I know this sounds obvious but I don't ever remember being tested specifically for PA. I've always struggled with B12 levels since childhood and had to have injections back then, during my teens and twenties it didn't continue and it wasn't until I had my bloods tested again as I was feeling rubbish that the very low B12 got flagged up.
I did try very high strength B12 tablets under GP supervision but they made no impact at all so I stated on the jabs, loading doses then a 3 monthly jab ever since. Its been several years.
Did my GP just assume its PA or not bother testing as the treatment is the same and is it something I should push for or will they not bother now. I know there are specific tests they do but I don't remember if they did them.
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Sparklingsunshine
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You could ask the practice for copies of all blood tests then if your unsure post them here and the members will advise,they’re a great bunch.best of luck.
If you eat all the foods containing B12 -meat , fish , dairy , if you don’t suffer with Helicobacter Pylori, if you haven’t had stomach surgery , if you don’t have fish tape - worm, if you don’t take PPIs , or any other drugs that interfere with B12 absorption ( and there are quite a few ,) and you don’t absorb B12 from oral supplements , then it can be assumed that you have Pernicious Anaemia if you have low B12 blood serum . It is, after all , the most common form of B12 deficiency.The test for P.A. is the Intrinsic Factor Antibody test .( IFAB) BUT about 50% of P.A. patients test negative to it . Apparently these antibodies appear and disappear in the blood of P.A. patients . So little research had been done on P.A. / B12 deficiency. PAS is trying to rectify that .
HiI'm a lifelong vegetarian from childhood, no stomach surgery or drugs that I take. I do have allergies/asthma so have autoimmune issues there. I know the treatment is the same, ie injections but I've always been curious about mine. I've tried supplementing B12 via tablets but it's never worked for me.
Hi no I've never seen either a gastric specialist or haematologist. I do have access to records but I can't access old ones. My surgery allows online access for a few months back only it seems.
"My surgery allows online access for a few months back only"
That sounds rather strange to me.
Might be worth speaking to practice manager asking how to access medical records online that are older than few months. There will be a policy section on your GP surgery website...maybe something helpful in there.
You could try a written request to GP surgery asking for copies of blood test results for a particular time period even if it's a few years back.
You can try requesting access to your paper records.
I can help here, I don't know my biological family, I took dna tests to find out about my origins, through lots of research of relatives I discovered my whole tree is full of endogamy (they married between cousins ) totally worthy to take dna tests.
How do you know if you've got PA? Well, once upon a time [here he goes again] we had the Schilling Tests. These involved the patient swallowing capsules of radioactively labelled B12, and then measuring how much came out in your urine. When performed using intrinsic factor [IF] bound to radiolabelled B12, then that gave us the opportunity to calculate the ratio of 'bound to unbound'. If you absorbed much more of the bound fraction then that was interpreted as PA, because the IF had facilitated the absorption.
Then along came Mad Cow Disease, and all of a sudden the idea of dosing folks with slaughterhouse-sourced IF was seen as a bad idea due to the potential risk, however small.
By this time we had developed tests for IF antibodies, and whilst these are common in PA, they are by no means universal. Only about 50% of PA cases have them.
PA typically has an auto-immune basis, and other auto-antibodies can be seen, but they're nowhere near as specific as IFAb, so the presence of other auto-antibodies is suggestive but not diagnostic.
In the 'early days' of PA, before we knew about B12 [we referred to it as 'extrinsic factor'] then it was termed 'Pernicious' because it tended to kill the patient within about two years or so. [This was as recent as a hundred years ago.]
PA is one cause of B12 deficiency, but there are other causes. If the other potential causes have been eliminated, then it's probably PA. Sorry I can't be more specific!
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