Have you noticed that math is a lot harder, or that you have more trouble keeping track of time since you developed fibromyalgia (FMS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS)? I know I have, and I’ve heard the same thing from a lot of people.
Many months ago, in my forum, someone mentioned dyscalculia — a learning disability that deals with math. It’s similar to dysphasia, which includes those word-finding difficulties so many of us have, so it made sense to me that we could also have dyscalculia. I didn’t research it until now, and when I looked at a symptoms list I had a real “a-ha!” moment.
Dyscalculia not only impairs math and number abilities (forgetting concepts, transposing numbers), it also involves:
- Difficulties with time: inability to remember schedules, keep track of time, or remember a sequence of events.
- Spacial problems: impaired direction sense and memory of how things are laid out, leading to frequently getting lost or becoming disoriented.
- Difficulty sight-reading music or learning instrument fingerings.
- Bad memory for names.
When I read those things, a light went on. It’s incredibly common for us to get lost, or forget how to get where we’re going. Who among us hasn’t lost their car in a parking lot? I used to have a pretty good ability to sight-read and learn new music, but now I really struggle with it.
As a TV news producer, I was responsible for timing my newscast, and adjusting content on the fly to make up for being too long or too short. Now, I’ve lost the ability to do the mental math necessary for that, and I also have trouble gauging the flow of time. Things are constantly creeping up on me. I remember getting frustrated with my husband for “nagging” me about doing laundry, when I’d done several loads “a few days ago.” When I did a load for him, I counted 17 shirts. 17. It had been 2.5 weeks since I’d done laundry, and I’d have sworn it was maybe five days.
Research shows that dyscalculia involves dysfunction in a specific part of the brain — all of those problems come from the same cause. To me, this is huge because now I know that many of my dysfunctions have the same root cause; they’re ONE problem instead of SIX unrelated ones. I’ve been doing cognitive training to recover my mental abilities, and this knowledge gives me a much simpler plan of attack for improving my math, time sense, direction sense, musical ability, name recall, etc. — if I can improve one of these areas, it should spill over into the other, because it all comes from one part of the brain.
Dyscalculia isn’t something you can take a pill for, it’s something you have to live with. The good news is that it is a recognized learning disability, just like dyslexia or dysphasia. If it causes problems for you at work/school, you can talk to your boss/teacher about having this learning disability without having to disclose that you have FMS or ME/CFS, or trying to explain brain fog. Learning disabilities are covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act, so if you can actually be diagnosed with dyscalculia you can request reasonable accommodation.
The term dyscalculia doesn’t get a lot of use even in schools, so it might be easier to say you have a “learning disability in applied math.”
Does dyscalculia seem to fit you? Have you found ways to improve these skills? How have these problems impacted your life? Leave your comment below!
Dyscalculia Resources
- Dyscalculia Symptoms (site is under construction & not fully functional, but it’s the best symptom list I found)
- Dyscalculia Basics
- Cognitive Training Changes the Brain
Learn more or join the conversation!
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Problems With Time & Math in Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome originally appeared on About.com Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 06:00:27.
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