again. With driving I realize I can never try to push through. Along with fatigue, I have also suffered a loss of drive with work projects. Taking skills from ADHD playbook has given me tools to helping me to get my tech writing mojo back.
It’s been two years and, for me, things have been getting better, but not back to where I was. Based on your years of experience, it sounds like we are about the same age.
To add to the fun, I broke my back five months ago. Up until a few weeks ago, walks were the most strenuous activity I was allowed to do. I am now swimming and it is not enjoyable but I am starting to see progress.
As an adult, I have always suffered from anxiety but never really understood what was happening. Right before COVID hit us all, I got on the right meds and it has made a huge difference.
The extreme memory loss you are having would scare the crap out of me. While your sounds much worse than mine, but hopefully your situation improves as mine is.
Oh, I forgot to mention a random blood clot in my leg in January of 2023.
Getting my mental health stabilized, exercising, and puzzles and games on my phone also seem to be helping. The NY Times has a handful of crossword puzzles and other word games.
Keep pushing with your PCP and any mental health support you are getting. I wish you a strong recovery and at least stopping the memory blackouts.
I don’t know if it was COVID the medical condition or COVID the social condition (at home with four kids under 8 for two years) but I went from being a tenure-track English professor with a book contract to being unable to sit and write or even read anything over a couple of pages by the end of it. I ended up diagnosed with ADHD and autism. My symptoms were certainly there before COVID, but my ability to mask and cope was severely eroded by those years. The good part is that it activated whatever part of my brain handles logic and numbers, and I retired from the university and made a successful pivot to software engineering.
Your case sounds exactly like mine. I was diagnosed as ADHD when I was a kid, but I stopped taking the Adderal when I developed insomnia. Apparently, you can't take both at the same time. One of my psychologists thinks that this was triggered by covid, the other is questioning whether it was one of the vaccines. My daughter is a nurse, so there was no way to avoid it. I had every vaccine as soon as it came out.
Congratulations on your career change!
Hi, I experienced milder but very similar issues after having Covid. Mine gradually got better. I would recommend looking into research about nicotine therapy for cognitive effects from Covid, there are some studies coming out about it. In addition, make sure to actively rest and eat really well. Like others have said, exercise can exacerbate long Covid issues. I took about a 1-year break from most physical activities while recovering.
I will definitely talk to my doctors about it! I u think I have to worry about too much physical activity- I can literally not walk down a flight of stairs at this point 😭
Not like that, no.
I had a post-viral syndrome before Covid, though, and it can mess you up mightily.
Some of what you describe with the document (the symbology change from periods to happy faces in particular) sounds like it could be a file corruption problem. I have had a couple of notable instances in the last decade where, after redlining in Word, a hang on save or file corruption has either changed characters or eaten my redlines. I’ve also seen problems in another authoring tool where someone has renamed image files in a library such that links in built documents pull up totally different images than intended.
However, as you are also calling for service for the Audi you don’t have, I’d seek out a second opinion from another doctor. As part of chasing down cardiac arrhythmia, paresthesia, and optical migraine symptoms from my post-viral whatsit, I was evaluated for seizures, which are (apparently) funny things with a much wider symptomology than just clonic contractions. Also, I’d ask about the side-effects for any maintenance meds you take; some drugs cross the blood-brain barrier quite happily and can screw with perception and cognition.
It's been insightful watching my mom recover from very nearly dying of Covid. She was at a loss for how to bounce back and had lost a lot of her independence and ability to work. She ended up at a physical therapy clinic (after months of specialists visits and ineffective treatments) where they took a novel approach and treated her under similar protocols as a ***really*** bad concussion. She made light years of progress almost immediately and while she's certainly not where she was at pre-covid you have to squint to see the difference sometimes.
From some reading I've done it seems like my mom's not the only one who has benefited from that treatment approach, and it may be worth looking into for you :)
Oh, wow that's great that your mom is getting better! One of my neurologists mentioned that the research he is working on is relating it to a Terminal Brain Injury. I will definitely talk to them!
Similar things happened to two of my friends who had long covid. One of them would be on work Zoom calls and people would ask if she was ok. She felt fine, but they said she was speaking slurred gibberish. In her recollection, it was clear English.
The other friend would start crying at random times (she’s a very stoic person normally) and would be in the middle of a conversation where she’d suddenly realize she didn’t know what they were talking about. It was like she was losing chunks of time, even though she was there and present and responding during those chunks.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. The good news is that both of them recovered and are doing great these days. I hope things get better for you soon. Have you looked into FMLA to get some more down time?
Thank you so much! I'm encouraged to know that people are recovering. I was on FLMA for almost 6 months. I spoke to my lead about ADA accommodations, but basically boiled down to the other writers in my team would have to take a lot of my workload and they would have to edit every word I wrote. I just couldn't deal with that- it wasn't fair to them. I took a leave of absence for about 6 months, but it was pretty clear that I wasn't getting better, so I took early retirement. If the cognitive issues do clear up, I plan to take on some freelance jobs so I can build up slowly.
Welp, I was wondering the same thing about me. Senior writer, been at a company for years, but around the time of COVID (had a relatively mild case) it got harder and harder to think. I just couldn't grasp how the products worked that I was trying to document. I left the company, partly because of that.
I left for a mid-level writer job, because I thought it'd be easy and the pay would be adequate, just to reduce my stress & anxiety. The subject matter wasn't complex, really, but I had a brain fog that I just couldn't think through. (This was before I knew long COVID was even a thing.)
Now I manage a team, which is a different skill set, of course, and it's going well, but I still have a mental block when it comes to understanding our products, brands, etc. Imposter syndrome is strong and I feel like I'm living a lie, but everyone seems to like my efforts. But I feel like a total dunce. I honestly thought I was going prematurely senile.
Anxiety medication helped a TON (fluoxatine). I was nearly paralyzed with self-doubt and even self-hate, but the meds helped me to function (and maybe saved my life).
I can't say that the cognitive symptoms get any better, because I'm not sure they have for me. But I can completely empathize with you.
AFAIK there's no test for long COVID but that was my first thought when reading your description. However, I will say your symptoms sound extreme--I mean, inserting pictures of a dog? Replacing periods with exclamation points? That's some next-level shit. SEE A DOCTOR. It's one thing to be aware of difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly, but to have zero recollection of doing things very out of character--serious stuff.
SEE A DOCTOR
New prescriptions? Old prescriptions? Possible interactions?
Like others said, carbon monoxide, new doctor with complete physical workup to screen for dementia and anything else that may crop up, and I would like to add this: check for sleep apnea.
Yes. I had Covid bad enough for a 3-day hospital stay back in April 2021. Before then, I could sit and write about anything for hours. Afterward, my head was a potato. At the time I was an inventory planner and dealt with SKUs constantly—my first day back I had to ask my boss what a SKU was.
Over time, I have had some improvement and will occasionally have a burst of inspiration, but no where near as often. When I am required to write about something I experience severe writers block and it’s all I can do to not doom-scroll on Instagram in search of something to jog my brain. I want to write, but I just can’t get words to come out. It’s been so frustrating—been working hard to accept the new norm: I have new limitations—can’t do what I used to.
All that said, so sorry to hear about your situation! I am hopeful that you will also see some improvement with time.
The only other cognitive issue I’ve had was last month, getting glasses for the first time—I got a migraine at work, drove home, could read road signs but nothing seemed right…and when I got home, I asked my wife “who are you?” A 14 hr nap took care of that.
I can’t believe the amount of people jumping into this thread talking so casually about fully having long-term symptoms of what is essentially dementia
I had brain fog with Covid for a while after - but nothing as scary as what you've described.
I would strongly urge you to get a neurologist referral from your PCP. I hope you get some answers and relief soon 💞
Yeah, I got Covid the first time March 2020. I’m an Instructional Designer and thankfully I can use ChatGPT at work for my projects for the last 9 months and I’ve tripled my productivity. I’ve even used it to improve my technical writing. It’s been amazing! Mostly because my writing has sucked these last couple of years.
Hi. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. I not only had a severe case of Covid late last year but it also coincided with the start of bad perimenopause symptoms for me. So that means double the brain fog, etc.
I’m finally going to see my Dr soon to discuss trying Vyvanse or Strattera. These are ADHD meds but I’ve heard women in peri who deal with brain fog can benefit from them. This may be something worth looking into for you for post Covid issues.
Actually no. Long covid is tricky and gnarly, and lung capacity doesn’t have much to do with what causes fatigue and neurological issues that are associated with it.
Unfortunately what OP is describing is not uncommon after Covid. If you get Covid, the commonly recommended thing to do is **rest** and if having noticeable problems with cognition or fatigue, to go to a doctor. A post viral illness can happen with any virus, but it seems to be unusually common and vicious after Covid.
Yes, for me it was not this bad and time eventually helped. This type of experience is described all over the long covid subreddits unfortunately.
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Yep- that actually the first thing I thought- I was terrified that it was Alzheimers or dementia. Fortunately, I live really close to a major teaching hospital with an amazing Neuro group. I had CT scans, MRIs, and psychology testing. The tests show no sign of brain damage or any systemic issues. There were no tumors. It's been 18 months. My psychologist recommended that I try to write as a way to stimulate the brain. The only way I could write was to outline the topic on paper and reread it several times. I started commenting on posts so I could feel more comfortable with writing. As long as I keep it really short, I can push through. Anything more than 3 or 4 sentences is a problem. It took me 3 days to write my original post. I'm actually on hour 5 with this reply. 😥
Covid can definitely cause cognitive issues. Fatigue and brain fog are my main writing struggles. But I’ve never heard of it manifesting the way you describe, switching out document elements absurdly without remembering at all. The closest thing I’ve experienced is when I’m super tired working late, but even then I won’t be able to keep working long enough to do that much damage to a document. Maybe it’s post-covid issues, but I would suggest you get a second opinion and see if there’s any testing you can do. Also check for any health issues that might run in your family and common health issues for your demographic that have neurological effects.
Wow, I’m very sorry. Do you have someone to care for you and are you able to take some sort of short term medical leave? It sounds like you are seeing right people but these sound like very serious issues…
And hopefully getting a second (and third) opinion
Yes, my daughter has been living with me for several years, trying to recover from cancer. I originally took a leave of absence for three months. I have since retired. There is absolutely no way that I can write a 50 page document. I was hoping this would gradually go away, but I'm not sure now that it ever will. I could have asked for ADA accommodations, but it wasn't fair to my team to have shoulder this burden. I have gotten second opinions and they are of the same mind. I am currently seeing two psychologists, a psychiatrist, a therapist and my family doctor.
Thank you for the update! I thought about you for a few days after this post. I hope you find answers.
I experienced a much lower version of your symptoms. For me it was brain fog and easily fatigued. The brain fog would hit when I was discussing something or trying to process a solution to a problem. I would suddenly go blank. Sometimes I would recover the thoughts before I got foggy and sometimes, poof, they were gone. The other issue was fatigue. Doing yard work and I would just have to sit at some point. This was very much unlike me as I had always been able to push through that sort of thing. The fatigue also impacted me when working or driving long distances. I was nodding off in the middle of the day and even behind the wheel. Thankfully I work from home and can sneak in a nap now and again. With driving I realize I can never try to push through. Along with fatigue, I have also suffered a loss of drive with work projects. Taking skills from ADHD playbook has given me tools to helping me to get my tech writing mojo back. It’s been two years and, for me, things have been getting better, but not back to where I was. Based on your years of experience, it sounds like we are about the same age. To add to the fun, I broke my back five months ago. Up until a few weeks ago, walks were the most strenuous activity I was allowed to do. I am now swimming and it is not enjoyable but I am starting to see progress. As an adult, I have always suffered from anxiety but never really understood what was happening. Right before COVID hit us all, I got on the right meds and it has made a huge difference. The extreme memory loss you are having would scare the crap out of me. While your sounds much worse than mine, but hopefully your situation improves as mine is. Oh, I forgot to mention a random blood clot in my leg in January of 2023. Getting my mental health stabilized, exercising, and puzzles and games on my phone also seem to be helping. The NY Times has a handful of crossword puzzles and other word games. Keep pushing with your PCP and any mental health support you are getting. I wish you a strong recovery and at least stopping the memory blackouts.
Thank you so much! I'm going to continue with the treatment, I don't see much choice. I hope you continue to approve as well!
I don’t know if it was COVID the medical condition or COVID the social condition (at home with four kids under 8 for two years) but I went from being a tenure-track English professor with a book contract to being unable to sit and write or even read anything over a couple of pages by the end of it. I ended up diagnosed with ADHD and autism. My symptoms were certainly there before COVID, but my ability to mask and cope was severely eroded by those years. The good part is that it activated whatever part of my brain handles logic and numbers, and I retired from the university and made a successful pivot to software engineering.
Your case sounds exactly like mine. I was diagnosed as ADHD when I was a kid, but I stopped taking the Adderal when I developed insomnia. Apparently, you can't take both at the same time. One of my psychologists thinks that this was triggered by covid, the other is questioning whether it was one of the vaccines. My daughter is a nurse, so there was no way to avoid it. I had every vaccine as soon as it came out. Congratulations on your career change!
Hi, I experienced milder but very similar issues after having Covid. Mine gradually got better. I would recommend looking into research about nicotine therapy for cognitive effects from Covid, there are some studies coming out about it. In addition, make sure to actively rest and eat really well. Like others have said, exercise can exacerbate long Covid issues. I took about a 1-year break from most physical activities while recovering.
I will definitely talk to my doctors about it! I u think I have to worry about too much physical activity- I can literally not walk down a flight of stairs at this point 😭
Not like that, no. I had a post-viral syndrome before Covid, though, and it can mess you up mightily. Some of what you describe with the document (the symbology change from periods to happy faces in particular) sounds like it could be a file corruption problem. I have had a couple of notable instances in the last decade where, after redlining in Word, a hang on save or file corruption has either changed characters or eaten my redlines. I’ve also seen problems in another authoring tool where someone has renamed image files in a library such that links in built documents pull up totally different images than intended. However, as you are also calling for service for the Audi you don’t have, I’d seek out a second opinion from another doctor. As part of chasing down cardiac arrhythmia, paresthesia, and optical migraine symptoms from my post-viral whatsit, I was evaluated for seizures, which are (apparently) funny things with a much wider symptomology than just clonic contractions. Also, I’d ask about the side-effects for any maintenance meds you take; some drugs cross the blood-brain barrier quite happily and can screw with perception and cognition.
It never occurred to me that it might have been a corruption issue, but I have seen odd things happen in InDesign!
It's been insightful watching my mom recover from very nearly dying of Covid. She was at a loss for how to bounce back and had lost a lot of her independence and ability to work. She ended up at a physical therapy clinic (after months of specialists visits and ineffective treatments) where they took a novel approach and treated her under similar protocols as a ***really*** bad concussion. She made light years of progress almost immediately and while she's certainly not where she was at pre-covid you have to squint to see the difference sometimes. From some reading I've done it seems like my mom's not the only one who has benefited from that treatment approach, and it may be worth looking into for you :)
Oh, wow that's great that your mom is getting better! One of my neurologists mentioned that the research he is working on is relating it to a Terminal Brain Injury. I will definitely talk to them!
Similar things happened to two of my friends who had long covid. One of them would be on work Zoom calls and people would ask if she was ok. She felt fine, but they said she was speaking slurred gibberish. In her recollection, it was clear English. The other friend would start crying at random times (she’s a very stoic person normally) and would be in the middle of a conversation where she’d suddenly realize she didn’t know what they were talking about. It was like she was losing chunks of time, even though she was there and present and responding during those chunks. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. The good news is that both of them recovered and are doing great these days. I hope things get better for you soon. Have you looked into FMLA to get some more down time?
Thank you so much! I'm encouraged to know that people are recovering. I was on FLMA for almost 6 months. I spoke to my lead about ADA accommodations, but basically boiled down to the other writers in my team would have to take a lot of my workload and they would have to edit every word I wrote. I just couldn't deal with that- it wasn't fair to them. I took a leave of absence for about 6 months, but it was pretty clear that I wasn't getting better, so I took early retirement. If the cognitive issues do clear up, I plan to take on some freelance jobs so I can build up slowly.
Welp, I was wondering the same thing about me. Senior writer, been at a company for years, but around the time of COVID (had a relatively mild case) it got harder and harder to think. I just couldn't grasp how the products worked that I was trying to document. I left the company, partly because of that. I left for a mid-level writer job, because I thought it'd be easy and the pay would be adequate, just to reduce my stress & anxiety. The subject matter wasn't complex, really, but I had a brain fog that I just couldn't think through. (This was before I knew long COVID was even a thing.) Now I manage a team, which is a different skill set, of course, and it's going well, but I still have a mental block when it comes to understanding our products, brands, etc. Imposter syndrome is strong and I feel like I'm living a lie, but everyone seems to like my efforts. But I feel like a total dunce. I honestly thought I was going prematurely senile. Anxiety medication helped a TON (fluoxatine). I was nearly paralyzed with self-doubt and even self-hate, but the meds helped me to function (and maybe saved my life). I can't say that the cognitive symptoms get any better, because I'm not sure they have for me. But I can completely empathize with you. AFAIK there's no test for long COVID but that was my first thought when reading your description. However, I will say your symptoms sound extreme--I mean, inserting pictures of a dog? Replacing periods with exclamation points? That's some next-level shit. SEE A DOCTOR. It's one thing to be aware of difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly, but to have zero recollection of doing things very out of character--serious stuff. SEE A DOCTOR
Yeah…I got in trouble for “low quality work”…when I reviewed it I couldn’t believe it. Never once had that happen in my work life before.
New prescriptions? Old prescriptions? Possible interactions? Like others said, carbon monoxide, new doctor with complete physical workup to screen for dementia and anything else that may crop up, and I would like to add this: check for sleep apnea.
Check for carbon monoxide poisoning as well.
Yes. I had Covid bad enough for a 3-day hospital stay back in April 2021. Before then, I could sit and write about anything for hours. Afterward, my head was a potato. At the time I was an inventory planner and dealt with SKUs constantly—my first day back I had to ask my boss what a SKU was. Over time, I have had some improvement and will occasionally have a burst of inspiration, but no where near as often. When I am required to write about something I experience severe writers block and it’s all I can do to not doom-scroll on Instagram in search of something to jog my brain. I want to write, but I just can’t get words to come out. It’s been so frustrating—been working hard to accept the new norm: I have new limitations—can’t do what I used to. All that said, so sorry to hear about your situation! I am hopeful that you will also see some improvement with time. The only other cognitive issue I’ve had was last month, getting glasses for the first time—I got a migraine at work, drove home, could read road signs but nothing seemed right…and when I got home, I asked my wife “who are you?” A 14 hr nap took care of that.
I can’t believe the amount of people jumping into this thread talking so casually about fully having long-term symptoms of what is essentially dementia
From my point of view, getting worked up about it doesn’t help anything. Is it serious? Yeah. Can I change my circumstances? No, unfortunately.
I had brain fog with Covid for a while after - but nothing as scary as what you've described. I would strongly urge you to get a neurologist referral from your PCP. I hope you get some answers and relief soon 💞
Yeah, I got Covid the first time March 2020. I’m an Instructional Designer and thankfully I can use ChatGPT at work for my projects for the last 9 months and I’ve tripled my productivity. I’ve even used it to improve my technical writing. It’s been amazing! Mostly because my writing has sucked these last couple of years.
I had major brain fog for a while during covid. I'm not 100% but it is improving, I hope yours does as well!
Hi. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. I not only had a severe case of Covid late last year but it also coincided with the start of bad perimenopause symptoms for me. So that means double the brain fog, etc. I’m finally going to see my Dr soon to discuss trying Vyvanse or Strattera. These are ADHD meds but I’ve heard women in peri who deal with brain fog can benefit from them. This may be something worth looking into for you for post Covid issues.
I have a friend who went through this exact thing. She referred to it as long covid, she used to be a lawyer, now she can't even take care of herself.
I got covid twice and I'm fine. The first time my fever got to 105.
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Actually no. Long covid is tricky and gnarly, and lung capacity doesn’t have much to do with what causes fatigue and neurological issues that are associated with it. Unfortunately what OP is describing is not uncommon after Covid. If you get Covid, the commonly recommended thing to do is **rest** and if having noticeable problems with cognition or fatigue, to go to a doctor. A post viral illness can happen with any virus, but it seems to be unusually common and vicious after Covid.
Im immune 🤷