Had my second injection today having 5 in total and then once every 3 months.
I had 2 glasses of wine today and I felt really bad . It was like I had drunk 2 bottles and it was difficult to gain control. I felt dizzy and totally out of it along with headake and bloating. My heart feels like it’s having palpitations but that’s kind of normalish. Prop working myself up.
Anybody else had this or is it not the alcohol being a bad mix and just normal to feel bad after injections?
I have autoimmune hypothyroidism and Pernicious Anaemia. I've actually stopped drinking alcohol completely due to feeling like that. One drink could make me feel bad for days.
I starting feeling bad almost straight away after my 2nd glass of wine and this morning I feel like I’ve been up all night 🕺🏻 dancing. My legs are heavy body akes and I feel rough....
To top it off I kept waking up all night like I’d drank loads were your sleep is never good after a heavy night ... I had 2 glasses 😅
The joys 😅🤒🤢
Hi again Charlwobble
It is not uncommon for some symptoms to appear to get worse before they get better as the B12 you are having starts repairing the damage done to your nervous system and your brain starts getting multiple messages from part of the body it had "forgotten about" or lost contact with.
I sometimes liken it to a badly tuned radio on which you have turned the volume up high trying to catch the programme you want when all of a sudden the signal comes in loud and clear and the blast nearly deafens you.
A lot will depend on the severity and longevity of your B12 deficiency as to how long before there is no further improvement or recovery.
Some symptoms will "disappear" quite quickly whereas others may take months or even years. There is no set timescale as we are all different.
The sensation you felt after drinking the wine may, or may not, have had anything to do with the B12 but personally I have a tiny (snifter) glass of fortified wine every day without any adverse effect and I'm still "clivealive" and nearly 77 years old 
Don't forget to get your Folate level checked,
Thank you clivealive!
There saying I don’t show up as having an ongoing problem but are still going to treat me every 3 months. This is the second lot of loading doses I’ve had in the last 2 years.
There saying because it keeps dropping they are going to keep me topped up however if my bloods show low b12 but not the ongoing problem (don’t know what it’s called). Then why are they topping me up.
There must be some other reason they keep dropping and that’s comcerning me. It’s not my diet as every day I eat meat or fish 🎣. I also have plenty of 🍳 eggs. My do not go without diet wise.
So if my bloods don’t show I have ongoing problem but there still treating then what’s the reason my b12 keeps dropping?
Puzzled.
My folate is just over the recommended amount I was told just to eat more cereal 🥣 by the nurse
Thank you again xx
You either have Pernicious Anaemia or an absorption problem which in either case no matter how much B12 rich foods you eat you are not going to process it - hence the injections for life.
In 1972 I was told I had two years to live unless I ate raw liver three times a day or B12 injections every month - I chose to have the injections 46 years on.
Have you ever been tested for Intrinsic Factor Antibodies (IFA) or Gastric Parietal Cell Antibodies (GOA)?
"In a normal healthy person the stomach lining has what are called "Gastric parietal cells" which produce "Intrinsic Factor" which travels with food through the small intestine which is made up of three parts - the Duodenum, the Jejunum and the Ileum.. Iron is absorbed in the Duodenum, most other nutrients in the Jejunum and our friend B12 in the Ileum. Here the Intrinsic Factor binds to the B12 and the "B12/IF Complex" enters the cells on the wall of the Ileum after binding to receptors on the surface of the Ileal cells, allowing it to enter the blood stream.
Sadly some people with "traditional P,A." either do not produce Intrinsic Factor or if they do, they also produce an antibody which destroys it and it is then called "Autoimmune Pernicious Anaemia". In addition it can happen that we produce "Parietal cell Antibodies" and "Intrinsic Factor Antibodies" which totally wipes out any chance of absorbing the B12.
"
(Extract from Martyn Hooper's "What you need to know about Pernicious Anaemia & Vitamin B12 Deficiency")
Many breakfast cereals are now fortified with folic acid and you can bump up your Folate by increasing your intake of leafy green vegetables - sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, spinach. peas, beans etc.
Alcohol uses up B12 and in my experience I’d say it’s the alcohol and your low B12 that’s the problem, not your B12 injection. A couple of glasses of wine would leave me feeling just as you describe before my PA was diagnosed and in the early days when I was receiving insufficient treatment.
I mostly gave up alcohol for a couple of years, only having the odd drink here and there as the debilitating hangover just wasn’t worth it.
Now that my B12 is being adequately treated I am able to drink a couple of glasses without any undue consequences. However, I do have only a couple of drinks and once a week maximum.
According to the literature I read a while back, (can’t find a reference again) there is no direct interaction between alcohol and B12.
However, alcohol interacts with the other B vitamins that B12 needs to do its jobs.
When you have been deficient and start on B12, the metabolism in all the cells of your body kicks into high gear and uses up the B12 fairly quickly. Hence the need for loading doses.
Metabolism, which was previously blocked by the lack if B12, also quickly consumes the other molecules like minerals and vitamins from your blood and you get an initial high from the B12 injection. But as these other molecules in your bloodstream are depleted, you start to crash.
Drinking alcohol, is like adding an accelerator to the crash. Your other B vitamins are all consumed and it takes 2 to 3 times longer to recover from the hangover.
You need to supplement with a daily multivitamin as well as folic acid when you start on B12. Reducing or stopping alcohol also helps and allows more of the other vitamins to be available for metabolism.
I’ve stopped drinking alcohol altogether as one glass of wine was like having a 4 day hangover. I also became gluten intolerant so beer and whiskey were out too.
The trick with supplements is to find the right balance between your B12 injections and the supplements.
Get the B12 sorted first. By that I mean monitor your symptoms over 3 or 4 injections to see how this roller coaster ride goes. You may find that your symptoms start to return early before your next jab. This indicates that you may need more frequent injections especially when you get to the 3 month “maintenance” injections.
If your gut has an issue with recycling B12, you will just consume all the B12 in your injection. The injection is stored in the muscle and released into bloodstream by your activity. So it also depends on how active you are.
Start on a daily multivitamin as well as 400 mcg folic acid and keep it constant to reduce the variability while monitoring your b12.
Start a logbook of all your symptoms, food, drink and medications and exercise. Try to assess the severity of your symptoms on a daily basis. You will find that there is a delay in the onset of a symptom from its cause. Use the logbook as evidence for your GP to increase your B12 if needed.
This delay is because the gut is involved and the “hepatic loop” takes 3 - 48 hours to cycle through your portal vein, liver, bile, small intestine and ilium.
This loop is the storage mechanism for B12 in normal mammals as the intrinsic factor from the stomach holds onto the B12 and saves it for the ilium to recover and send to the liver. The liver filters out most of the B12 but provides a constant stream in the blood to the rest of the body. The filtered out B12 from the liver goes into the bile to the duodenum where it goes back into the intestine to join with intrinsic factor and makes another pass through the gut.
Alcohol is metabolized by the liver and messes with the filtration as well.
Any way, that is an overview of what is going on.
were you able to drink wine without this side effect recently, as in just prior to the injections?
my alcohol intolerance increased during the couple of years prior to getting injections.
i have posted questions about alcohol intolerance on this forum previously. some folks have it and some folks dont
all i can say is i was positive for h pylori, a "root cause" for B12 deficiency.
i did research. alcohol dehydrogenase and more importantly Acetaldehyde are the issues
i took NAC (Jarrows 600 mg sustained release, on amazon) 3X daily for about 10 days prior to having an alcoholic beverage and my reaction (feeling very drunk from 2-3 drinks which lasted hours on end, poor sleep, horribly hungover) was gone.
NAC caused a headach which disappeared after 3-4 days and very smelly gas.
i now take 1X daily and an extra if i am going to have a drink which i only do every couple of weeks. the headache and gas do not occur anymore.
best of luck.
See my reply above. Think I replied to the wrong person
I find alcohol has a much stronger effect since my B12 has been low. I limit myself because it just isn’t worth the way I feel afterwards.
Since this post I have cut it out completely. Had my last loading jab yesterday and feeling terrible... headake vertigo etc just waiting for the benefits (also for when I can have a good night out and not be shattered)
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