Normocytic and is not anemic . What does that mean? Was treated for PA and now told B12 too high.

[Lyntwo]

Hello:

I have been assessed by my primary doctor as, "he is normocytic and is not anemic".

[Narwhal10]

Hi, I believe normocytic is referring to the size of your blood cells (red) - so, if you ask for your blood results to be printed out then it is MCV - mean corpusclar volume. So, you have normal size blood cells but this is an average.

Anaemic - primary care doc is being lazy - they mean iron deficiency anaemia so your ferritin and other iron tests.

However, blood results are not symptoms !!!

Best wishes 😀

[Lyntwo in reply to Narwhal10]

Thank You

[fbirder]

Your doctor is an idiot who believes that Pernicious Anaemia is primarily a disorder of the blood.

There is a great article I've just found in the British Medical Journal - Education about Pernicious Anemia. bmj.com/bmj/section-pdf/102...

It includes this snippet -

About a quarter of patients have neurological symptoms without anaemia and macrocytosis.

There is no problem with very high B12 levels -

stichtingb12tekort.nl/weten...

[Lyntwo in reply to fbirder]

Thank You.

[Cherylclaire Forum Support in reply to fbirder]

Thanks fbirder - BMJ article has a good clear diagram of parts of the digestive system involved, and a useful list of symptoms which is far longer than most directed at medical professionals. All of it helpful for initial discussion with GP- especially for those not able to read in-depth medical research papers due to sight, concentration, memory or cognitive issues.

Or for time-stretched GPs even !

[fbirder in reply to Cherylclaire]

Yes, I hadn't noticed before, but GPs get credited with 30 minutes of Continuing Professional Development points. So reading this means they can earn more money!

[Cherylclaire Forum Support in reply to fbirder]

So helping them out with a bit of overtime, then !