I am going to try and enter some info for you from this long list of info I found tonight online. My eyes are bad tonite from my myasthenia but I took some notes and need to get it down on here while I can still interpret them. I tried to get some of the link also for you. This long list seems to be from some notes he used at a seminar and is complicated and will be hard to interpret. However, I think if you can find the note you may be able to sort out a little of the info here and there...which is pretty much what I did.
Name of notes....heading. Neurological Complications odf SLE (Lupus) and Sjogrens Syndrome by Dr. Julius Birnbaum MD/M.H.S Rheumatology and Neurology......Asst. Prof. Also Asst director of J. H. Jerome Greene Sjogrens Center John Hopkins.
Some of the link that I could read is
http://www.ncrheum.org/neurocomplicationssleandsjogrens.birnbaum( This is not working. Go down to the fifth post and read my post addressing this problem. Thanks. Irish)
These are some things that Birnbaum stated that helped me understand some things better. Not whole lot but some.
So many of us think we are losing our mind at time with our cognitive issues. He said that the "A" factor is something used when differentiating Alzheimers. I don't remember all the meaning so I will leave it to you if you want to look it up. The A's are Aphasia, Acalcula, Apraxia, Alexia and Agraphia.
If we don't have these issues it sounds like people with Sjogrens and lupus have subcortical deficits in the brain. He described this as a brain fog which is sludging of thoughts and difficulty multitasking. Sound Familiar. He had a lot of info in there stating that so often so much of our symptoms can be from things other than lupus or sjogrens. Infections was a big thing to consider.
He also stated that Small fiber neuropathy is way under diagnosed and that mononeuritis multiplex needs to be investigated sometimes also for a differential diagnosis with neuropathies. Also, he stated that Sjogrens is not a progressive neurodegenerative disease.
This Dr. Birnbaum came on this forum frequently when he was first getting his Sjogrens unit started at John Hopkins. He spent a fair amount of time answering questions so many of us remember him and some of you have gone to him.
Sorry this is so long and confusing but hopfully you can put together some phrases that will help you find this site as it was good. My eyes and brain arn't very good tonight. Heck, I'm ot as good as I used to be. Thanks. irish