Hi there. As you may have guessed, I'm a sock! Just for medical privacy purposes, though. No troublemaking here.
Here's the background. I'm 26 years old. My memory's never been amazing, but used to be pretty normal, to my knowledge. Lately, however, it seems to have declined to an extent that other people are noticing. I will have a conversation with somebody and within the hour, I won't remember what the topic was. I'll have (apparently) asked a question, received an answer, and then I'll ask the same question even as little as a few minutes later. I'm in school now, and I keep finding out that assignment dates have been changed, and I have absolutely no memory of this happening - despite the fact that I attended the class in which they were changed. I have even had problems with someone saying something, to which I listen - and then a few sentences later in the conversation, I get lost because I have already forgotten that crucial tidbit.
I don't feel like I have any problems with attention. Just memory. I feel like I'm getting stupider, and people are getting frustrated with me. It's getting kind of upsetting.
Basically what I'm wondering is, ultimately, is this worth seeing a doctor for? What could it be? I feel like I'm already a semi-hypochondriac and I don't want to go through a ton of medical procedures just to find out nothing was wrong and I was just being paranoid. Which has happened to me several times in my life - so I worry that I'm overreacting sometimes.
A little background, in case it's useful. I'll spoiler this in case it's not, so you don't have to read all my possibly relevant, or not, medical history.
[spoiler:jc13l8gg]I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (isn't everybody?) but it seems pretty clear that I really do have such problems. I have plenty of periods of stability and have been pretty successful in school/work so far, and would like to continue! But there are definitely periods of problems (usually a few months at a time). I have had varying levels of psychosis during some mood episodes, of which there have been about 7 in ten years (4 depression; 2 mania; 1 unclear, mostly characterized by psychosis). I'm currently on a mood stabilizer (Lamictal) which I feel has been working quite well for those problems. I used to be on antipsychotics, and I used to be on mood stabilizers Tegretol and Topamax, which are notorious for side effects of, well, basically general stupidityLamictal is not supposed to do that, and I've been on it about 7 months with no side effect problems.
In the past, I have had two episodes of blacking out and falling down (non-alcohol related ones, I mean). I was evaluated for seizures (MRI, EEG, etc. etc.) and the tests suggested that they were not seizures. I wasn't really diagnosed with anything, but since I was already on anticonvulsive medication as a mood stabilizer, it was just left at that. It was found that I have clonus on my right side but not much was made of that, either, since the MRI/EEG were normal.
I used to be alcoholic but am now sober (1 year 2 weeks!). Used to smoke and occasional marijuana as well, don't do those things anymore.
I think that's everything that's neurologically relevant. Pretty physically healthy - somewhat overweight, frequent nausea for some reason, but that's about it. Most recent bloodwork was about a year ago, and it was all as normal as can be - so, as far as I know, no thyroid or diabetes issues.[/spoiler:jc13l8gg]
Thanks for your help.