Thanks everyone YOU ARE ALL LEGENDS!!

According to the medical criteria for B12 deficiency I did not have a diagnosed deficiency at 267 pmol/L (which is approx 361 pg/ml). However I do now agree - having read many articles, that supplementation at this level is warranted.

Brian - my mum had localised pain in two places before her diagnosis of B12 deficiency. One was a single toe which became troublesome as soon as she went to bed. She describes it: "like it was on fire with a thousand needles attacking it". It kept her awake and was quite distressing for her. The other place was one side of her head she had a patch of constant prickly, itchy, annoying sensations which were a problem during the day.

The funny thing though was her regular GP was away the one time she wanted to raise this problem, so she saw another GP who sent her off to a vascular surgeon to look at "this toe". The vascular surgeon said it would get worse in winter when it was cold because of the blood circulation being more sluggish in the cold months etc etc. Yet this was summertime and she was being driven mad with it. When her GP came back a few weeks later she mentioned to him that she had been seen by the vascular surgeon for the toe and her GP asked her to describe her symptoms. He straight away said that isn't a circulation problem that is Vit B12 deficiency and he did the test pronto!

It just goes to show how important that first doctor you see is, such as a GP. If they stuff up then a problem can become very protracted.

She has put this particular GP up on a pedestal ever since and continues to be most unimpressed with the other GP and the vascular surgeon.

Last week mum was at the doctors again for her B12 shot and she asked the doctor what her latest level was and he said it was 1,400 pmol/L (1,897 ng/ml). So is that the kind of level to aim for or is that too high!