Does antibiotics affect the b12 levels ?

[suresh786]

If someone take the antibiotics then does it bring the b12 levels down

[Gambit62 Administrator]

no conclusive evidence and think it also depends on the antibiotic

I find that some antibiotics leave me feeling as if I haven't had any B12 for a while - and there are numbers of posts from others who find the same.

Think there is one antibiotic/group of antibiotics which is not recommended for treating patients with B12 problems because it interferes with the metabolism but not sure which one it is.

Found the reference - in the B12 Deficiency Survival Handbook by Dr Aqsa Ghazanfar and Regev Elya: antibiotics in the amino-glycoside group.

[1capricorn3]

Hi Suresh786. I'd suggest some research. I recently took AntiB's for a UTI. Think it was called Ferantoin ( or sounds like that).The info.leaflet advised people with low VitB to use with caution ( or similar wording). It didn't state which VitB, or what they meant by 'cautious'. Infact not really 'advice' at all. But, the lesser of two evils I took it.

I was fine afer the 1st 3 day course, but soon needed a longer 7 day course. This really wiped me out, I felt ill, took me awhile to realise ( a thick layer of brain fog had descended!) that all my symptoms were pointing to the usual suspect. Had to take myself back to a loading dose regime, begun again, took weeks to feel better.

[fbirder in reply to 1capricorn3]

Nitrofurantoin can cause peripheral neuropathy. Nobody is sure how. Guesses involve three different B vitamins - researchgate.net/publicatio...

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I experienced suspected B12 loss (probably my storage) after strong antibiotics in 1993 and 2014; the latter also was under general anaesthetic. I have a very big question mark about these effects. Both events were followed by symptoms of B12 deficiency.