I realise that changing your diet will not fix PA, but when I was first diagnosed I went to see a nutritionist. After filling a questionaire she told me to stop eating refined suar. I have been addicted to chocolate, sweets etc most of my life, and she told me that my body would be so busy digestinf the sugar that it dumps several minerals and vitamins, so you become deficient and live on the sugar lows and highs. Obviously all this sugar can lead to candida and an unhealthy gut, and there are known links with Candida and B12 deficiency. Also I have never been a great meat eater......so my changes have been to cut out sugar and eat a little more meat, I have my B12 injection about 10 weekly and I supplement a B complex and have sublingual in case I feel low. I try not to drink alcohol, although it is nice to have a drink when going out, I am not sure how bad tht is for B12 absorption though?
Just interested t see if anyone else has tried to improve there well being with diet?
Rita
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Funkyfaerie
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I think one glass of red wine is not going to do you any harm, even possibly some good, it also contains good things after all such as potassium. Its more regularly drinking to much alcohol helps deplete the body of B12 (and other B vits). I had a vitamin profile done years ago, which showed several other (B) vit def so I did adjust my diet to try to include nuts and mango and avocado (vit E def), but not sure if it makes any difference. Having malabsorption problems does not help. I do find eating lightly cooked liver gives me a lift though and steak, even salmon I think sometimes, just not for that long, a day perhaps. I also try to make sure that what I eat is fresh, healthy ( get an organic box ) and hopefully that contains as much vits etc as is possible, I do not eat sweets, biscuits, cake etc, as I have little appetite, but I do smoke so that undoes anything anyway. At least hubby is getting all the right vits!
It can do no harm and a lot of good to eat well and cut back on unhealthy stuff. Crisps are my downfall though, I am currently addicted to sweet chilli flavoured popcorn,
Thx for your reply, just wanted to say that I work for McVities Biscuit Company, so keeping off sugar has been a real test for me. I think yes you are right everything in moderation, otherwise I'll go mad and never enjoy anything. I think because I have only been diagnosed for 18 months I am still in the land of denial.....Once I accept it and stop fighting it life will be easier.
Yes, I think it takes a while to accept you have a condition for life, very weird thing this for life bit initially. And accepting your body is not as good as you thought it was. But it all becomes "normal" eventually; well treated PA/B12 def is not that bad at all! It can take time though to get the treatment right and it is not uncommon to after treatment has started, and with the increased turn over, to become folate and or iron def, as all 3 (B12/ folate/ iron, and B6 etc) are needed in optimum supply for good blood production. A good multi vitamin can help there.
I've been vegetarian for years - mainly because I find I just can't digest meat - love cheese so nice to read that cheese is now back on the healthy list after years on the bad-boy list.
I have more milk in my diet now but think my main change has been in relation to folate - always liked green veg but certainly find my body wants more these days than it used to.
I tend to avoid alcohol as I find it seems to knock my B12 sideways but that's just how it affects me - tend to up the B12 intake if I'm going to drink some B12 because I do like the occasional tipple.
Many Thanks for your reply, I do occasionally use a sublingual, but how effective do you think they are? I use "Boost" from H&B or a dropper type from the same source. Might put a post out to find out if anyone knows about this nasal gel one? As I find it hard to keep these sublingual's under my tongue for long as they are so sweet.
For me it was nasal spray that really helped - haven't tried sublingual tablets so don't actually know what they are like and did have a sublingual spray - still do - but tend not to use it because the spray works well for me. Other methods of delivery work differently for different people so to some extent even that is a question of trying it out.
I source nasal sparys and nasal drops from a company called detoxpeople. They have a chat facility on the website if you want to talk about products and seem to be quite knowledgeable.
I kept a daily log of my symptoms, the food I ate and drank, my meds and the physical exercise and other stressful events in my daily routine.
I was sorting through a gluten and dairy intolerance along with issues with drinking wine or any alcohol of any amount. I also was developing photo sensitivity. All the symptoms from food and meds were delayed between 6 and 24 hours because the gut was involved. Stress just accelerated my consumption of B12.
The log / diary / journal / excel spreadsheet - what ever you want to call it - provided a memory jogger because I was also having short term memory issues at the time. It helped me also sort though the symptoms from the jab that repeated regularly after each jab.
These symptoms were worse when I was low on B12 before the jab. PAS also helped me indentify these symptoms as detox issues.
The log became evidence for the GP in England that I was monitoring my conditions very closely. I invited him to keep a copy in his records but he declined. After about the third time he agreed to increase to 8 weeks and finally to 4 weeks for hydroxocobalamin.
When I moved to the USA and switched to cyanocobalamin, I used the same technique to convince my new dr that I needed more frequent injections.
I switched to the evening to be able to sleep off a headache symptom following the jab. Now with my current regime as well as supplementing with folic acid and the occasional methyl-B12 sublingual before a stressful meeting, the roller coaster ride of symptoms has leveled off.
My diet is now the random variable. I've eliminated chocolate (due to the dairy issue with casein protein) and I've cut down the sugar but still like some in my coffee which is now black. I also eliminated all gluten and and alcohol. I eat daily amounts of eggs, beef and greens. The variety in my diet is pretty much gone.
For heartburn, I eat an orange to increase acidity.
I'm not sure if I have PA but I have had b12 deficiency for a while now and my body does seem to struggle with it. I did actually see an improvement with milk and eggs though. My levels were 148 (150-900) and for the next 6 weeks or so I had an extra glass of milk every day and then my next b12 results was 230 (180-1000) at a different hospital. Then a month before my next b12 test I greatly reduced my milk and stopped eating eggs and the next result was 109 (150-900). All throughout this I was still eating a lot of meat (one portion of meat a day ATLEAST). As you can see diary did seem to have an effect on me though I don't know what the hell is wrong with my body that causes me to loose that much b12 through reducing diary for a few weeks. Drinking more milk and eating eggs is all I can suggest
Also its interesting what you've said about sugar, I eat so much chocolate, usually 2-3 bars a day and then some days I have a can of coke as well. I think I'm going to try and have less sugar too which is so difficult now all the Easter eggs are out!
Have read that dairy and fish seem to provide the most readily absorbable B12 - so may be you could try a bit more fish as well. Although meat and things like liver contain a lot of B12 it does seem as if the body struggles more to absorb b12 from these sources.
Sorry - just stuff I've read and can't even think where so couldn't point to any definitive studies.
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