Are Here Any People Who Lost Percentages of Their IQ?

[lamp]

A year ago I was in coma and I lost a good portion of my IQ, I used to be at highly intelligent between 120-130. The doctor said I'm still going to be intelligent and bright, but at the same time I'm going to have a less interest to deal with topics, it also may take me longer to understand systems than it used to. I can only confirm that, by my argumentation and behavior I'm still considered intelligent, yet at the same time I have no problem with just "chilling", before the coma I simply could not just "chill" I had to keep myself busy all the time and I never could understand why other people would waste their time with so called "chilling" - well, now I know both sides of the medallion.

 

It had a positive side effect though, from a psychological perspective I'm not living so much in the future anymore, I'm more in the now and here, just because I'm "chilling". If I could choose I'd like to have my old self back, because sometimes I just feel a bit dull.

 

I'm writing this thread because while reading I've seen 1-2 people mention that they have been through the same story and I'd be interested in your stories and if you have any tips for my situation. I still don't know how to deal with this, I'm still hoping that this desire to chill simply stems from the coma and will take off after a while, at the same time I'm realizing that I may not be like I used to.

 

In that sense I'd be interested in your experiences with this.

[Marat]

The experience of general anesthesia, which is fairly common, can cause a loss of a few IQ points, as can episodes of severe hypoglycemia. I have also seen clear personality changes in people following a single concussion. More disturbing are the declines in intelligence with age. The range of vocabulary used by authors over their writing career has been studied, and the shrinking array of words used with advancing age is quite unsettling. However, the genius murderer Nathan Leopold Jr., who was imprisoned from 1924 to 1958 (ages 18 to 52), found that his IQ was essentially unchanged over the duration of his incarceration, despite the relative lack of intellectual stimulation. Perhaps intellectual function is more resistant to age in geniuses.

 

The best solution to intellectual decline with age, beyond committing suicide while still young and bright to stop the decay, is to try to compensate for the deterioration of 'hard' structures by continuing to build up 'soft' structures. Essentially this means that you continue to learn and think energetically, in the hopes of improving your armory of intellectual assets to compensate for loss of thinking speed.

[TonyMcC]

 

More disturbing are the declines in intelligence with age.

 

The best solution to intellectual decline with age......................................................... is to try to compensate for the deterioration of 'hard' structures by continuing to build up 'soft' structures. Essentially this means that you continue to learn and think energetically, in the hopes of improving your armory of intellectual assets to compensate for loss of thinking speed.

 

The only thing I can say about the first point is "Gee Thanks!"

 

A couple of things to say about the second point is perhaps thinking speed and intelligence are not the same thing. For example many quite elderly drivers may be a bit slow with their reactions but remain safe drivers because they look and think well ahead - I think its part of what is known as wisdom.

 

Also I rather hope that using my grey matter by following this site is one of quite a few things I do that keeps me "on the ball".

[lamp]

Another thing I've noticed is that I do not get every detail from a conversation with a person. Before, people were always surprised that I could remember 90-100% of the conversation, but now it's different. Sometimes, I just stop listening while a person is speaking and then I have to get my mind back to the person, I have to concentrate a bit more than I used to. People were surprised how I could just absorb everything they were saying and I was always frustrated when people never could take on the details of my own sentences.

 

Sometimes I feel as if I'm one of "them" - the average people. I don't have this feel as if the time is running out anymore as I used to and I also do not feel the desire to deal so much with topics, I sometimes think to myself I could and then I just don't. The biggest problem which is bugging me is the loss of the feel of clarity which I used to have in my mind, it all feels duller than it used to.

 

I've heard on TV an expert mention that the IQ described the feel of clarity in a person's mind, I never could relate to that formulation but now I clearly know what he was talking about.

 

I think I will just start doing some mind training and deal with topics again like I used to I'll just try to not invest way too much time, a few hours a day is enough.

[CoBases]

Few years ago I experienced similar situation. I used to work 24/7 on my research as well on the business and my learning and understanding skills kept dropping till I get into really bad situation and felt really burned out.

 

I had to take a rest for a months to get back on the level where I was before. People really has some limits so don't try to break the nature.

 

I think this could be in your case as well

[Marat]

Keep in mind that everyone loses some intellectual acuity with age, but because our interactions with society are typically rather imprecise and 'blunt,' we notice small changes in intellectual capacity much more intensely than others do. That is why I am always surprised when people exhibit behavior which suggests that they are extreme egotists. Since everyone is intimately acquainted with his own intellectual defects which he has corrected prior to presenting himself and his views to the public, you would think people would always have a lower opinion of themselves than others do.

 

One of my first 'bumps' on the way down through intellectual decline with age was noticing, for the first time at age 28, that I actually needed to keep track of the day's errands and plans with a written list, whereas before I had been able to keep everything sorted and stored in my head. At about that same age I found that I could no longer concentrate fully on difficult texts while the television was on in the same room, since my brain could no longer focus sufficiently to screen out all distractions. Sigh.

 

But functionally, beyond demonstrating your intellectual acrobatics at party games, what do changes such as these matter? You can still function intellectually at a high enough level even without these special skills that come from being both smart and young.

[Moontanman]

I don't know about IQ, last timed i checked my IQ it was 145 ( I think it's not as as meaningful as most people think anyway) but when I was injured 14 years ago the doctors assumed my pain was all in my head and they put me on several drugs that didn't help, eventually they put me on oxycontin. My creativity suffered a big loss, before the rounds of drugs i wrote poetry and short stories regularly but after the drugs i lost the ability to write almost completely. Now writing stories and poetry is a struggle, almost not worth trying. i can feel a big difference in my ability to think abstractly, it's very frustrating to go back and read stuff i had written and feel it is over my head by a wide margin, almost like it was written by some one else.

[Realitycheck]

There are quite a few different facets to brain function and much of it concerns different parts of the brain interacting with each other, though many things are easily attributable to strict sections of the brain. You probably have some idea of what areas you are weak in, whether they are actual areas, such as motor cortex, or function, such as short term memory. I would get familiar with the areas of your brain that you have weakness in, as you have most likely had lots of testing done, and find out what functions are associated with these areas, if you don't already know. This will give you something to focus on, to help "exercise" your brain, remodelling and regrowing any lost connections which need to reorganize and reestablish themselves.

 

Just think of it like a copper wire, with many strands. You started out with a healthy wire, but then when you had the head injury?, trauma, inflammation, severs some of the connections/strands, and after things heal back, you will have weakness in these areas. But if you can "exercise" them, these connections will not be so limited and your brain has some ability to reorganize and make up for any isolated kinks or broken structure.

 

Based on what you have posted so far, I see three issues. You've most likely lost some cognitive function, 20 IQ points sounds a bit substantial, though I would get involved with reading and involve myself with puzzles as much as possible to exercise the cognitive portions of your brain. As far as the part about not being able to deal with things as much, I'm not entirely sure what this means or what part of the brain or function it pertains to. It sounds like maybe you have lost your patience to deal with things, which is probably not surprising considering the experience and with time, maybe it will fade as the trauma fades. Anybody in that situation will be impatient and self-centered. For some reason, it seems that perhaps you're not anal retentive anymore, which isn't necessarily such a bad thing, such as with the ladies, though you should try to figure out some way to train yourself to exercise caution and be conservative, ie. not let it develop into a problem. I realize I could be overgeneralizing things a bit, but it's just my first impression.

Edited July 7, 2011 by Realitycheck

[lamp]

Great post Realitycheck, regarding the last paragraph, thanks for the tip about training my cognitive abilities, I will keep that in mind and try to get into it. Regarding the rest of the last paragraph, when I say "I have a less of a desire to deal with topics" then I simply mean researching topics like a scientist would do. By the way, the opposite is the case, I'm actually way more patient now than I was before, before I was really impatient and would jump up and read 5 books at a time, I simply could not sit or lay still. Now I'm just laying on my bed with my laptop on my lap and I'm "chilling while surfing the web" - I don't even have a desire to research anymore. I used to research so much and so good that people would want me to become a researcher or some type of advice giving expert, I even got offers - I guess I can forget that job now.

[lamp]

Realitycheck, I was thinking about your tip with the puzzles and I'd like to ask what type of puzzles do you actually mean, are there any specific puzzles you have on your mind?

 

What I find interesting is that I figured that I'm not completely weakened from this accident, but I could not clearly define in which way, after reading your post I'm realizing that it must be specific areas I weakened and just like you said it's probably mostly my cognitive area.

 

I was a very content oriented guy and meaning and sense was a primary to me, and I'm noticing that I'm still able to remember content very well, maybe not as clear as I used to but it is still good. The biggest difference I notice is that I simply do not have any DESIRE to deal with topics, like reading books and researching what ever I want to research. I just don't want to anymore. Do you think there's any way to train that desire back? Or am I always going to be an average joe who likes to lay on the beach? *ironically*

 

 

But I've also noticed some positives as well - yes the glass is not always half empty - for example I'm much better in conversations with people since I'm much more patient and I do not get bored so quickly and also frustrated with people, even when it takes them long to finish their thoughts and I already know what they want to say before they even started their sentence, back then I would just wander with my eyes and look somewhere else in a bored way, people would often perceive that as unfriendly. Another change I noticed is that I'm much better able to write a text than I used, before I had the typical problem that I was thinking way to fast and I could not synchronize my writing to my thoughts and my text would end up fragmented, I do not have that problem anymore. I also seem to be better in finding the fitting words at the right time. I as well do not have the problem with the racing thoughts anymore as I used to.

 

To add one more to it, these new advantages may not be beneficial in science, but they are indeed beneficial in other areas, which means I may not become a scientist anymore or something similar, I may not even become a researcher or advice giving expert but I still can become an entrepreneur which is one of my possible career wishes.

Edited July 7, 2011 by chaseman

[Yoseph]

How old are you chaseman? When you talk about how you were before the coma it reminds me of me before the age of 14/15. I too was extremely interested and keen in science, and knowledge in general, but like you said, I too have lost my spark as it were. I believe it's just part of growing up, just like a young puppy jumps around and is easily excited, and a dog not as much so. It depresses me slightly that I'm not energetic anymore, but I too have found that I'm better at different things. Personally I have become much more interested in art and music, going from someone who wanted to be a chemist to a software developer now to a music artist. This is biased advice but maybe try learning an instrument, if you now have the patience you might find it very rewarding with enough practice, in the same way knowledge was once rewarding before.

[lamp]

Hahaha Yoseph I'm really glad you wrote your post, you said I remind you of you, while reading your post I have to say you reminded me of me - the irony - haha.

 

Currently I'm 25 years old, I think if I train my cognitive abilities I may be able to get a good portion of my abilities back, but I also I think I'm still just shocked that I don't have a high IQ anymore, though if I think more about it it even may even BECOME a good thing, because of the advantages I counted above.

 

What I find interesting is, that we both are similar just in a switched way, for example when I was a teenager I was mostly interested in arts and later started composing music and learning to play the piano, I used it like a self-therapy. Later on probably at age 21 I realized that I have an intellect and I easily can research any topic and keep all the content in my mind without the need to memorize everything repeatedly.

 

I still have a giftedness the biggest difference which really sticks out to me, which I already mentioned a few times is the lack of desire for intellectual information. I'm simply not as inquisitive anymore.

[Marat]

Some of the complaints on this thread suggest low testosterone rather than diminishing IQ. As testosterone levels decrease in males, they lose the energy and drive that is necessary to sublimate into intellectual effort in order to produce really solid, creative, or brilliant results. Before you go to the neurologist to find where your missing IQ points have gone, have your free testosterone levels measured.

[lamp]

Marat, your post almost sounded sarcastic, what you're saying makes a lot of sense though. I'm wondering where and how can I get my testosterone levels checked?

 

There is another information I should mention, I also have a cFS (chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and my doctor told me not to do bodybuilding - which I initially wanted to do - because it could worsen my cFS.

 

Any ideas how I could increase the testosterone levels? Would a lot of good sex help? I'm asking this last question since I'm about to meet a sporty girl.

[Realitycheck]

What you need to know is that you are not alone. There are millions of people around the world in a situation like you. If you have lost twenty points on your iq score, thats valid reason enough. At this point, you still have some room for healing and improvement, but I don't know any of your details. After my coma, I went back to work at a cpa firm in about two months, but everybody has different capabilities.

 

What you need to know is that you are not alone. There are millions of people around the world in a situation like you. If you have lost twenty points on your iq score, thats valid reason enough. At this point, you still have some room for healing and improvement, but I don't know any of your details. After my coma, I went back to work at a cpa firm in about two months, but everybody has different capabilities.

 

What you need to know is that you are not alone. There are millions of people around the world in a situation like you. If you have lost twenty points on your iq score, thats valid reason enough. At this point, you still have some room for healing and improvement, but I don't know any of your details. After my coma, I went back to work at a cpa firm in about two months, but everybody has different capabilities.

As far as the puzzles go, just do anything which exercises your problem-solving abilities.

[Marat]

Chaseman: If you give me the sporty girl's phone number, I'll tell you how to have your testosterone levels checked!

 

Seriously, though, any doctor can order a check of your testosterone levels, and along with that it is useful to have other endocrine functions checked, such as thyroid function, since low thyroid function can also often produce symptoms of intellectual decline. Many males have less than optimal testosterone levels (hypogonadism), and this can easily be corrected (as long as your prostate is healthy enough not to suggest a cancer risk) by a testosterone gel application which you can apply every morning to your stomach or upper arms to bring the levels back to normal. The improvement in overall energy and zest for life found in old men whose testosterone levels have been restored in this way has been remarkable, though it remains an area of controversy in medicine whether this should be routine treatment for aging males, given its influence in increasing prostate cancer risk.

[lamp]

Though I'm not an old man, I'm just 25 years old, I think if I would do at least slight bodybuilding or just a bit of consistency training it could increase my testosterone, combined with good sex though haha.