There is a lady called Bethan – that’s not her real name but the name she likes to be called because she doesn’t like her real name. Bethan lives in Somerset and is 82 years old. She has no family. She lives alone.
Bethan sometimes phones the society’s office to seek clarification on certain things as she has Pernicious Anaemia following major stomach surgery in the early 1970s. She has been receiving monthly B12 injections for the past thirty five years. It was her surgeon who prescribed the monthly injections. Two years ago she was told that she could only have the injection every three months. She ‘phoned to tell me this when her treatment regime was changed. Unfortunately there was nothing that I could do to help. She phoned a few times since complaining that she was deteriorating.
On Tuesday she telephoned me in quite a state. She hadn’t had an injection for over a year – “they told me I didn’t have Pernicious Anaemia any more”. Bethan was telephoning from inside a Psychiatric Hospital. She had been forceably admitted under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act.
She was lucid, coherent and frightened, very frightened.
Martyn
I feel so bad for Bethan. This is just really horrible. My B12 has also been withdrawn. I’ve managed to get some private treatment – I am so grateful. This is horrendous – that the GPs can do this to people.
Shirley
Sounds like the nightmares described in “could it be B12?”. That doctors mix up things and will rather let the society pay enormous amounts of money for hospitalization than yield to science : That lack of B12 may create psychiatric problems. I hope PAS can influence the hospital where Bethan is. I wish for this and pray that all of us can hope for knowledgable doctors when we get to be old. In that way Bethan is a sufferer who suffer now so that – hopefully someone may learn from it. May the suffering of Bethan stop!!
Gunnhild
I spoke to another lady this week who has also been labelled as having mental problems, even although medical tests have revealed clear and varied physical damage. She, too, was held in a secure ward against her will and each time she is admitted to hospital as an emergency, they take one look at her records and dismiss all her physical symptoms. Hopefully, she is now about to consult a private doctor who has experience in treating people with auto-immune conditions who are now seriously ill.
That’s a crime! I have been giving myself injections for the past two years. I went from daily to weekly to monthly, then realized the pain, numbness, and weakness returning two weeks after my shot – my new dr. said it’s OK to give myself a shot every two weeks. Now, my B12 results are only showing at about 400 even with shots every two weeks – my dr. said to give myself a shot weekly. He said my body isn’t holding the B12 and any extra in my system will just be urinated out. My daughter gives herself monthly shots and her B12 went from 350 to 2,000. Her body is holding it (so far); my isn’t.
As for this poor woman, I know how terrifying it is to be aware that you’re confused and forgetting things, but don’t know why. To know why, but not be able to get the medication to correct it is a downright sin!
Bethan has my sympathy, my doctor told me, when I was begging for more frequent injections, that the government had told him to stop giving injections to people over 65 as it wasn’t needed! I’ve had the condition (diagnosed) for 7/8 yrs ,(im 53 now)and don’t know how long I had it before that. I got injections every 12 wks which I knew wasn’t enough, I got more and more upset stressed and basicallly had a meltdown which cost me my family (they think I’m mentally ill)but I’m normal when I’ve just had the jab, I know myself when I’m heading for a freak out, and try to keep out of other peoples way. But after joining the society, I showed the doctor all this info,(and it explained all the symtoms I’ve been having about for yrs) my injections have been upped to every 8 wks to start this month, but it’s too late to save any relationship with my family. Both my Great Grandmother and my Grandfather had the condition,they got injections every 2wks and 4 wks respectivly. It seems awful to have to go through all this for a vitamin, without it, it’s chaos, never mind the exhaustion and all the rest of it, but the mood swings, oh boy, join that in with the menapause and I can see why folks think im crazy. But I know I’m not. Before I found out all about it, I thought I also had the begingins of dementia. GPs don’t know enough about it. The tests I’ve been through for swallowing probs, weakness in limbs ect, been given every drug under the sun to diguise all these symtoms, at one point I was taking 25 tablets a day, when all I needed mostly was an inexpensive injection which would have stopped the symtoms. So good luck Bethan, I hope no one else is branded as crazy, as it’s not a label that goes away easy.
Heaven and god forbid , as there sees to be no higher power I can think of in regard to Susan Coleman’s information for the aged needing B12 injections. Words almst fail me. In the light of some ither comments, accumulation of B12 with long dates in various forms is one solution until the logic of doctors change and guidelines for testing and treatment change. If drs obey the computer screens, then 1984 is still with us, but hopefully they can read the latest literature on B12 (Hooper, Pachelot and Stuart, Chandry)