a complaint I have been making for years

[alexseanchai]

Something that's been ongoing a few years is I can't focus on big blocks of text that need particular attention. Like, a novel-length fanfic of something I'm already familiar with I have been able to read without difficulty, but an actual novel, or a nonfiction anything that isn't a collection of shorter pieces, that's different. And this has been bugging me no end because I remember how much I read in high school and I miss that.

In the past three days I have read Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis, Suradanna and the Sea by Rebecca Frainow, and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin. Suradanna is a novella, which has still been well into "too long" territory, but the others are novels, and I think Kingdoms is a fairly substantial novel at that. (Not sure. Kindle edition.)

I'm not sure what to make of this but I am pleased.

Comments

[lilysea]

Yay! ^_^ \o/

[lilysea]

Lyrica (pregabalin) made it impossible for me to read.

So did Low-dose naltrexone (LDN).

Lack of sleep also = no reading, for me.

[alexseanchai]

--by pure coincidence I haven't taken Abilify the past few days. (Bottle opened in purse. Haven't dealt with yet.)

???

[lilysea]

I googled, and the prescriber information for Drs says

"Potential for cognitive and motor impairment: ABILIFY, like other antipsychotics, may have the potential to impair judgment, thinking, or motor skills. For example, in short-term, placebo-controlled trials, somnolence (including sedation) was reported as follows (ABILIFY incidence, placebo incidence): in adult patients (n=2467) treated with oral ABILIFY (11%, 6%), in pediatric patients ages 6 to 17 (n=611) (24%, 6%), and in adult patients (n=501) on ABILIFY Injection (9%, 6%). Somnolence (including sedation) led to discontinuation in 0.3% (8/2467) of adult patients and 3% (20/732) of pediatric patients (6 to 18 years) on oral ABILIFY in short-term, placebo-controlled trials, but did not lead to discontinuation of any adult patients on ABILIFY Injection."

So, it's possible it could be affecting your ability to read...

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2014/021436s038,021713s030,021729s022,021866s023lbl.pdf

[alexseanchai]

WELL FUCK

thanks

[untonuggan]

Last year I basically regained reading novels after removing Lyrica and also some other meds with anti-cholinergic effects. Like when they were finally out of my system I read the entire October Daye series (10 books) in a week when previously books were just...so...hard. And I was like "crap, do I need a book budget again? What is this? also YAY."

(I was like "do I maybe have the makings of anticholinergic toxicity?" and the answer is who the fuck knows, but I do have a low tolerance for them before the side effects start kicking in.)

Unfortunately now I'm in "maybe MCAS issues? maybe some other weird-ass allergies?" and basically all the allergy meds have varying degrees of anticholinergic properties, which means no reading paper books. (I have somewhat greater tolerance for ebooks, but it's still actively hard.)

anyway it's kind of motivation to figure out potential allergen issues and/or optimal anticholinergics, because the fewer I take the less my mental fog is. (note: this is a potentially relevant rabbit hole idk)

[I am not a doctor, YMMV. If you want to find a list of which of your meds have anticholinergic properties and they're prescribed by multiple specialists, I recommend talking to your pharmacist tho. Just fyi.]

[untonuggan]

Also of note: another thing that helped with reading issues is getting reading glasses, specifically in my case PRISM lenses to help compensate for a convergence insufficiency. It's not a perfect fix, but it definitely is helpful. Idk if vision screening is in your realm of possibility, but also something to put a pin in "reasons why reading big blocks of text may be hard."

[alexseanchai]

*nod nod*

Thanks :)

[fred_mouse]

As another data point - the more stressed/depressed/anxious I am, the more difficult I find it to stick with something completely new. At the worst, I don't even try reading fic that is more than 20K, because I know that I'll space out.

Given that you've finished moving house, and got your loan sorted, and some other stressful adult things, maybe you have dropped your overall stress level just enough?

[alexseanchai]

hm yeah plausible