Is it common for physical illness (unrelated to the brain) to cause mental changes? What have been your or your loved ones' experiences with this?

I’ve seen it happen a lot in the elderly, and UTI’s seem to be a huge culprit. I’m not sure if it’s common otherwise, though.

I have noticed this. But I have assumed that the personality changes were due to medication prescribed to treat the physical illness combined with the stress and lifestyle changes that come with such an illness.

I had some pretty severe mental changes with thyroid disease. Not dementia, but other stuff. When I was in thyroid storm (15 years old), I essentially went crazy. Lack of sleep was a huge culprit with that one, but didn’t explain all of it. I was truly out of my damn mind.

Later, when my thyroid died, I lost a lot of mental acuity. I could no longer do any complex math without a calculator, and even simple math became a bit of a struggle, and I lost a lot of memory skills. I used to have a nearly photographic memory, and now it’s for shit. Apparently that’s pretty common.

Oh, that’s a good example, @augustlan. My husband is notorious for forgetting his thyroid medication, and I can always tell when he does because he can’t remember anything.

I think there are a myriad of reasons. Some diseases actually affect hormones and neural processes like thyroid disease as @augustlan mentioned. Syndromes and disease that cause pain, I think the body probably releases chemicals that “dull” us, as a defense mechanism. Chronic illness also fogs our brains if we are lucky I think. Remembering everything is too traumatic. So, I guess my hypothesis is there are some innate mechanisms to help us not have long lasting anxiety related to illness and trauma. Some of us have that system more intact than others, some maybe we have too much of it.

I think most conditions tend to affect the elderly because they become more sensitive to the side effects of medications and often are overly medicated or medicated incorrectly. Many medications can cause confusion and depression and sleepiness.
My husband has had his up and downs with colitus and when he was on steroid he was very short tempered and tired and gained a lot of weight. Once he was off it, it took a few months for him to get back to normal. But I felt his other medications where not help him either.
Long story short. He still has colitus but he hasn’t had a bout in over a year and hasn’t had a bad one in over 5 years and he is medication free and feeling and thinking a lot better.
I felt he was being over medicated. He went from swallowing 12 pills a day to only one allergy pill a day during allergy season.
Oh, and his allergies have also gotten better and he sleeps better too. Which I’m sure has something to do with a change in temperment or memory as well.

@Pandora is right, I believe. Often metabolism slows so much when we are older, I think the effects of things that may have no bearing on those of us that are younger, are far more pronounced in someone who is considerably older.

@ANef_is_Enuf That is very odd, because thyroid medication takes weeks to reach therapeutic levels. Mossing a pill should not cause symptoms that same day, but days or weeks later. I find it very interesting you have observed that. I don’t question it, just interesting.

@JLeslie he doesn’t “miss a day.” He will completely forget to take his pill for a week, sometimes. I’ve gotten to the point where I will just pick up the bottle and shake it at him before he leaves for work every day. Followed by lectures of why he can’t forget to take the medication. I’m scared one of these days he is going to wreck his car or something, he gets so foggy.

@ANef_is_Enuf Oh. That definitely makes sense. How can he stand it? Doesn’t he feel like crap? Hair falling out, sore muscles, skin problems, etc. Or, does he not get many symptoms?

I don’t know this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if brain chemistry changes under the influence of physical ailments. Also, it seems to me that the brain scarring that comes from Alzheimers can, if you are an active thinker, be overcome. However, when you are weakened physically, you might get depressed or stop thinking as actively, and the depredations of Alzheimers might start to become more visible.

The brain is a strange place and we know so little about so many things it does. I know I’ve had serious issues with word recall since I’ve been taking meds that try to correct my brain chemistry. I recently went off one of those meds and it seems like maybe it is getting a little easier to recall words. It’s still a struggle, but sometimes I can get the word on my own instead of having to look in a thesaurus.

@JLeslie he has never really had many symptoms. We were both kind of stunned to learn that his thyroid was so bad, because the only issue he has ever had is feeling a bit more tired than usual. The memory problems and fogginess were never noticeable until he started medication. He has great skin and thick hair (he’s Italian), and he always chalks muscle aches up to his back problems. So really, no. He never notices. I’m always the one that notices when he hasn’t taken his medicine.

I can feel the effects on about day 3 of missing my thyroid meds. I feel like everything is moving in s l o w – m o t i o n.

I have a pheochromocytoma that the doctors are having lots (8 years now) of trouble finding. It causes my body to have way too much adrenaline in my system. I now have a very violent temper and am unable to drive for road rage trouble. I’ve become a bit xenophobic and can only rarely leave the house without taking tons of medication

It’s common for me. If there is ever a trauma to my repro organs (difficult childbirth, miscarriage, LEEP procedures and biopsies) there is an negative effect on my mental health.

I know this phenomenon isn’t only a reaction to medication. One day a few years ago my mom called her dad who was living across the country, and he wasn’t making any sense at all. She called some of their nearby friends to go get him and take him to a hospital. It turned out he had a UTI that was going untreated and that had caused his mental change. He eventually went back to normal after receiving treatment.

When I used to have really bad ulcerative colitis flareups, my brain felt “fuzzy.” I had to focus really hard on conversations in order to understand what people were saying and reply appropriately. It was scary. I always bounced back after getting well, though. I’ve never been sure if it was an emotional reaction or an actual physical change to my brain while ill, but I tend to think it was the latter.