Question for the women

[KJP723]

Hi, I received my loading doses at the beginning of July. I've just had a period and it has completely wiped me out, the fatigue, pins & needles and dizziness are back and I just feel completely drained, after loading doses I had noticed a significant improvement. I increased my iron the week before my period was due to make sure my iron levels didn't drop. Can your period affect your b12 levels the way iron can? My folate has also dropped significantly since having my injections. Could this have an affect? I've had a look online and I can't find much about this. I have long, heavy, irregular periods which the doctor doesn't seem concerned about. Thanks, K

[clivealive Forum Support]

Hi KJP723 have you been supplementing with folic acid since having the B12 injections. Some symptoms of a folate deficiency are similar to those of B12.

I am not a medically trained person but there are others on here who will be able to give you good advice.

[KJP723 in reply to clivealive]

Thanks for responding. I've been taking folate as I seem to have an issue with processing folic acid but I haven't been taking it every day (every other day if I remember) I eat a diet high in folate rich foods so was worried about taking too much. My GP is testing my b12/folate & iron again in a months time to see how much my levels have dropped before he will agree on frequency of injections. I know that isn't what he is meant to do but it's been months of fighting for him to agree to give me back my injections at all so I didn't want to rock the boat. My folate was above the top of the range before injections, if I remember correctly, it was around 7 when I was tested 2 weeks ago so it may have dropped further. Thanks.

[evilellie]

This is a problem for me too, but I can't find much information about it. Most of the medical research on pernicious anaemia seems to have been carried out on older patients (i.e. post-menopausal). I feel totally wiped out by my periods too, like I've got low blood pressure and feel really dizzy particularly if I stand up after sitting down. I also feel super tired just before and at the beginning of my period, like when I'm cycling to work it feels so hard. I also go climbing quite a bit and notice that I climb really badly at that time too. I have been keeping a diary to track this and it definitely strongly correlates to my period. It makes sense to me as we must be making new blood to replace the blood we are losing, but we don't have a good store of B12 to draw on. I give myself a few sprays with the B12 mouth spray when I'm feeling like this, but I don't know if it's helping, and I think by the time I feel bad it's probably a bit late, but I'm not great at pre-empting it. I also seem to get heavier periods now which is not ideal.

[KJP723 in reply to evilellie]

Thanks for replying. Yes, that's how I feel with the dizziness too and it was definitely worse the first couple of days. It made sense to me that it might happen but couldn't find anything to back up how I was feeling.