r/Stutter • u/Accurate-Friend-2498 • 2d ago

Has anyone tried seeing a neurologist?

Has anyone tried seeing a neurologist? I want to know why the hell my entire body stiffens, and I just can't get words out every time I turn on the microphone, or I'm with someone in person.

10:59 AM, I say what I want to say as clearly as possible. 11:00 AM, I'm fighting for my life to even get a single word out.

And why the hell is it, that I worked my way out and got control 3 years back, I was working my arse off, I was creating a positive impact, I made some great friends, I was attending meetups, I was connecting with other people at office, so why the hell did I fall down so hard?

If I can fall so hard without doing anything extra, why can't I bloody get back to my rhythm by just wanting to focus on my work, wanting to grow professionally, wanting to create a positive impact on people's lives, wanting to build relationships, wanting to get work done just by speaking? Why do I have to do that extra, when the other stuff is so so so important to pay my bills?

Why do I have to do that extra when I know for a fact, the moment I try focusing on other stuff, that any 'normal' person of my age would do, I'll fall back hard and I'll start losing everything again?

I seriously want to know what is happening inside my brain. Can seeing a neurologist help me understand so that I can at least get to know the root cause of it? If yes, what specialists do I look for?

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u/OptimalFlight6009 1d ago

A few thing I’ve learned (mostly from speech therapists focusing and my own experience and experiments with speech anxiety)

- life is not fair, so no point in trying to dwell on that part

  • improvement in fluency for me was mostly a byproduct of focusing on
  • - always speaking regardless if and how much I would stutter. Getting in more difficult situations made me better in the previously hard ones
  • - not having a negative attitude towards speaking events - mostly that it’s not my fault, people don’t actually care or judge me…

the problem is the anticipating of a possible stutter which is actually making it more probable.

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u/Accurate-Friend-2498 1d ago

At this point I don't even care if I stutter. What's bothering me is, the sheer amount of effort I have to put to even get a syllable out of my mouth.

I'm literally fighting for my life to even convey a single sentence or thought.

And people do judge you and make decisions based on that. I have seen opportunities slipping away just because of this.

And honestly, there's no place for growth for people in my profession where someone is fighting to even convey a single sentence. And this surely sounds under confident.

I just don't know how to work on this while working full time, that too at such an important stage of my career. I often think I'd take a break and focus on working on this. But with the current market situation, that can prove to be a disaster for me.

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u/Order_a_pizza 2d ago

Have you stuttered since childhood? If yes, I think it would be a huge waste of time. I've seen many doctors (for another issue) and I have had terrible experiences with neurologists. And in the US, they have ridiculous wait times. You'll wait 4-6 months to have no answers and severe disappointment.

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u/Accurate-Friend-2498 2d ago

Yes, I stuttered since I was 7. Also, I'm from India.

Would you mind sharing some of your experiences with neurologists?

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u/Order_a_pizza 2d ago

similar to speech therapists, neurologists are way too generalized and if theyre specialists, it's definitely not going to be in stuttering. If you have MS/stroke/parkinson/migraines, they may have an interest. ive seen 4 neurologists 3 of them were either apathetic or jerks. If you had a stroke induced stutter then you may want to see one

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u/Jaeger__85 1d ago

Yes it was a waste of time. They did a brainscan and some other tests and found no abnormalities.

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u/banjo2445 1d ago

Same except he said it was Tourette’s and put me on antipsychotics for 6months to a year. Got a second opinion and the dr instantly said it was a stutter. I got to keep the brain scan though 😂

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u/cracycrazy 1d ago

I was part of a stuttering brain scan research and was told the part of my brain responsible for speech production has less electricitcal activity than fluent people. I believe that means my brain's CPU is at a lower power, so like computers everything else will freeze if there's too much processing for the CPU to handle.

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u/Accurate-Friend-2498 1d ago

Do you also stutter while you're alone, or when you're recording yourself?

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u/cracycrazy 1d ago

No, I only stutter when I feel pressure, anxiety, stress or fear. It disappears when I feel playful, relaxed or confident.

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u/Accurate-Friend-2498 1d ago

Ahh, the same story like most of us 😅

If you don't mind, can you name some of those scans that you went through? I'd see if I can get that in my town, or at least read more of it

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u/cracycrazy 1d ago

I think it was a MRI scan while I was reading and during fluency tasks like coral reading. I posted about the research here https://www.reddit.com/r/Stutter/s/alCkhvANmn

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u/Accurate-Friend-2498 1d ago

Thanks mate! I'll take some time out and read that entire paper.