Today I received a telephone call from a member whose sister has been diagnosed as having B12 Deficiency. Her serum B12 reading was 178mcg/ml with the laboratory’s reference range is 220-660mcg/ml.
The GP is refusing to treat the sister with replacement therapy and has attributed her declining mental health to her having bi-polar disorder.
“What can I do” she asked me, “they are referring her to the local mental health team but her behaviour is deteriorating by the day.
I really couldn’t offer any help.
my daughter had the same attempt at sectioning by doctors, before we realized that she was B12 deficient ( serum 384).
Obviously she needs to change doctor or the complete practice. this is possible due to changes in the last year or so.
Just walk into a doctors of your choice , and register. you may have to notify your old GP out of courtesy.
She could also at least take high dose sublinguals. Hopefully then she should be coherent enough when she see’s the mental health team. A copy of the Scottish Petition and the BNF guidelines on treating b12 deficiency may also make the GP see sense. He has actually got to have a very good reason for failing to treat.
YES YOU CAN OFFER HELP! High dose oral B12 does get absorbed. If the patient’s condition improves on this, it’s as good as diagnostic. 30,000 micrograms daily is equivalent roughly to 1-2 injections a week that the Dutch medicines book http://www.fk.cvz.nl/ advises for people with neurological abnormalities and psychiatric symptoms. You can buy high dose tablets on Amazon. About 1% of high dose tablets gets absorbed. You can’t overdose, B12 is entirely non-toxic.
Added note to my previous comment: use methylcobalamin, it’s the form the body uses. You really can do without the cyanide tail in cyanocobalamin.