Hi everyone, My level in july was 143 pmol/l, and in January it was 210 pmol/l, without taking any supplements.
My main symptom is anxiety, and this is very tricky, because I know anxiety can have a lot of causes. I don't have any nerve issues, except for some pins and needles sometimes, and nerve pains in my left foot. (and a lot of muscle pain, but this can also be contributed to anxiety, as well as heart palpitations, weakness, tiredness,..)
My GP didn't believe that it was possible that this was due to my B12, because the levels had risen by themselves, without taking any supplements. But still, after reading a lot about this online, I insisted on getting an injection. Yesterday I got one, but I'm not really sure if this will help me. It's been already 24 hours now, and I don't feel any difference yet in my anxiety levels.
My GP said that if I noticed a difference, I could come back next week. Does this mean that in a week time, if my anxiety hasn't decreased, that the B12 deficiency is not the cause of my high anxiety levels and difficulties of coping with stress?
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Laura221
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Hi Laura221.... looking at your previous posts and the one you posted yesterday which was very similar to the one you have posted today, it seems that you have been anxious for quite a while. B12 symptoms can take a long time to get better.... your levels are low and the fact that you have not felt better yet does not mean that you are not deficient.
Yeah I have indeed been anxious for a long time. I'm just doubting if I Should continue these injections, because my GP says that the levels can't contribute to the anxiety..
I also haven't heard about a lot of people being anxious due to low B12 levels.. I just don't want to waste my time and money on something that won't help in the long run..
it is very common for GPs to be totally unaware of the neuropsychiatric effects of B12 deficiency.
I can only really comment from my own personal experience which is 40+ years of anxiety and depression, 25+years of problems with tingling in hands and pain in feet that went when I finally managed to get the levels of B12 I needed - this was about 15 months after being told in hospital that my B12 was low following a fall at home in which I managed to break my ankle.
As pugdogs10 says, it is unrealistic of your GP to expect that symptoms would all improve within 24 hours of a jab - it depends on which of the many effects of B12 has actually caused the symptoms. A lot of people can experience more energy and do experience some improvement in their cognitive abilities within a week or two but that is following treatment with loading regular loading doses at intervals - 2x week or every other day.
Thanks for your answers! I'm just really confused because I've never heard of anyone with only anxiety and depression as a symptom, without having neurologic symptoms. And + I'm not even deficient, just at the low end of the normal range. I've tried so many things, but I don't feel like myself. It gets worse every day, I'm just afraid this won't make a difference.
Hi Laura - My husband started suffering bouts of severe anxiety and depression, excessive tearfulness together with pins and needles and poor memory. He was diagnosed as B12 deficient and I can tell you for sure that low B12 can and does cause your symptoms. He had never suffered this before and was very happy go lucky. One of the first things that improved very dramatically once he got his jabs was the anxiety and depression which magically went away after a few weeks. When he is running low on B12 he starts to go downhill again but I give him high dose supplements and they help until his next jab is due.
I know you are feeling very anxious and you are struggling to follow what is going on but you need to take a deep breath and try and relax.
Suggest you look at this post which explains a bit about how anxiety works and how it takes over your mind and try and find some way of getting out of the loops you are finding yourself caught up in.
it is perfectly possible to have neuropsychiatric problems without having other neurological problems - B12 is used by the body for a lot of things and different bodies seem to prioritise which systems they use B12 for in preference to others.
The normal range is just a range. People are not numbers they are people and they respond differently to B12 and need different levels for their personal health. Quite likely that my levels were in normal range for most of the 40+ years that I can actually check my systems back - but that doesn't mean they were the levels I needed ... in fact they obviously weren't.
The body stores B12 in good quantities in the liver and releases its stores into the ileum for reabsorption into the blood as it is needed. If this is working well then the amounts of B12 used by the body each day is very small.
Think of it as being a system that is continually recycling water through a very large reservoir.
It is the ileum where B12 absorption problems tend to start and there is a huge difference between absorption being impaired and no absorption occurring at all. What has probably happened is that you your absorption problem has been developing over a number of years and you have slowly used up your stores over those years.
Think of it like a leak in the system that gradually gets larger and larger - eventually the system runs out of water and once the reservoir is empty and there is no more water to circulate - and that is the point at which you actually start to really notice that there isn't any water because there is no water to feed any of the sub-systems and they all start to break down.
Your GP is, like many others, not particularly aware of B12 deficiency, how it works and how it needs to be treated.
I suggest that you make a list of symptoms and write to your GP asking him to take a look at the PAS website area for medical professionals. He can sign up to a newsletter and it should count towards his continuing professional development.
I have found that B12 injections do help with anxiety. It's more a sense of feeling I can cope with things. When B12 is low I feel that I cannot cope. I can still get anxious from time to time though, even with B12, and as you say, there are many possible reasons for that.
When we are anxious usually our breathing is affected and this can trigger a whole chain reaction and breathing pattern which becomes habitual. See if you can find some simple breathing techniques to help. The best and most simple I've found is simply to focus on the out breath. Breathe out slowly through your mouth. Then let yourself breathe in through your nose without forcing it. Pause. Again, focus on breathing out.
This works even better if you can lie down and rest your hands on your abdomen. Once you are able to calm yourself this way it can work in other situations as well.
I've also found that B12 has helped my breathing. Before, I felt a sense of tight constriction around my ribs, often felt as if I could not breathe, and now that has gone (after years and years). This really helps with feeling calmer.
Thanks, this motivates me to keep injecting! I just don't know if my level (270 ng/l or 210 pmol/l) is low enough to cause anxiety symptoms. Do you think this is possible? Because my GP says it isn't.
Yes, it is. I think this is something people, including GPs, just don't get unless they have experienced it themselves.
My level was about the same as yours.
By the way, something else that's good for anxiety is magnesium. Not sure if they test for that at the GP surgery.
I take magnesium citrate powder (for migraine), as the tablets were so large and chalky I choked on them. There's also a supplement called Magnesium OK - it has B12 in it too, I think, so that would affect your blood test results. And the company that does Floradix (Salus) also does a magnesium supplement - this is in the form of a liquid which is more like getting it as a food.
I take something called meta relax, it has magnesium in it as well as B12, but it doesn't seem to do much for my anxiety unforuntately!
P.S. my main anxiety symptom has been racing thoughts, did you notice any specific difference with that? Because the only anxiety improvements I hear from people is having less heart palpitations.
Yes, definitely, my mind becomes clearer, and more spacious, if that makes sense, along with the physical relief.
Assume you have had your thyroid checked, anxiety and racing thoughts can also be a symptom of over-active thyroid. Similar problem with blood tests though, with 'normal' or 'borderline' result you can still be quite ill. When I suffered my very worst anxiety years ago, my thyroid was 'borderline'. In hindsight, I'm sure I had both over-active thyroid and B12 deficiency, and not 'stress' as the GP said. Stress was the result of being really ill, not the cause.
Thanks man! Well, I hope I'll find some relief. Next week I have my second jab, and since tuesday (when I had my first jab) I've been dealing with a racing heartbeat so that's not relaxing haha
I hope you do find some relief. See how you go with the second jab. It's worth a try. I would mention the racing heartbeat to whoever gives you the injection.
I've just looked at your other posts and it looks like you have had a difficult time. You're doing really well though, and it's good to eliminate physical causes of anxiety as you are doing, as well as getting counselling when you need it.
I found that after a few of weeks of injections I noticed an improvement in my anxiety levels and a year on after regular injections there's been a huge difference. It didn't happen overnight though. Looking back its been gradual but significant.
Do you guys think I Should continue on the 1x/week injections that my GP recommended to begin with (because I'm not really deficient) or that I Should ask for 2x/week injections?
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