Thank You & A Happy New Year

[HonorElizabeth]

I enjoyed good health for 56 years of my life apart from occasional breathlessness/wheezing, due to asthma, which would have me back on inhalers (which I should use all the time, but I hate taking medication unless I feel it's absolutely necessary)

I rationalised away the insidious deterioration in my health, menopause...stress....overwork....depression.....asthma....until I lost balance and fell. I was hospitalised, given 2units of blood (among other things) and sent home with iron tablets. (I'd lost 1.5 litres of blood in the fall having impaled my left buttock on a glass vase...I'm lucky to have lived to tell the tale)

District Nurses visited daily for over two weeks to dress my wound (and I'm very grateful for the care they gave) but they were not really interested that I was becoming increasingly unwell. My wound healed nicely.

To cut a long story short I had a blood test at the GP surgery to check my Hb levels and was told to return in January for another.

Fortunately the consultant I saw when I returned to the hospital to have my stitches removed did listen and said unexplained anaemia (I was convinced I was anaemic prior to the blood loss) should be investigated and advised that I return to my GP. Also a close friend, and nurse, observed that I had transformed from an energetic, full of life woman into a frail apology of the same.

Knowing I had a family history of PA (both grandmothers) I searched online for a checklist of symptoms. A eureka moment.

The first GP agreed to test my B12 levels. It was 138. I was also deficient in vitamin D (can't understand as I still have a tan). The second GP commenced the loading injections. As I am a psychiatric nurse I've been self administering.

Ten days after my sixths injection my symptoms were returning, some had never gone. I saw yet another GP who referred me to a neurologist (appointment in May) and reluctantly prescribed 10 more ampoules once I had politely directed her to the recommendations in the BNF.

With the advice given on this forum (not necessarily given to me) I have now ordered all I need to take charge of my own treatment. I have arranged to see the first GP again in February (when I return from India)

Thank you to all who contribute here for giving me the confidence to regain control of my health (as much as anyone can have control) There were times when my brain wasn't functioning as it should and I couldn't make sense of what was happening. My first post was made in desperation. I'm can't tell how how much the first reply from clivealive meant.

Wishing everyone a Healthy Happy New Year.

[Gambit62 Administrator]

HonorElizabeth - thank you so much for sharing your story - and great to hear that you now feel in a position to take control of your own health again - think that was a key for me again.

Hope you have a good time in India and enjoy the sun!

I get a bit confused over vitamin D as exposure to light is always said to be the thing that you need but I think there is also a dietary component to it - its certainly very common for vitD deficiency to go hand in hand with other absorption problems.

[alamogal635 in reply to Gambit62]

Will respond to the Vitamin D lack also. mt physician has told me that as we age, it becomes more difficult to take in and process Vitamin d from sunshine as well as other food. Hence he suggested supplementing with 5,000 mcgs. of Vitamin D. So far, so good. His explanation makes sense to me. I am sixty-six yeas of age and the PA was diagnosed around four years ago.