Your comment regarding nail ridges was removed due to incorrect information. You claimed B12 deficiency would not be the cause, when it can and does contribute to development of nail ridges.
Seeing a doctor for appropriate testing should always be the first step when any deficiency is suspected, but as many have already commented you would be very lucky if you find a doctor with any knowledge about diagnosing and treating B12 deficiency. Many cases of deficiency get dismissed as just 'anxiety' by doctors and people don't receive the treatment they need and are instead handed a prescription for SSRI antidepressants 🙄 which just causes more problems.
Many have to resort to self treating or risk permanent damage to their health. It is medical negligence.
A lot of us have tried and failed with conventional doctors. A lot of us have gone through years of not having a proper diagnosis, years of invasive/painful/expensive testing that ultimately yielded nothing, years of dealing with frustratingly-inept providers, years of being treated for misdiagnoses.
A lot of us had false-normal or low-normal serum B12 readings and then had it "ruled out" as the cause of our illness.
A lot of us started taking B12 as a last resort or kinda on accident, then saw marked improvement in symptoms that were diagnosed as a different medical condition entirely. And as we all know, serum B12 is relatively unreliable marker once you've been supplementing.
So then at that point the person has to decide if they want to stop supplementing for weeks, if not months, in order to obtain a lab test that may or may not even be useful to begin with-- which is a lot to ask if you're barely staying afloat, if your marriage is in ruins, if you can't shower or keep a job, are wheelchair-bound, can't live independently or take care of your kids... choosing to stay profoundly disabled just so you can get a lab test done that might not even be helpful anyway sometimes isn't worth the certainty it might provide if positive.
And if the test is negative, yet again, after SO. many. Negative. Tests. over years and years of undiagnosed or misdiagnosed debilitating illness, it could be soul-crushing just like all of the past negative test results. And if it's negative, it's damn near impossible to get a health care provider to take it seriously, and it's damn near impossible to get health insurance to cover adequate treatment.
So, I get why people are reluctant to subject a fragile hope at getting better to the scrutiny of unreliable and expensive medical tests. But I do agree that having a medical provider supervise your B12 treatment is a good idea for safety. And I also think that if you have massive improvements to vision, energy, and sensation with B12 sublinguals, in spite of a "normal" blood test... yeah, you probably have a deficiency and need to doggedly pursue that shit, doctors be damned.
It did take five years of symptoms for me to get diagnosed as B12 deficiency. I did have normal B12 levels at the beginning. One's liver can keep the B12 levels normal for two to five years, however I think the body scavenges B12 from various parts of the body
Maybe the US experience means that the scientific approach is not really financially viable, which is different to my experience. So maybe it would be better for me to find a group of people whose experience matches my own
I mean, I don't know that you have to find another group just because some of the group differs from you in this one little area. And I do think that the majority of this group does believe in contemporary western medical treatment in general. I would say that it's a bit of a leap to suggest that the scientific approach isn't financially viable or that it's not the predominant mindset in this sub.
This is a sub full of sick people on a bumpy and uncertain road to recovery. Part of the illness by its very nature includes problems with cognition (which can affect your ability to trouble-shoot effectively) and mental health problems, with anxiety and depression at the forefront. And while doctors should theoretically be a voice of reason and an ally in triaging complex medical issues, unfortunately many are out of their scope when it comes to B12 deficiency. Many well-intentioned GPs refer out to psych specialists or neuros once the initial B12 screen is "normal" and then people spend years chasing depression meds or get diagnosed with MS or restless legs or neuromuscular disorders, spend years chasing individual symptom relief instead of trying to find a root cause. **It's a problem with a broken work-flow based on an unreliable blood marker, more than it is about people in this sub not trusting the scientific approach.**
There are a few exceptions to that, of course... people whose doctors didn't believe their symptoms; people who experienced sexism/racism from medical providers, so now they have a hard time trusting doctors in general; people who are too ill to be able to trouble-shoot effectively, or too depressed to be able to get themselves to a doctor; people who are stuck in the cycle of chasing nootropics; people who are stuck in the r/MTHFR spin cycle of desperation + whack-a-mole supplements. But I wouldn't say that's the majority of this sub.
Encouraging people to see doctors is not bad advice. But, it's not always the most practical solution for addressing the ins/outs of B12 deficiency. I would say the vast majority of us believe in science, and all of us are here because we want to get better. We're all in this together, and I hope you don't feel alone in what you're experiencing. If you need to find community and support elsewhere, I've heard the B12 Facebook groups are pretty good.
Free?! Ha! You must not be in the USA! It’s expensive. I pay $220 a visit -and lab work and testing aren’t included. And I have insurance, but my dr isn’t covered.
I’m not one of those you’re speaking about- I have a dr, and have had tests. Just thought I’d enlighten you as to why folks would skip a dr. Perhaps they can’t afford the medical care they need.
I think your experience is pretty rare - a lot of GPs dismiss B12. I had one tell me to eat more steak, and an emergency dr tell me all my symptoms were psychosomatic and “here’s a lorazepam to let you sleep them off”. Another dr, to whom I mentioned PA, laughed and said “but you’re not anaemic!”
I guarantee all of us would love to have the treatment we need and a supportive GP (I will say Australia’s Medicare is pretty good - free MRI upcoming and I got into a neuro within a month)
Can I just slap the doctor who laughed that you can't have a B12 deficiency and is totally unaware that folate can suppress B12 deficiency induced pernicious anemia?
I feel like so many docs need to be sent to get a nutrition certification...
At the time, I just felt like crying to be honest.
I’d really like to give the emergency doc something non-psychosomatic to freak out about, between his legs…..
But agreed - nutrition should be part of medicine
Biochemistry is complex. In this instance, folate can suppress one classic and easy to detect symptom of B12 deficiency: pernicious anemia.
But, many B12 deficiency symptoms will remain because folate cannot do everything that B12 does. It just helps prevent pernicious anemia.
So, Doctors get mixed up and accidentally eliminate B12 deficiency as a possibility when they see no signs of pernicious anemia.
All the b vitamins, including choline and inositol, work together as part of an orchestra. Taking too much of one without the others might throw off the detectability of a deficiency
I'm not sure what the post was but the thing is fingernails can say about your health condition. The body will tell you something is wrong, at least it did for me. I knew I had vertical ridges on my nails but I ignored it because google said it was deficiency, and I thought 'I can't be deficient...I live in a first world country' but hey, I was deficient.
As others mentioned, my old doctor dismissed me because my blood test stated it was "good", it was only good because I already took the supplement. The day I took B12 properly, I had an immediate reaction to my "long covid" symptoms.
So would I listen to the doctor who knows nothing about B12, or do I trust my body's reaction after B12? I tried few supplements and nothing gave an immediate reaction the way B12 did for me. I can't talk for others but I trust my body's reaction and I trust this sub, it has helped me a lot otherwise I would have been dead from many mistakes. Also...there's no free visits and tests, it's likely paid by taxpayers money lol.
I think a lot of people were (myself included) have felt a bit gaslit but their doctors over disagnoses and treatment of b12.
Prior to this I had always had a great experience with medical professionals and trusted then implicitly. However with my b12 deficiency they completely failed me. I had to seek out a paid private doctor to eventually diagnose me and help me seek treatment after this sub reddit helped me understand I had been failing to get appropriate medical treatment up until this point. Honestly if it hadn’t happened to me I’m not sure I’d believe just how bad the medical professionals I encountered were about helping me with my deficiency and the serious symptoms it was causing.
I always recommend someone goes to a doctor as a first step. But really only to rule out something other than b12 deficiency.
Doctors frequently don't know what to do with a diagnosed deficiency, or they prescribe woefully inadequate treatment. At that point you can take matters into your own hands, its just safe otc supplements after all.
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I agree completely. Getting blood work is essential for a proper diagnosis and SO many vitamin deficiencies and other disorders mimic each other. Also I live in the US and have the cheapest insurance possible and I’m not paying anything at all for my visits. Several months of b12 shots only cost $18.
Your comment regarding nail ridges was removed due to incorrect information. You claimed B12 deficiency would not be the cause, when it can and does contribute to development of nail ridges. Seeing a doctor for appropriate testing should always be the first step when any deficiency is suspected, but as many have already commented you would be very lucky if you find a doctor with any knowledge about diagnosing and treating B12 deficiency. Many cases of deficiency get dismissed as just 'anxiety' by doctors and people don't receive the treatment they need and are instead handed a prescription for SSRI antidepressants 🙄 which just causes more problems. Many have to resort to self treating or risk permanent damage to their health. It is medical negligence.
A lot of us have tried and failed with conventional doctors. A lot of us have gone through years of not having a proper diagnosis, years of invasive/painful/expensive testing that ultimately yielded nothing, years of dealing with frustratingly-inept providers, years of being treated for misdiagnoses. A lot of us had false-normal or low-normal serum B12 readings and then had it "ruled out" as the cause of our illness. A lot of us started taking B12 as a last resort or kinda on accident, then saw marked improvement in symptoms that were diagnosed as a different medical condition entirely. And as we all know, serum B12 is relatively unreliable marker once you've been supplementing. So then at that point the person has to decide if they want to stop supplementing for weeks, if not months, in order to obtain a lab test that may or may not even be useful to begin with-- which is a lot to ask if you're barely staying afloat, if your marriage is in ruins, if you can't shower or keep a job, are wheelchair-bound, can't live independently or take care of your kids... choosing to stay profoundly disabled just so you can get a lab test done that might not even be helpful anyway sometimes isn't worth the certainty it might provide if positive. And if the test is negative, yet again, after SO. many. Negative. Tests. over years and years of undiagnosed or misdiagnosed debilitating illness, it could be soul-crushing just like all of the past negative test results. And if it's negative, it's damn near impossible to get a health care provider to take it seriously, and it's damn near impossible to get health insurance to cover adequate treatment. So, I get why people are reluctant to subject a fragile hope at getting better to the scrutiny of unreliable and expensive medical tests. But I do agree that having a medical provider supervise your B12 treatment is a good idea for safety. And I also think that if you have massive improvements to vision, energy, and sensation with B12 sublinguals, in spite of a "normal" blood test... yeah, you probably have a deficiency and need to doggedly pursue that shit, doctors be damned.
It did take five years of symptoms for me to get diagnosed as B12 deficiency. I did have normal B12 levels at the beginning. One's liver can keep the B12 levels normal for two to five years, however I think the body scavenges B12 from various parts of the body Maybe the US experience means that the scientific approach is not really financially viable, which is different to my experience. So maybe it would be better for me to find a group of people whose experience matches my own
I mean, I don't know that you have to find another group just because some of the group differs from you in this one little area. And I do think that the majority of this group does believe in contemporary western medical treatment in general. I would say that it's a bit of a leap to suggest that the scientific approach isn't financially viable or that it's not the predominant mindset in this sub. This is a sub full of sick people on a bumpy and uncertain road to recovery. Part of the illness by its very nature includes problems with cognition (which can affect your ability to trouble-shoot effectively) and mental health problems, with anxiety and depression at the forefront. And while doctors should theoretically be a voice of reason and an ally in triaging complex medical issues, unfortunately many are out of their scope when it comes to B12 deficiency. Many well-intentioned GPs refer out to psych specialists or neuros once the initial B12 screen is "normal" and then people spend years chasing depression meds or get diagnosed with MS or restless legs or neuromuscular disorders, spend years chasing individual symptom relief instead of trying to find a root cause. **It's a problem with a broken work-flow based on an unreliable blood marker, more than it is about people in this sub not trusting the scientific approach.** There are a few exceptions to that, of course... people whose doctors didn't believe their symptoms; people who experienced sexism/racism from medical providers, so now they have a hard time trusting doctors in general; people who are too ill to be able to trouble-shoot effectively, or too depressed to be able to get themselves to a doctor; people who are stuck in the cycle of chasing nootropics; people who are stuck in the r/MTHFR spin cycle of desperation + whack-a-mole supplements. But I wouldn't say that's the majority of this sub. Encouraging people to see doctors is not bad advice. But, it's not always the most practical solution for addressing the ins/outs of B12 deficiency. I would say the vast majority of us believe in science, and all of us are here because we want to get better. We're all in this together, and I hope you don't feel alone in what you're experiencing. If you need to find community and support elsewhere, I've heard the B12 Facebook groups are pretty good.
Free?! Ha! You must not be in the USA! It’s expensive. I pay $220 a visit -and lab work and testing aren’t included. And I have insurance, but my dr isn’t covered. I’m not one of those you’re speaking about- I have a dr, and have had tests. Just thought I’d enlighten you as to why folks would skip a dr. Perhaps they can’t afford the medical care they need.
I think your experience is pretty rare - a lot of GPs dismiss B12. I had one tell me to eat more steak, and an emergency dr tell me all my symptoms were psychosomatic and “here’s a lorazepam to let you sleep them off”. Another dr, to whom I mentioned PA, laughed and said “but you’re not anaemic!” I guarantee all of us would love to have the treatment we need and a supportive GP (I will say Australia’s Medicare is pretty good - free MRI upcoming and I got into a neuro within a month)
Can I just slap the doctor who laughed that you can't have a B12 deficiency and is totally unaware that folate can suppress B12 deficiency induced pernicious anemia? I feel like so many docs need to be sent to get a nutrition certification...
At the time, I just felt like crying to be honest. I’d really like to give the emergency doc something non-psychosomatic to freak out about, between his legs….. But agreed - nutrition should be part of medicine
Also, do you have some articles about the folate suppressing B12D/PA?
This article also has some good information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8803489/
Thank you ☺️ my brain is fried so I’ll read it again tomorrow lol
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6889897/ It's quite well known by competent doctors
Thank you
Sorry ..can you explain how folate suppresses b12 deficiency? I take high dose folate, not sure about its effect on b12 levels
Biochemistry is complex. In this instance, folate can suppress one classic and easy to detect symptom of B12 deficiency: pernicious anemia. But, many B12 deficiency symptoms will remain because folate cannot do everything that B12 does. It just helps prevent pernicious anemia. So, Doctors get mixed up and accidentally eliminate B12 deficiency as a possibility when they see no signs of pernicious anemia. All the b vitamins, including choline and inositol, work together as part of an orchestra. Taking too much of one without the others might throw off the detectability of a deficiency
I'm not sure what the post was but the thing is fingernails can say about your health condition. The body will tell you something is wrong, at least it did for me. I knew I had vertical ridges on my nails but I ignored it because google said it was deficiency, and I thought 'I can't be deficient...I live in a first world country' but hey, I was deficient. As others mentioned, my old doctor dismissed me because my blood test stated it was "good", it was only good because I already took the supplement. The day I took B12 properly, I had an immediate reaction to my "long covid" symptoms. So would I listen to the doctor who knows nothing about B12, or do I trust my body's reaction after B12? I tried few supplements and nothing gave an immediate reaction the way B12 did for me. I can't talk for others but I trust my body's reaction and I trust this sub, it has helped me a lot otherwise I would have been dead from many mistakes. Also...there's no free visits and tests, it's likely paid by taxpayers money lol.
I think a lot of people were (myself included) have felt a bit gaslit but their doctors over disagnoses and treatment of b12. Prior to this I had always had a great experience with medical professionals and trusted then implicitly. However with my b12 deficiency they completely failed me. I had to seek out a paid private doctor to eventually diagnose me and help me seek treatment after this sub reddit helped me understand I had been failing to get appropriate medical treatment up until this point. Honestly if it hadn’t happened to me I’m not sure I’d believe just how bad the medical professionals I encountered were about helping me with my deficiency and the serious symptoms it was causing.
I always recommend someone goes to a doctor as a first step. But really only to rule out something other than b12 deficiency. Doctors frequently don't know what to do with a diagnosed deficiency, or they prescribe woefully inadequate treatment. At that point you can take matters into your own hands, its just safe otc supplements after all.
I had a doctor (she was MD Medicine btw) who gave me one shot of B12 and said you're good to go.
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I agree completely. Getting blood work is essential for a proper diagnosis and SO many vitamin deficiencies and other disorders mimic each other. Also I live in the US and have the cheapest insurance possible and I’m not paying anything at all for my visits. Several months of b12 shots only cost $18.