Posted on 01/19/2011 3:53:18 AM PST by JoeProBono
Tired? Depressed? Forgetting things? Who isn't these days?
Those are also symptoms of a deficiency of B12, a key nutrient needed to make red blood cells and DNA and keep the nervous system working right.....
"B12 deficiency is much more common than the textbooks and journal articles say it is," says Alan Pocinki, an internist in Washington D.C., who routinely tests his patients who fall into those categories. He also notes that since the Metformin connection was discovered only recently,
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Do you inject with the insulin needles?
I use #25 needles.
I like the sun too, but, I live just about as far north as you can live in the lower 48 states. When I had my D level checked it was 14, base line is 40. Took me forever to get it up to 50, almost 2 years and I was taking between 5,000 and 20,000 a day. So when they say, don't take a lot of vitamin D you might overdose. It takes a long time and a lot of vitamin D to get that much if your low. Your body uses around 4000 a day and if you have any auto-immune diseases, it soaks it up.
I’ve never tried the liquid version in drinks. Only one I ever drank was maybe a Pepsi Extreme but I think it was mainly extra caffeine . . . we were on the road home from TX and I needed it for the last 2 hours to make it home.
My Vitamin D is low. One of those danged if you do/don’t since I am VERY FAIR. Sounds like I need to get out on the deck anyway as soon as we see the sun in the south again. We had 8” + of snow last week and expecting more tomorrow and we’re in N AL.
WOW those are pretty scary symptoms. After falling, my fault, this summer and breaking my ankle . . . you should be careful as it is a horrible recovery but I managed without surgery and a bi-mal fracture and being right foot I couldn’t drive for about 3 months.
I did the allergy shots for a while but a 750+ mile move about 20 years ago seemed to have cured me . . . knock knock on wood. I would stand in like a doorway and “roll my arm” against the wood and inject there. I hated it.
Go to Walmart and buy 2000 iu Vitimin D3 geltabs and take two or three every day this winter. They are cheap and have no downside
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1929828/posts
I would rather inject in my arm. I just haven’t figured out how to do that. I do have to take a few deep breaths and try to relax as I inject. It’s a mental thing. I still hate injections.
I'm fair skinned to burn easy. 10-20 minutes in full sun with as little clothing as possible, everyday. Just don't stay out long enough to tan or burn. Tanning also makes it so it takes longer to get the D you need. If your low talk to your doctor about taking D. It is linked to all types of cancer. I had breast cancer, when they checked my D it was 14, which is really low.
Thank you for the info, I just had mine checked and it is 6. Was wondering what baseline is. Dr. gave me 50,000 IU taking one a week for 8 weeks then they are retesting. No wonder I have NO energy at all.
Go here: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
Sorry, I forget how to do links. Just copy and paste.
Ooops that is, your body makes 10,000iu in the sun for 20-30 minutes, not 20,000.
How do you get it checked? If I ask my family doctor will he be likely to agree or roll his eyes?
Just ask your family Dr. they shouldn’t roll their eyes at all. Both Drs. I asked (I moved) were more than willing to test after I told them how almost lethargic I was.
BTW, if they do roll their eyes it might be time to find another. I have asked some out of the world questions about different things and I have been lucky because they have always been taken seriously.
Well, nothing to lose. Ask for levels of Vit D, Vitamin B12 and what else?
I supplement with 20K iu D a day and try to remember to take the sublingual B12 but usually have already brushed my teeth or I forget and start chewing them :-)
There’s a trick to B12 shots. It’s odd, but it works. Thin needles, of course, but there’s more.
Relax your thigh, gently squeeze an area with your hand (thumb and forefinger a few inches or more, apart), and find a “dead” spot - a place where there are no nerves felt at that spot... and gently touching the tip of the needle (very lightly!) randomly around the area you’re squeezing does the trick. When you touch the needle to a “dead” spot, squeeze your hand holding your thigh quite hard and insert the needle. Once you get the hang of doing this, shots are a breeze.
My husband thought I was nuts when he started B12 shots, but has since changed his tune.
“There are other symptoms that I have, too, but I?m afraid I?ve bored you.”
No. Not at all. Fill us in.
The other symptoms that I had were slurred speech and confused speech. I have an extensive vocabulary but I began having to search for the words to communicate my thoughts. Also, I would forget what I have planned to do just the moment before. Before someone says, “that’s just old age, “ consider this, since many elderly people have a lack of b12, couldn’t their “old age” symptoms be really “lack of b12” symptoms? I was only 54 when this became apparent, not really elderly.
Another symptom was a vague, inconsistent, migrating abdominal pain. Nothing quite specific, sometimes a doc would find an area of infection around a kidney or my appendix and I was even told I have chronic appendicitis.
I was very tired. I would get up in the morning, get dressed, brush teeth and hair (or was that hairy teeth?) and be exhausted. Blood tests confirmed that I was anemic. The nurses suggested I wasn’t getting enough iron, but I was taking iron supplements with ascorbic acid. So, it wasn’t that.
As a guess, because I was in the jungle at the time with no diagnostic capability, I began loading on b12. Within a week’s time, I noticed the fuzzy headache began to diminish. It came back before the next dosage so I increased the dosage to until it totally disappeared. For about two weeks, I was injecting 2 mg. of b12 twice a day. I was able to taper off and steadied for about 6 months at 1mg twice a day and now I use just 1mg 2 - 4 times a week.
Problems I had at the beginning were caused by malaria. About six weeks into the treatment as my newest red blood cells matured, those slimy little parasites munched away on the fresh food. The anemia returned, of course. I continued b12 and treated malaria, too. Two weeks later I had a different type of malaria. But it really put my fresh blood cells into a tail spin. Very anemic, very tired. Treated that, but it basically put me back at the beginning of my b12. Those parasites love the fresh blood the b12 helped create!
One nurse there was very well-trained here in the US and US protocols. She didn’t want to give me the loading doses. So, instead of tracking down someone and talking them into it, which took about 45 minutes, I got on the ‘net, watched some videos and began doing it myself. HA! FWIW, when the nurse found that out, she wasn’t at all happy.
If all goes well, I’ll be heading back to the jungle this summer and I should be able to replenish my supplies then. I’ll be there for a year before I come back to the US. I hoe.
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