Diagnosed Grad Student

lflds · Sep 16, 2015

Hi everyone. I've been recently diagnosed this August after having numbness and tingling and joint pains . I'm a 23 year old student in my second year of a doctoral program and having a hard time with the diagnosis. This is my first week of the new semester and already the overwhelming tiredness and brain fog makes me nervous about how my performance will be. It is a health professions major where we learn about fibromyalgia, but all I learn from class and from reading online is how painful it is and I'm honestly scared about it getting worse. I never post online, but I'm feeling scared and alone in this and I'd just like some advice on how to cope with a chronic diagnosis and alleviate some of the brain fog so I can still pursue my career. Thanks, L.

Getemgirl · Sep 16, 2015

I'm an educator and after a restful summer with some work, I also had a lot of brain fog when I returned to work full time about 6 weeks ago. I was actually a little panicked. It improved since then and I still lose names or search for words, but I'm not panicking anymore. I hope you also see improvement over time. You can ask for accommodations from your university. It falls under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Maybe if your professors knew about the brain fog and that you have the info in your head, but need time to get it out, you wouldn't feel as stressed about it. You could also ask for more time on assignments, questions provided before the lecture so you can have written responses to refer to, etc. be super organized! If you had some kind of cheat sheet or reference book you could quickly look at, it would get you past that initial dumbfounded blank state.

lflds · Sep 17, 2015

Getemgirl said:
I'm an educator and after a restful summer with some work, I also had a lot of brain fog when I returned to work full time about 6 weeks ago. I was actually a little panicked. It improved since then and I still lose names or search for words, but I'm not panicking anymore. I hope you also see improvement over time. You can ask for accommodations from your university. It falls under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Maybe if your professors knew about the brain fog and that you have the info in your head, but need time to get it out, you wouldn't feel as stressed about it. You could also ask for more time on assignments, questions provided before the lecture so you can have written responses to refer to, etc. be super organized! If you had some kind of cheat sheet or reference book you could quickly look at, it would get you past that initial dumbfounded blank state.

Hi Getemgirl, thanks for your advice! I went in today to talk to my program director and she gave me the same advice you did. I created a plan with the ADA coordinator on campus and now just have to work on staying non-stressed and de-fog. Hopefully this happens sooner than later!

Getemgirl · Sep 17, 2015

Yay! I really hope this helps a bit with the stress.

Diagnosed Grad Student

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