Pandora’s box – or the Vitamin B12 connection

Sometimes I wish the internet hadn’t come along and given us all a dangerous amount of knowledge at our fingertips. It’s all too easy to get sucked in a vortex of circular Googles, getting no nearer to the truth of the matter despite having a newly inordinate amount of information on a subject.

Take Vitamin B12, a deficiency of which I swiftly discovered could be a reason for my recent lightheadedness, onset clumsiness and nagging pins and needles running up and down my arms and legs, and hangovers that always seemed far more horrific than people partying far harder than I get to do very often.

Nevermind that my diet has plenty of adequate sources – milk, cheese, and meat are reasonably high on my ‘to consume’ list, despite recent attempts to be more vegan – I just don’t seem to find the time to milk my nuts or grind my seeds, but perhaps Tommy’s anticipated Black Friday purchase of a food processor will see to that.

A little Google further and I become informed that my symptoms could be as a result of not being able to absorb the B12 in my food – a condition known as pernicious anaemia (pernicious meaning death, because before science could isolate the Vit 12 from liver, people died terrible deaths from it) – and searching the annals of my memory led me to remember that my paternal grandmother (who if my recent Googling on genetics are correct, would be the one I take after the most) suffered from it.

Oh shit, I’m dying, was my first thought, as it often is when I start Googling my symptoms, followed by, I’d better just take some vitamin b12, which I rushed out and bought. But later, Googling some more, I discover I’ve bought the wrong sort; a cheap synthetic version called cyanocobalamin, which can cause allergic reactions and comes with a side order of cyanide as your liver has to extract the necessary nutrients via a convulted process, rather than the more expensive but more readily absorbed, methylcobalamin.

No matter that on my first squirt of the substance, I had the sensation of immediate wellbeing (placebo, according to the doctor I later consulted, who look bored at my middle class, white female problems and suggested I should cut down on drinking- the recommended guidelines, which have recently gone down. But then, I thought, battling back her stereotyping, I’ve just only just done Drytober, and have at least two alcohol-free days a week because it affects my sleep- insomnia, of course being a symptom of a deficiency, as well as generalised hungover anxiety that follows every rare bit of fun) followed by the sense that things were happening – but not necessarily in a good way.

Undeterred, convinced I’d hit upon the jackpot in my neverending quest to find out what the fuck’s wrong with me (hypochondria?), I then began reading voraciously around the subject. Vitamin B12 is linked to acne and autism, although no one seems to know whether it’s the cause or the cure – a deficiency can lead, it seems, to either, but too much can cause it – especially when taken in large doses, and especially, for the latter, in pregnancy.  However, exclusively breastfed babies are more likely than others to be deficient. And Ava got 15 months of the stuff. So I’m none the wiser, but it did start to occur to me that perhaps she was looking a bit pale and withdrawn, and if I was deficient, so in all likelihood was she.

Perhaps, then, vitamin B12 is the missing piece of the genetic jigsaw for all my family’s health problems (I mean no one’s really sick, but we’re all a bit kooky and volatile). I instantly asked Tom to go to Holland and Barrett and buy some kiddie vits, before I got all Munchausen by proxyish and started giving Ava vitamins by stealth. Luckily, she point blank refused a squirt of my high dose spray, inspired by her pale skin and lethargy; and it’s probably for the best – by then, I’d started suffering increased symptoms – the pain up and down my arms got worse, accompanied by headaches, and chest palpitations, which, depending on which site I turned to could either be me healing or overdosing – something other sites told me was impossible.

But I’d already booked her a doctor’s appointment, which I swiftly transferred over to myself, so I could at least speak to a professional about whether or not I may have an issue with vitamin b12 before I start diagnosing the rest of my family, and everyone else, as is the wont of those with a penchant for adding 2+2 and making 5. But, like much of the medical profession, the aforementioned bored/ overstretched GP seemed more specialised in prescriptions then nutrition, and looked at me like a neurotic for asking about vitamins, despite nodding vacantly when I mentioned pernicious anaemia runs in the family.

The problem is, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing – I’d previously rejected my nutritionist friend Anneliese’s repeated suggestions to up my vitamin b12 intake as I once read it caused acne, something with which I’ve always suffered. Besides which, I’d also read that non-vege types are unlikely to be deficient, and that we should try and get our vitamins from food, not supplements. I hadn’t realised how dangerous this type of vitamin deficiency could be – and yet whether or not I’m suffering from it is, again, another matter.

Apparently, blood tests can be misleading, and can show falsely high results for serum levels. Testing for ‘intrinsic factor’, the oddly named stuff that absorbs the vitamin (as opposed to extrinsic factor – a term that goes back to when the pioneering medic who discovered vitamin b12 fed his patients regurgitated liver to help cure their anaemia) is what I need to do, but I need to convince the doctor I need it.

To casual observers, I am a (probably rather too) well-nourished, fit and healthy woman. Never mind that my hair keeps shedding, my skin can be temperamental, and is now blotchy with white patches (for which I blamed the pill but which could be vitiligo, another deficiency symptom) as well as the long term sleep issues. It also doesn’t help that I’d been taking baking soda at night in a pint of water to help me sleep – it calms your nervous system, but you need your stomach acid to absorb vitamin b12, but I’d also read the baking soda can prevent cancer, so I guess you picks your evils. But one cold hard fact is that most people become deficient over time, with most people in their 60s in need of the vitamin- which could lead to Alzheimer’s and other neurological symptoms- even brain damage. So why are the supplements making me feels worse? Are my nerve endings healing, as I read in one article, or am I going into kyphosis as a result of potassium deficiency, as I read in another?

The fact is, no one seems to know for sure- even a battery of tests can be inconclusive- it’s notoriously difficult to test pregnant women, despite a deficiency being as bad for a developing foetus as, apparently too much of the vitamin is as well.

You just have to keep on trying things and seeing what works, but for my children’s sake, I’d like to be on the safe side. But either way, and for the time being, it makes me feel better about failing to be more vegan, and perhaps explains why those who I know (and they’re increasing in number all the time) can often look a bit peaky – most vitamin b12 comes from animal sources. But even that’s not strictly true- it actually is produced by bacteria in our guts when they metabolise animal sources. And if there’s one thing I’m convinced of is that my gut bacteria’s to blame for everything.

Thank god for the scoby (that’s a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, to the uninitiated) that my friend Reprobate Laura brought to the pub quiz last week. It’s making delicious Kombucha made of fermented black tea (nicer than you’d imagine.) But I can’t help feel of a morning, as I drain my kefir, and decide which of my myriad supplements I need,and try and get the kids to eat strange things like liver and kelp, or add Source of Life Gold in their juice (better than an injection according to my local, very enthusiastic pharmacist, and at over £15 quid for 8 servings it better be worth it’s weight in gold!) that I’d almost be better off not knowing any of this. My pocket certainly would be – my ailments are costing me a fortune.

But like my dear friend Jane who is currently having treatment for colon cancer that spread (also possibly caused by a vit b12 deficiency), says, being more of a hypochondriac, means I wouldn’t be in this mess, so perhaps it pays to open Pandora’s box (of supplements) after all.