Hello everyone, I am a 42 year old male from Scotland. I have joined the forum for some advice or information relating to my problems.

I woke up one Sunday mi August and my left foot was numb. It wasn't the complete foot, just the left side up to my ankle. My left hand and arm was also tingly and even just hold my mobile phone would result in pins and needles developing fairly quickly. After 3 days of this I made a appointment with my Dr who examined me and were happy that there wasn't anything physical damage causing this and took blood.

The results came back and my B12 was low at 164 so they started me on injections, I had the last of 6 around 2-3 weeks ago. My symptoms haven't improved and more symptoms developed, body shivers, pins and needs in my other extremities, blurry vision the list goes on. 2 weeks ago my leg and arm muscles started twitching and now constantly twitch day and night, the twitches are not painful in any way just very annoying and distracting. I have also noticed that my lower leg muscles have become very weak and I experienced strange sensations in them whilst walking, this has only occurred a few times over the last week.

As my symptoms haven't improved and I wasn't due to go back to the Doctors until November when my B12 levels were to be checked I called the Doctor as I had read the BCSH guidelines for treating low B12 which stated that a patient with neurological symptoms should receive injections alternative days until no further improvement so when I pointed this out my doctor he stated that it is very rare to experience neurological symptoms before becoming anaemic and that I wasn't anaemic. He went on to say that he feels the low B12 was a red herring and asked me to come in to see them. They have taken more blood and he is referring me to the hospital to see a neurologist however I said to him again that I feel it is my low B12 causing the symptoms but he disagrees and stated the 6 injections were more than enough to increase my levels, he also stated that my levels would be checked through a different lab also.

So that was last week and I am still experiencing all the original symptoms and a further numbness type sensation has developed on my forehead, I am not actually sure if it is a numb feeling its a strange sensation, a tightness type feeling with some tingling.

Anyway, hopefully I have been able to describe my symptoms to give you a good understanding of what I am experiencing and greatly appreciate if anyone can give me some advice.

Oh, I should add that I have struggled with depression and anxiety and take currently take Amitriptyline. I also take Allopurinol to keep my uric acid levels low as I have suffered from gout. I have lost weight recently and I current weigh around 11 stone 9lbs. I have had IBS type symptoms and last year after stomach pain an ultrasound scan was done which showed a enlarged bile duct believed caused by a gallstone however there wasn't any stones there at the time.

If you are getting the synthetic cyanocobalamin form, and you are genetically one of those people who cannot activate it into its methyl form, you will not see any improvements from cyano injections.

This is a common mutation, and can be tested for... MTHFR polymorphisms. You can also get an MMA test which will show if the B12 in your injections is working. Low MMA results demonstrate good conversion.

Here is my B12 thread. It is pretty long:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread85103.html

You can get very good results with oral 5mg methylcobalamin (B12) daily taken on an empty stomach. Within 3 months you should show higher levels.

This link explains the medical issues:
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/0301/p979.html

And this link explains MTHFR failures:
http://mthfr.net/

Methylcobalamin is available online... iherb.com will ship to UK and other countries.

The drug you take has caused neuropathy in some patients...allopurinol. You might consider getting off this drug. It has a long list of other side effects too.

That is very interesting about allopurinol, thanks for the advice I will review all the information and mention it to the Dr.

You can Google "Allopurinol neuropathy" to find the papers that explain it.