b12 costs

[longislandlady]

I was told B12 costs ten dollars a day

how do you get coverage for this?

[Hidden]

I can not imagine its the B12 that costs ten dollars, its the nurses time to inject perhaps? Normally cyanocobalamin is cheap, I get it for 50 cents per ampoule, hydroxocobalamin cost a bit more, methylcobalamin is most expensive and lasts the shortest say.

Not sure who gave you that info, but perhaps it depends where you live/ buy it from?

Kind regards,

marre.

[Mrs_Somerset]

Hi,

I am not sure about how much it costs in america - but in the UK it costs the NHS 50p a shot, which they stingily only give out once every 3 months!

Of course as a patient you cannot buy B12 for yourself ( as a shot) inthe UK, but you can in Europe - it costs about £1.00 (GBP 1.00 is about $1.50) a shot - I got a box of 10 - details on the pernicous anemia facebook page.

unless you are having a shot every day - which I have never heard of - this should be $1.50 / month or however often you need it - not $10.00 / day!

I have, of course, not factored in the needles and syringes - but these can be very inexpensively bought on the internet - ours came in a box of 100, and I think it was about £5.00 (GBP5.00 is about $7.50 -for 100 of them - so last you a very very long time!)

Hope this helps, Big Hugs,

M

[Gambit62 Administrator]

Not in US so can't advise on getting cover for the costs. If people are talking about daily for loading shots then that shouldn't go on for ever and you should get to a point where you are talking about maintenance shots which should be much less frequent - though it does vary from person to person.

Hope someone from US can advise on the issue of insurance/cover.

It may be that price is a bit higher in US at the moment because there is, apparently a shortage of cyanocobalamin so that may be pushing the price up. Possible that, by the time you factored in time of nursing staff and overheads you might get to $10 but reality is that the materials, as below are much cheaper than that.

Not sure what the regulations in US are around obtaining B12 for yourself - and if it is possible to import hydroxocobalamin from europe. If sourcing yourself is a possibility (make sure that you get someone to tell you how to do self-injections safely) that could reduce the costs significantly ... think FDA is the authority that produces the regs on what you can and cannot get legally as regards to vitamins.