B12

[Renee1031]

I'm in the US. Burst pack was one B 12 prescription pill I take once a week that has some crazy milligrams of it in it. Then I am to do B 12 shots. They said that your B 12 level should be around 200 and mine was eight

The B 12 pills I have to take for two months before getting retested

[Gambit62 Administrator]

Thanks Renee

for anyone who missed it this is a follow on to this post

healthunlocked.com/pasoc/po...

Your doctor obviously thinks that you have an absorption problem and that is why you have become B12 deficient. The mechanism that you use for absorbing most (generally 99%) of your B12 is very specialised and relies on the ileum. If it isn't working properly then in theory it's possible to use the other 1% to get enough B12 by taking the large quantities that you have been given in the tablets. However, it's going to be quite slow building your levels back up if it works- because it doesn't work for everyone - injections would be much more efficient at that and if your levels were as off as you say then I would have though speed should be of the essence

Still a bit confused about the levels. The active B12 test has a normal range that's something like 25 pmol/L to 250 pmol/L so may be that the result is being quoted against that scale. Think 8 might be around the bottom of the lower end of detectability for active B12 - it's certainly below the level of detectability for the other common test which is serum B12 and has a range of around 140-900.

You can find a list of symptoms of B12 deficiency here

pernicious-anaemia-society....

normally the body regulates B12 levels in your blood very efficiently by using the reserves in your liver but the mechanism that is used to release these reserves relies on the same mechanism that you use to absorb B12 from your food so that will also be broken if you have an absorption problem, which means that the treatment is going to be for life ... unless the problem is treatable (generally h pylori infection).

[clivealive Forum Support]

Hi Renee1031 I'm a bit confused by your post but if your Vitamin B12 level was eight I cannot understand why you are not being given injections of cyanocobamalin 1mg immediately as that is what is normally administered in the U.S.

Do you know why your B12 was so low?

Are you a Vegan or vegetarian?

Do you know what your Folate level is?

[KimberinUS]

Is this what it looked like?

webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-1674...

After clicking on link, click on images.

Im in the US and googled burse pack b12 but cannot find anything.

But this does seem to be a new prescription b12 tablet.

Please post ALL test results with units of measure and ranges as this will help us be able to help you. i imagine you have been to your doctor multiple times before they ever even considered testing your b12.