My cousin has B12 166 and folate at 3... - Pernicious Anaemi...

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My cousin has B12 166 and folate at 3.7. Her doctor told her he would review in 3 months.

flowerpower66 profile image
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I am outraged on her behalf. She sleeps at every opportunity and is feeling very unwell especially mentally. What should she do?.

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flowerpower66
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She should tell him that in 3 months time she could have developed irreversible neuro symptoms and would he like to take responsibility for that happening in writing?

There is perhaps something in this link that would help her get treatment:

b12deficiency.info/what-to-...

And these are the BMJ Best Practice Guidelines:

bestpractice.bmj.com/best-p...

And one for the folate deficiency (for which she needs 5mg folic acid on prescription alongside the B12 injections):

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/243...

Ctb567 profile image
Ctb567

Hi, I'm not a doctor so I can only give you advice from my experience. When I first had my b12 measured in was 163 (refrange 150-900) and they didn't bother treating it then 3 months later I had it measured again and it was 148 then I was referred to gastroenterology and told I wasn't going to get treatment until they assessed me. Now I've seen them I'm waiting for my latest results and then finally I'll be getting injections. I think what it is is that every time they do these tests they also do a full blood count which measures anemia, and if your not anemic due to folate or b12 deficiencies then they believe its not urgent, which was the case with me and could be the case with your cousin. However I know myself that all because your deficiencies haven't caused anemia yet that doesn't mean you don't have symptoms because you definitely do. I have felt like complete rubbish these last 6 months, made worse by the fact that I know whats wrong with me and its not being treated :/

I sort of understand them waiting for the b12 because it takes injections to treat and they want to see if it falls any more but folate deficiencies are just pills and are supposed to be easy to treat. If its unbearable just ask to be treated for folate for now and perhaps asked to be retested for b12 sooner than 3 months. I know how horrible all this is, I can't imagine how your cousin is feeling as I can hardly cope on just a b12 deficiency let alone a folate deficiency on top of that.

flowerpower66 profile image
flowerpower66

Thank you Hampster1 and CarlyS123, very helpful and informative links. I will pass on this info to her. I hope you get your injections soon CarlyS123 as it must be very frustrating waiting for your treatment.xxx

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