Hi all! First of all thank you for all the support and assistance, this forum has been a huge help.
One of my symptoms of b12 deficiency is shallow breathing or shortness of breath. I’ve been injecting for 2 months now 3 x’s a week with hydroxocobalamin 1000 mcg. Just a few days ago my shallow breathing (aka air hunger) increased. Because of this I’ve lowered my activity level.
Would any have suggestions or insights as to my sudden increased shallow breathing? Interestingly my muscle weakness is improving very slowly. Just fyi I’m 32 years of age.
I’ve also been supplementing with iron 72 mg every other day and finished oregano oil 125 mg (3x’s/day) with Allicin 180 mg (2x’s/day) treatment for SIBO 5 days ago.
This situation is lowering my spirits. Ive been unwell since April.
Thank you!
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Dolansan
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Have you had your iron levels checked? You must not supplement with iron without monitoring your levels through blood testing as iron can build up in your body, especially if you happen to have a condition called haemochromatosis.
While iron anaemia can cause breathlessness, it is usually because your intercostal (rib) muscles tend to spasm if your blood oxygen levels are low and you can get "heart failure" symptoms if your heart muscles get short of oxygen, due to your blood having less capacity to carry oxygen, rather than the "air hunger" involuntary gasps that low B12 causes.
The best source of iron is red meat and fish because it is the only source of haem iron (in the UK), which you might need if your body isn't able to convert the sort of iron that is in supplements to the haem iron your body needs to carry oxygen in your blood. I probably have SIBO and can take high levels of iron supplements without good effect and need to eat red meat and fish to keep my iron anaemia under control.
Normally a couple of weeks of the right supplements should improve a symptom. If the symptoms don't improve then you should question if you are doing the right thing.
Are you taking any other supplements?
For the B12 to work properly in your cells, the right balance of a wide range of vitamins and minerals is required.
It is hard to know what you are absorbing and what you need more of without blood testing.
That said, a broad spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement will provide you with a background level of most of the nutrients you are likely to need - but be aware that this will also be adding to your iron levels. If you are SI fairly often, you will probably need additional folate, potassium, magnesium, iron (which you are already doing) and vitamin D. Ideally you will get these from your diet but you will probably need to take folic acid tablets and additional vitamin D.
Your needs for these will be confirmed with blood tests and if you are low your Dr can prescribe stronger tablets for you than you can buy over the counter.
Without more information from blood test results, any other supplements you are taking, and an idea of your diet it's hard to say... And that's without the weird anomaly that is SIBO! Also, what other (main! 😜) symptoms do you have? (I know that B12 deficiency produces 301 symptoms so it's hard to list them all!).
Please don't get too fed up - and I know it's hard - there is a solution out there, you just have to find it! Keep working to get answers and solutions; don't put up with things that are wrong for long as symptoms are your body's way of asking you to fix the problems! Believe me though, I know how, particularly when you feel rough, it can be easier to put up with things than make the even greater effort required to get things sorted!
I had a curious "side effect" from taking nitrofurantoin a couple of times, in that it hugely improved my absorbtion of other vitamins and minerals for quite a while after the courses I had, leading to suggest that some of my malabsorption is possibly due to SIBO. Courses of Metronidazole seem to have a similar, although lesser, effect.
I was just starting to get it looked into at the beginning of the year and in doing so they discovered that my pancreas had shrivelled up and wasn't working and so they focused on that for a bit... And then we went into lockdown and progress has been slow since.
I don't know about the relationship with B12 as I have been daily SI for 5 and a half years and it's hard to tell which came first. I suspect the B12d as I have had deficiency problems for 30+ years... But I've always had health problems so it's hard to say.
2 months is rather a short period to see dramatic results. It’s taken me several years but it took about 12 months before I had significant benefits from B12 injections. I had neuropathy that can take a long time to ‘repair’. Some neuropathy is beyond repair. I’ll leave that for others.
As far as your other contributors comments on SIBO, I hope he gets a proper diagnosis. SIBO is often treatable. I wish my SIBO test was positive but alas no.
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Stopping breathing, and or gasping for air. 
Am I anemic? 
Increased symptoms after injections.
Happy 4th of July fellow US Americans, and Good Day to my friends elsewhere in the world! I have questions for all:
Folate
