I found this on the Lupus International website:

NEUROCOGNITIVE DYSFUNCTION is also a common and overlooked clinical feature of lupus estimated to occur in up to 80% of affected individuals. The diversity of cognitive impairments parallels the considerable variability of the disease process. Deficits in learning and/or memory, reasoning, verbal fluency, motor function, basic attention, and information processing speed are the most consistently described.

This is precisely the kind of things my wife’s been dealing with for years, although never all of them at once.

In general, objective tests of cognitive performance are unrelated to perceived stress, depression, and anxiety, suggesting that cognitive impairment may be a primary disease manifestation consistent with other immunemediated disease with neurologic involvement (e.g., acquired immune deficiency syndrome and multiple sclerosis). Alternatively, the relationship between depression and cognitive performance may be determined by more subtle aspects of lupus, including sleep disturbance, fatigue, and pain as has been suggested in studies of individuals with multiple sclerosis.

We have often wondered if it was just stress or if things were just too busy, but there have been many times where things weren’t that stressful or busy, and my wife still had cognitive issues.

I remember Jenny’s rheumatologist talking about how vasculitis can affect cognitive function by causing small lesions in the brain. I was reading about vasculitis on the Lupus Foundation of America website, and I think that this might be the reason for much of what has been going on for the last couple of months.

We are going to consult with Jenny’s lupus specialist and see what needs to be done. Has anyone else dealt with this?