Ask the Doctor: What causes forgetfulness; can food or medication help?

Dear doctor, what causes forgetfulness? You can imagine things like forgetting what you are holding in your hand, the name of your best friend, what you read in a book within a day. What is the cause? Are there any food supplements that boost the memory? Are there any drugs that can help without side-effects?

Paul, Mukono

Dear Paul, a lot of people experience forgetfulness or memory lapses, which is usually not serious but forgetfulness is sometimes part of an aging process. This can be both annoying and embarrassing.

Sometimes it may be accompanied with personality and behaviourial problems when one suffers from a form of brain disease called dementia. Forgetfulness can result from reversible causes but when they are irreversible, medication may be of help. It is always necessary for people to visit their doctors for regular check-ups so that such problems are detected early and resolved. Excessive stress, anxiety disorders, depression and other mental illnesses cause forgetfulness and need to be checked out.

Sometimes medications including Proplanolol, sleeping pills, those for HIV, and for mental illness may cause temporary or permanent memory loss.

Forgetfulness can result from brain damage because of a brain clot, a brain tumour or a brain infection, a blow to the head, low oxygen levels, chronic alcoholism or drug abuse. Also medical conditions including deficiency of vitamin B 12, kidney, liver or thyroid problems may also be to blame. Food supplements that contain Vitamin B 12 may help. But if one has problems absorbing the vitamins, one may require the vitamin in form of injection.

Dear doctor, I have two questions in one. My wife is two-and-a-half-months pregnant and she is experiencing pains in the lower stomach. What could be the cause? Secondly, I was told that she has fibroids. Do you think they are the cause? Do you think her pregnancy is safe?

Anselm Kubukya

Dear Anselm, pain in the lower abdomen though could be from any cause, say, appendicitis whose location of pain can change during pregnancy. Your wife’s pain is likely to result from stretching of an expanding womb. It could also be from constipation or Urinary Tract Infections that usually occur resulting from pregnancy-related hormones

Innocuous as this may seem, you need to visit a doctor to rule out other problems that usually cause pain in the lower abdomen in all women including pregnant ones. The doctor may order ultrasound scan tests to locate the baby to rule out pain due to a pregnancy outside of the normal womb, say, in the fallopian tubes.

Fibroids are non-cancerous swellings that develop in the womb during of a woman’s reproductive years. Therefore, they may be found in a pregnant woman. Since in the majority of women they show no symptoms, they may be found accidentally for the first time during pregnancy. Some pregnant women may experience minor symptoms, including lower abdominal pain.
Though many people worry that fibroids grow rapidly in pregnancy due to a rapid rise in levels of female hormones, this is not always the case. Those that grow tend to return to their pre-pregnancy size afterwards.

Fibroids, however, can cause uncomfortable feeling of heaviness and may cause sharp pain in the lower back and legs if nerves are compressed. Rarely do fibroids enlarge and outstrip their blood supply (red degeneration) and bleed causing lots of pain. This tends to occur in the middle three-month period of pregnancy.

The most common problem with fibroids in pregnancy is delivering two to three weeks early (the premature baby usually survives and therefore this is of little threat to the baby), recurrent miscarriages (rare before 24 weeks of pregnancy) and partial blockage of the lower part of the womb requiring delivery by Caesarean section.

Dear doctor, I have problems at work and was expecting that I would lose weight but I have gained a lot of weight instead. Can stress cause obesity?

Mama Dorothy

Dear Dorothy, when the body suspects it is in danger or uncertainty, it coordinates with the brain to produce a range of hormones but chiefly one called cortisol, to ready the body for action. Also, more adrenaline, which makes the heart beat faster and triggers emotions like fear, is produced.

The brain also releases neuropeptide S, a small protein that modulates stress by decreasing sleep and increasing alertness and anxiety. These hormones then will lead to signs and symptoms of acute stress.

But the stress response system has an inbuilt capacity to turn itself off once the stressor ceases. In chronic stress, however, the system does not turn off and continues to produce cortisol and other hormones.

Prolonged production of cortisol can slow one’s bodily activities that produce energy and growth (metabolism), causing more weight gain than expected. Increased levels of cortisol will make one crave for unhealthy fatty foods (emotional eating) ostensibly to store them for increased needs to face the stressor.

This leads to weight gain. Unfortunately, high or chronic levels of stress lead to abdominal fat, which is not only bad cosmetically but may risk one stroke, heart disease and diabetes.

A stressed person most likely may not exercise. This with emotional eating is likely to lead to a “couch potato” lifestyle.

I am 54-years-old and I have never fathered any child. Because of this, I have never married though one does not need to own a cow to drink milk. Do you think I ejaculate “air”?
Ssekuuma

Dear Ssekuuma, not fathering a child does not always mean you are infertile and being infertile does not mean you should not get married. You need semen tests so that if a problem is found, it is dealt with so that you can father children instead of living in anxiety. A man may fail to have children because of producing few or no sperms.

Sometimes, he may produce adequate sperms but their way out is blocked. Semen, which is mostly a combination of sperms and fluids from the seminal vesicles and prostate gland, will still be produced even if there is blockage but will be without sperms.

The prostate, seminal vesicles should also produce fluids for properly functioning semen. All these including infections in the reproductive system can be dealt with. It is true some men may ejaculate “air” if the semen takes a back route towards the bladder instead of outwards.

Here, the sperms can be recovered from urine and artificial methods used to make your sex partner pregnant. If found with low sperm count, drugs to boost you and your sex partner can cause her to get pregnant. If not, artificial assistance may help if you can afford it financially.

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