Balance problems

[Cyprusgal]

I am on injections every other day and one of my main problems is my balance this does also seem to be getting worse with the injections 😕 I have had 5 injections so far. Any advise of experience of this would be greatly appreciated, thanks

[fbirder]

Balance problems, like other neurological symptoms, can take a while to start improving. So I wouldn’t worry just yet. Give it a few months.

[Nackapan in reply to fbirder]

Sorry for spelling errors. Debilitating exhaustion. Tend to get

Balance problems the more tired

[Nackapan]

I has vertigo first then when that went I also had bakance problems among many others. It all got alot worse for 2 weeks. Awful.

A month now since loading doses finished and my bakance is better. I didn't vestibular pysio exercises that really help. Cawthorne if you Google them. As suffering still with dialling exhaustion I tent to get banned problems if put of bed too long.

Hopefully it will subside found soon.

[clivealive Forum Support]

Hi Cyprusgal

Has your Folate (B9 or Folic acid) level been checked?

It is important that your Folate level is monitored as this is essential to process the B12 you are having injected.

There is a complex interaction between folic acid, vitamin B12 and iron. A deficiency of one may be "masked" by excess of another so the three must always be in balance.

Symptoms of a folate deficiency can include:

symptoms related to anaemia

reduced sense of taste

diarrhoea

numbness and tingling in the feet and hands

muscle weakness

depression

Folic acid works closely with vitamin B12 in making red blood cells and helps iron function properly in the body.

Initially, replacing B12 will lead to a huge increase in the production of blood cells and platelets (which occurs in the bone marrow) and can lead to rapid depletion of folate and iron stores;

I am not a medically trained person but I've had Pernicious Anaemia (one of many causes of B12 deficiency) for more than 46 years.

I wish you well.

[pvanderaa]

Balance is a scary neurological symptom. Repair of neurological damage is very slow.

Start a logbook of all your symptoms and assess your own severity score. This helps monitor your progress over the long term.

Especially with the roller coaster ride that starts once you are on injections and last until you get the dosage levels right.

Supplement with folic acid, B1, B9 and a multivitamin.

Stimulate nerve repair with exercises- swimming is a good one.

Symptoms will eventually disappear and you may only realize that you haven’t seen them when they return after some sort of set back.

Treat the jab as day 0 each cycle and look for a pattern of symptoms to follow the jab for 72 hours these symptoms are counterintuitive but are good indication that nerve repair is occurring. Pain is one, hunger is another.

I used to have to touch the shower wall to shampoo my hair with my eyes closed. Now after several years I can do it without that extra support.

Balancing on one foot to put on socks is still a challenge but I can occasionally do it. When B12 is low, I need to sit to put on my socks.

[Nackapan in reply to pvanderaa]

That's interesting. I've been hungry and need to eat every to 4 hours otherwise jittery. I've still managed to lose weight though. So a good sign repair is happening here. I suppose repair work needs food. Thanks

[pvanderaa in reply to Nackapan]

The hunger arises from repair of the vagus nerve.

Have you had any other symptoms?

Aggression, is one that I occasionally get after my B12 jab, especially if I gotten too low before the jab.

I can get myself in trouble speaking out of turn. I think this is more due to the brain but the attitude I feel comes from the stomach.

[deniseinmilden]

Hi!

B12 is used in DNA synthesis, nerve function and energy release which use B12. As clivealive says there are many other vitamins and minerals that are needed to make these processes work properly, particularly folate. A shortage of folate can definitely disrupt balance and cause vertigo, or dizziness.

As your body gets more B12 it can use up other things as it heals the damage caused by the deficiency and this can lead to a shortage and therefore deficiency symptoms of others.

Many people get good results from taking a broad spectrum multivitamin and mineral supplement plus extra folate, potassium, magnesium and iron.

You can Google these to find out the symptoms of deficiency and excess and what the best food sources are that you might like.

[Cyprusgal]

Thank you all for your responses 😊

I am taking 5mg of folic acid daily prescribed by my doctor and have also started today a multi vitimin from your responses. I also looked at the Cawthorne exercises last night and did some of these and it seemed to help a bit so I will continue with these, I have also looked online at the pressure point's used to help eliviate dizziness so will also try this anything at the moment to help.

I have suffered for years with the symptoms and no one's picked up on it until I recently went to see a ENT specialist and he said straight away! I think you have a B12 deficiency and started the ball rolling, thank god. I live in Cyprus and I am not limited at all to how many B12 injections I can have which I think is a good thing from some of the posts I have read.

Once again thank you for your responses they are very much appreciated and each one helps. I must add some of my symptoms are a lot better already with the injections just need to get the balance issues better which is quite life sapping at times.

[Nackapan in reply to Cyprusgal]

Glad the Cawthorne exercises are of help. I try snd do the basic ones daily. Have to be careful with the eye exercises as can set off a headache!

[Llawry]

My balance was poor for quite some time. I went from dance rehearsals (pirouettes/chaînés) and fairly regular performances to having to sit on the floor to put my underwear on and touching or leaning against the wall while walking - especially stairs!

After a year of injections I am finally able to stand on one leg and am doing yoga. I am curious to try a dance class but like you when I get tired or run down one of the first things is a vertigo feeling and burning feet. We’ll see.

Good luck with your balance issues. It is a scary situation. Especially because the neurologist I saw didn’t think any of my problems were due to b12 and didn’t find anything in her tests.

You start to lack confidence in what you’re saying and thinking! Take care. And all the best.

[teebeevee]

It's funny how different symptoms seem to stand out above others, and keep other symptoms in the background. I was so upset about my mental state, that's all I complained about on the many visits to doctors, I didn't even think to mention that I had gradually lost my balance, and my head was constantly swimming, and my hearing was going (damage to nerves in inner ear??). I was suddenly holding on to the wall of the shower each day, and creeping down stairs because they felt like a moving escalator, but these things seemed the least of my problems, I just wanted my normal mind back. The balance and dizziness has slooowly improved over four months of shots, still not gone, but much better. I wish I had put together a complete list of everything that had changed over the course of a year -- probably would have helped the doctor get to the bottom of it. Or maybe not, maybe I'd just be running around to even more doctors and being prescribed more drugs I didn't need, because I never got anemia. I had to stumble on the answer on my own, then ask the doctor for the right tests for PA....

[Wowo23]

Your post sounds so familiar. I would stand up and all would go black for a few seconds. Also always feeling I was going fall. It took a few months for these to ease. Now I don't either symptom.