Tingling feet

[Hensa]

My daughter was diagnosed with low b12 and had a course of injections December 2013 to January 2014.

All her other blood tests were in the normal range although iron was on the low end of normal.

Her B 12 was then in the two hundreds.

She had no parietal cell antibodies so they said no more b12 injections - until she saw a different gp who asked about tingling -she said she didn't have any so he said an injection every 6 months.

However today she randomly today said to me she often gets tingling in the balls of her feet - both feet but not always together and not I think all the time but it has been happening for ages . Should I be concerned?

She thinks I think too much about B12 and that her problem is depression. ( Early on a GP said this)

She struggles with tiredness low mood and can't focus on school work.

She used to be sociable but is no longer.

[Gambit62 Administrator]

I suffered decades of depression so when I was told that my B12 levels were low as a result of a blood test whilst I was hospitalised after a fall - even having read that B12 caused depression really didn't think that it would go but go it did when I gave up on the medics and their miserly doses and started treating myself.

The problem with feet could well be a neurological symptom of B12 - and you are right to be worried about it. There are various conditions that can play a part in it - think it was Polaris that posted a link to this report a few weeks ago - could have been last month - on problems with pain in feet and legs being an early indicator of B12 deficiency. My father, myself and my brother all have/had problems with pain in the feet which was eased by arch supports but on reflection with the article may well have been down to B12 - brother hasn't been diagnosed formally but does found supplementing with a nasal spray helps him ... and my father wasn't diagnosed but thinking back on the last few years of his life I'm pretty sure B12 was involved ... and he also had problems with low mood.

It can be a very difficult thing to broach with someone who is experiencing depression and anxiety - know how dismissive I was when someone suggested that my depression might have been down to B12 - to be honest it can be quite difficult to get your head around just how much and how far reaching all the symptoms of B12 can be - hope that may be sharing my story with your daughter might help.

As I said - had decade of depression - and bad anxiety - I was told B12 was low in December 2012 and given absolutely no clue by medics - including my GP what that really meant so had to research it all. Things didn't really improve during 2013 - anxiety was still bad and my balance was just getting worse beside being on normal sets of shots and any cold would totally knock me for six. Just over a year I went to see my GP - at which point I was really struggling to walk because my balance and general awareness of where bits of my body was had got really bad - I was also suffering from mild psychosis - GP just dismissed B12 as a possibility because I was on shots - really wasn't uncaring and spent/wasted a huge amount of time going through neuoro tests etc with me then he got out the standard depression test - which I'd done before - and it was the first time that it really hit me that someone with B12D was likely to score high on it even if their mood wasn't affected which was the parting point for me. Apologies for wasting the GPs time and came home knowing that I just needed to do something to sort the situation out. Ordered some B12 phials on line (and do inject occasionally) but whilst waiting I started using the nasal spray which had helped me a bit a lot more - about 3-4mg a day rather than the 1mg suggested (B12 isn't something you can overdose on). Within 2 weeks my balance had improved to the point where I was quite comfortable perching at the top of a ladder to prune my grape vine (boy is it cold this year - poor thing hasn't even come into leave yet so will be a while before it needs its first hair cut!!) ... and a couple of months later I realised that actually the depression that had left me feeling as if life was just something that you had to get to the end of for decades had actually lifted ... not so much having my life back but actually having a life.

Really hope that you manage to get things sorted out.

Psychiatrists are starting to be a bit more aware of B12 as a factor in depression - though it's always very hit and miss with specialists and even GPs so it might be worth asking for a referral to see if you can get anywhere by that route.

The neuropsychiatric effects of B12 were actually first observed by accident when a doctor presented with a young patient who was experiencing problems with psychosis was hoping that he could get his patient to take vitamins which he could then gradually replace with ADs ... never got as far as the ADs as the B12 he'd chosen as the vitamin did the job!