B12 Injection Side Effects

[thefaces]

Hi All, My wife has suffered with PA for the last 5-7 years after recovering from Crones disease. She's been on Hydroxocobalim for the last 5 years but it now has little effect. She's constantly short of breath and struggles to catch her breath, could tis be a side effect of water build up in the lungs? Should she look to change to Methylocobalim to see if she improves? She currently receives a 12 weekly injection as the doctors wouldn't inject any more frequently.

Any advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks

[Lisahelen]

Firstly i would suggest she see a gp to rule out any lung/heart problems.

 But shortness of breath/the sighs is well recognised as a symptom of b12d. She could benefit from more frequent injections or other ways of supplementing. But i think her first port of call is the gp to see if there is anything further that they are prepared to do as she is obviously struggling with such wide spaced injections.

[wedgewood]

Yes I totally agree with Lisahelen. First have your GP rule out any other conditions could be causing the problems. If nothing is found try self-injecting. You could come back here for help on that if necessary .  But it does sound as though she is just not getting enough B12 (also needs good quantities of folate too)

[jillc39 in reply to wedgewood]

here we go again.... someone else needing to have more regular b12 injections.  why are gp's so unmoving??

[Gambit62 Administrator]

Does she notice any difference from the injections at all ... even if it is only short lived?

Some people have an autoimmune response to B12 in serum that produces a protein that binds to the B12 and prevents it passing in to the cells where it is needed.  I find that my symptoms start to come back within 24 hours - and I avoid this by keeping my levels really high.

Whilst methyl might help there is no guarantees and some people have problems with methyl.

You might also want to think about other ways of supplementing - sublinguals tablets or sprays, nasal sprays or skin patches - and that gives you flexibility to try different forms of B12 - though there is no guarantee as people respond in different ways.

As others say - it could be a lot of other things so worth checking that out with the GP ... and also worth looking at what is happening with folate levels.

[ChrisVic]

Have they tested her for anemia including anemia caused by a low feritin level?