You said it only happened recently. Are there any programs or system updates you've added to your system which might have caused side-FX? Are you using a spyware utility? If yes which one? Some think LW has spyware when it doesn't so you'd need to put LW on its safe-list. Otherwise they'll do LW damage or totally remove it.

Try deleting your LW Preferences folder whilst LW is closed; instructions here: Point #2 & 3 in Fixes for Limewire (sample image included at bottom of page.)

You could also try changing skins to see if that makes a difference. Go to LW's menu bar, View->Change Skins.
Some skins have been known to cause some people problems.

Other than that all I can think of is changing your Java versions around. Such as removing Java 1.5 & replacing with 1.4.2 or 1.6 beta instead. The 1.6 beta whilst it has improvements, LW won't see it if you have previous versions of Java on your system so again, you'd need to uninstall the other Java versions. Always choose the "Offline" Java versions to downld. Java 1.6 http://java.sun.com/javase/6/download.jsp JRE "Offline" version which is a 15.72 MB download

Sun 1.4.2: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html (Choose the JRE)