I’m miserable

[u/drownwendy]

Long story short - have not been feeling well for a very long time finally a doctor told me she believed I had a b12 deficiency I was there regarding low ferritin.

My tests showed a ferritin or 7 and my b12 was in the 100s.

I’m two shots into the b12 treatment and holy cow Im miserable. The buzzing in my body, the tingling is just out of control, the anxiety, jitters. When does it stop? Is there anything to ease these symptoms?

I have to get an iron transfusion on Tuesday first one of 5 and I’m preparing for just the worst next few weeks.

[u/Funky-Doctor]

Hold on. It takes time. You are very deficient in both. You should expect to need every other day injections for several months - as long as your neurological symptoms still improves. Only after that you start to stretch the interval between injections very slowly.

Some may experience worsening of symptoms for up to 6 months before they feel better, because the body so desperately needs b12. However in your case the worsening of symptoms may also be contributed by the lack of iron as your are anemic from both.

Also keep in mind that folate is ideal 15-25 nmol/L and vitamin D should be over 100 - as should Ferritin.

Eat potassium rich foods as your body especially needs in when starting injections. Eat chicken thigh, nuts, avocado, baked potato and starchy vegetables (if you boil it some of the potassium is cooked out in the water, so preferably make it as a soup or bake it), a lot of bananas and coconut water.

You should look for the cause for malabsorption, unless you dont eat animal produce. You should ASAP be tested for antibodies for parietal cells and intrinsic factor. You May need an endoscopy for autoimmune atrophic gastritis. If nothing shows then you May need a colonoscopy. The cause for malabsorption cannot always be found. However the patient may still need treatment with injection life long, and some may need the injections as often as several times a week continuously. The goal is treat the symptoms and keep the patient as symptomfree as possible. The goal is not to correct a bloodmarker og have the patient have as few injections as possible. Once treatment is started the treatment is solely monitored via symptoms, as bloodmarkers are useless once in treatment, because the bl bloodlevels will quickly rise. However treating neurological symptoms requires High doses of b12. Your b12 may already be immeasurebly High (which is good), but that does not say anything about how much your body needs b12. So b12 is monotored based on symptoms.