B12

[dmacker]

Hi I had a blood test back in November which showed my results as follows;

B12 - 164pg/ml

Folate - 4.5ng/ml

Ferritin - 126ng/ml

After lots of battling with the doctor I managed to persuade them to give my B12 injections, which I had my 4th of 6 loading dose this morning. The thing is I don't feel any better and my whole body is shaky today, is this normal?

At the moment there is no further action plan apart from having to speak with the dr again after my final loading dose.

Can anyone offer me any advice as to what I should be asking for next?

I was tested for PA and told my results are normal so not diagnosed as Pa.

Thanks

[SarahFerguson]

What test did you have for PA GPC or intrinsic factor? Do you have any other medical issues?

[taka Administrator]

Hi dmacker

There are many reasons for being B12 deficient not just having PA and many will need continuing B12 injections for life (eg absorbance issues etc). Also the anti-intrinsic factor antibody test is not great - around 50% of people with PA will test negative so it is important to treat symptoms rather than blood test results. This is covered in the BSH guidelines. Have you shown your doctor the BSH guidelines? If not it may help to persuade him/her to continue your treatment.

pernicious-anaemia-society....

It is reasonably common for symptoms to get worse for a bit during loading doses - it may be bits of your body sort of "waking up" a bit and getting going again! The symptoms should hopefully subside. If not maybe discuss it with your doctor/nurse as things like potassium can become low during your loading doses.

What is the range for your folate as this doesn't seem all that high? It may be an idea to up your folate / folic acid intake a bit as this works in conjunction with B12.

SarahFerguson The 1st line test for PA is the anti-intrinsic factor antibody test.

[Gambit62 Administrator in reply to taka]

also, IFA is prone to give false negatives about 50% of the time - so a negative/normal result certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of PA as the cause