Hello Rose,
I think that there has been a misunderstanding about why I am here; we are on the same side. Please see my next post, Why I started This Thread, before replying to this post.
Firstly, I would like to thank you for your excellent web site. I hope that you did not mind me placing a link to it from my
Useful Links page. We are both attacking the same problem, from different angles. You, and others here, are helping people directly with specific advice; I am fighting bad science, and abuse of power by pathologists, with good science.
My post about hypokalaemia was in response to a discussion that had developed on this thread; it was intended to explain why I made the decision to use oral B12 at the time, and under my specific circumstances. It was not a comment on whether or not others should do the same.
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The quotations remind me of many references that have not been updated for many years. Of course, the context may tell a different story, but I believe they are operating on the assumption that everyone who is B12 deficient has anemia (megaloblastic or macrocytic anemia wrongly referred to as pernicious anemia).
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The documents I quoted from are data sheets for B12, and do not make any assumptions about what has caused the deficiency. They warn of the possibility of a problem with hypokalaemia. I quoted from them because my then doctor ignored the warnings and offered me a B12 injection, without considering the potential consequences.
I certainly do not assume that everyone with B12 deficiency must be anaemic; in fact, as you would see from my web site, quite the opposite. There I quote from reputable sources that 30% of us with B12 deficiency do not have any haematological signs; I am one of those. In
Vitamin B12 Deficiency - Doctors and in
The Investigation - My Story, I strongly criticise the doctor who told me that I cannot be B12 deficient because I do not have anaemia.
It is possible that I did have haematological damage at the start; that would explain the episode after first taking the oral dose, but we can never be sure.
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That would mean that some of the people they are referring to have become extremely fragile, and depending on how they have tested the subjects, some may be B12 deficient even though the docs think it has been ruled out.
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Unless a person has some other problem, the likelihood of serious consequences of brief low potassium due to B12 treatment is almost surely because B12 deficiency has been untreated far too long. And I have yet to see anything that convinces me a person would experience a potassium dip if they didn't need the B12. I'm open to any credible information to the contrary.
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I agree with you. I was not too robust by then, in early November 2005; B12 100 pmol/l and stable, MMA 1.79 µmol/l and rising very rapidly, tHcy 12.3 µmol/l and rising very rapidly. A few hours after taking my first oral 1000 µg cyanocobalamin, my heart rate and blood pressure increased rapidly and I felt absolutely rotten with palpitations and chest pain, but the doctor turned me away without bothering to test anything.
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Regardless, since folic acid is added to many foods, and since malabsorption of B12 from foods becomes quite common as people approach and pass middle age, B12 deficiency is more likely and extremely damaging. Also, because B12 deficiency is very likely to go undiagnosed by ignorant physicians (most on this issue), a person would be statistically far safer to take their 1000 mcg B12 and separate B complex at another time of day than wait to be diagnosed.
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I totally agree with you about doctors; I would have been dead long ago if I had waited for a doctor to diagnose me.
However, there might be one point on which we will have to agree to slightly disagree; there is nothing wrong with that. I would much prefer to see MMA tested before commencing treatment, because I believe that a significant change in MMA is diagnostic of B12 deficiency. Proper application of currently available tests should be able to give a correct diagnosis. The problem is that many doctors do not know what tests to order, or how to interpret the results.
Correct testing could prevent a non-deficient person from needlessly taking supplements, or having injections, for the rest of their life. I am also concerned that treating for B12 deficiency, without first testing for folate deficiency, is risky.
Where a patient cannot get a doctor to test them first, or where results are unclear, I would agree that treatment should be commenced ASAP.
Also, as I said in a previous post, if someone has already started taking B12, they should not stop in the hope of getting back to their original condition and then do the tests. My current testing has shown that B12 levels can remain high while cellular deficiency commences. I intend to post details of my interim results in a few weeks.
I am very much in favour of "evidence-based" medicine. By this I mean scientific evidence of disease, and scientific evidence of effectiveness of treatment. This is possibly the result of my own personal experience, as well as my background in applied science and engineering. One look at my web site will tell you that I am into strict evidence gathering; scientific data analysis is my specialty.
We should be able to trust medical scientists to act in the best interests of the patients. Perhaps this is why I am so appalled by the betrayal of the patients by the pathologists in particular.
I am trying to fight the system so that doctors will no longer be fed the incorrect information by the pathologists and medical media.
Please post any comments or questions to this thread. If you wish to contact me for a private discussion, please Email me from Paul in the Contact page of my web site at
http://www.paulgolding.id.au/.
Paul