Yes I have to write stuff down all the time

Brain fog is killer. Before I was diagnosed I was really beginning to think I was losing my mind

Yes . I definitely have the same problem. I will be sitting on the couch and think I need to do something in the kitchen which is only a few feet away and I forgot what it was. this is almost everyday .

My memory got so bad that I couldn't remember the names of common things, I would have to describe what I was talking about. My doctor sent me to a neoropsychologist to be tested thinking there could be something going wrong in my brain. The neoropsychologist tested me for several days and did a CAT scan of my brain. Then he retested me again several months later to see if my memory had gotten better or worse. He concluded that I had real memory issues but said they were caused by my minds inability to handle all the pain I was in. He said that so much of my brain was working on just the pain that there wasn't enough left to handle all the memory issues I needed so the memory suffered. I had to keep lists of everything. I started keeping lists of what I needed to do the next day. As I completed a task, I would check it off. If it was a daily task I would add it to the next day's list. Important things had a separate list so that I didn't forget to do them. Once I was able to quit working and my pain level went down, my memory got a lot better but I still keep lists of all important things. I find having a notebook to keep my lists in is handy because I can refer back to it to see what I did or needed to do on previous days when I'm having a particularly bad day. It is frustrating and often embarrassing but most people who know me know I have the problem and understand. When I talk to people new to me I just tell them I have memory issues so that they understand when I constantly stumble through the conversation. It isn't something to be ashamed of it is part of the condition we have and we just have to do the best we can to cope with it.

Today, I literally read a 4 step recipe 7 times and read the bag of flour 4 times, only to realize after putting the mixture in the oven that I did use all purpose flour... the main thing that I was trying to avoid! Sigh...