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b12 ijection stopped

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hi recently had a b12 injection for percious anaemia one every 3 months next day sent for a blood test 5 days later got a letter from the doctors to stop b12 injections in 6 months time contact surgery for b12 test having the injection before the blood test would the blood have show sufficient b12 should the blood test have been before the b12 is this normal practice

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Injections are for life. They shouldn't stop them, and they shouldn't use the serum B12 test to monitor progress. It's irrelevant once you're on injections. Blood levels will be high but there's no knowing how much is getting through to cell level. And you're absolutely right, you should never have a blood test straight after an injection, it really will be sky high. Go back and make a fuss, under no circumstances let them stop the injections. Here are the NICE guidelines which clearly say for life:

cks.nice.org.uk/anaemia-b12...

Serendipity16 profile image
Serendipity16

As hampster1 said as far as I'm aware once you have them you have them forever. But saying that, After a year of low b12 (147-158) i was given 6 injections as a booster then went for 15 months without another but having blood tests every three months to see if my b12 would fall. It fell 500 (3 months after boosters) to 160 a year later and I've now had another booster set with a promise of 12 weekly injections as standard. My doctor even said no point in blood tests to monitor once you start. If they are taking you off for 6 months I wonder if they are going to monitor you and see if it drops the way they did for me. Do you know the cause of your deficiency? (I dont) If it is lack of b12 in diet maybe they are seeing if you have changed your diet and now have enough? Were you on the injections long before this was decided?

Hope it gets sorted.

in reply to Serendipity16

hi thanks for your reply in answer to your questions the cause of the b12 deficiency was lack of instinct factor and i was eating normally red meat etc .. i have been on injections for 2 an a half years in the beginning for about 3 months i was going to the doctor complaining of being tied chest pains stomach pain i cant begin to tell the number of thing he sent to the hospital to have tested even a catastrophe to cut the story short i ended up in hospital for 5 days having two blood transfusions i had a blood count of 7 when it should have been 13 what if this guinea pig trial fails of stopping b12 or should i take action now hamster 1 thinks i should go back to the doctors and make fuss

Gambit62 profile image
Gambit62Administrator

Like Serendipity I was told that there wasn't actually any point in getting levels checked whilst I was receiving injections as the dosage was equivalent to about 3 years supply.

Reading up on things since there are a lot of concerns about the accuracy of the test in the UK as it looks at total B12 rather than just the active B12 form that is used for absorption in to cells, so, although the total B12 may be normal or above normal that doesn't mean that the active B12 is in a healthy range. There are also concerns about how accurate the tests are as some machines can be relatively inaccurate.

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