I am a 23 year old normally completely healthy women and I would appreciate some advice regarding my vitamin b12 levels.
Long story short I am living in Greece for the summer and after 4 nights of heavy drinking at the start of the summer I started to experience mild tingling and numbness on hands and feet. This spreaded up the way to full arms and legs symptoms. I went to the doctor straight away and since then have had 1 full blood test, visited a neurologist a few times, MRI of head and neck and vit b 12 test. Doctors first stated this was all due to alcohol and will get better.. when it wasn't I returned and had these further investigations. All tests were completely normal and I have been told there is no cause for this peripheral neuropathy and they don't know.
I know alcohol and diet can all affect vitamin b12 levels therefore when I wasn't getting answers form the doctors I took neurobion (a vitamin b1, 6 and 12 supplement once a day for over a month maybe 9 weeks ago). I then took it twice a day for 10 days after going to the pharmacist and a different pharmacist recommended this frequency per day. I noticed my symptoms improving after taking the higher frequency of tablets. I am now taking this vitamin still twice a day with approval and advice from the neurologist 3 days ago. Currently my symptoms are still strange tingling in mainly the legs but sometimes in my hands, my legs and arms easily getting pins and needles and numb in certain positions e.g. In sitting or lying but this doesn't stay but it takes much longer to return to normal than when I used to get a 'dead' leg from a compressed position. Also small twitching in arms and legs. My vitamin b12 levels right now (measured for the first time on Monday - 3 days ago) are 364 pc/ml with their lab normal levels being 300-900. I think my levels will have been affected by my supplementation of neurobion therefore could have been much lower when my symptoms were worse (2.5 months ago) if this is the cause.
I would like advise on whether anyone with experience or expertise believes these levels are low or not? My main concern is not getting the vitamin b12 injections because I fear that these neurological symptoms could either stay or get worse and maybe this could be prevented if vitamin b12 is the cause.
The neurologist recommended taking neurobion 2x a day for one month only. She said only treated with an injection if it is very low.
If anyone can give advice I'd really appreciate it
Thanks