How a Vitamin B12 Deficiency Affected Me.

 A couple of months ago I was doing some gentle gardening which involved twisting my body moving things from one side to another. All of a sudden I keeled over sideways badly spraining my ankle. Then a few weeks later I was putting some camping chairs into the boot of my car, closed the boot and stepped onto the pavement and found myself hurtling across the path landing face first in a very prickly hedge, grazing my elbows and knees and hurting my back as I rolled away from the spiky hedge.

I couldn't move and had to use "Hey Siri" in the hope my phone would hear me and call my frienc - it did thankfully and once she'd stopped laughing she helped me clean up my scraped up face. She blamed the glass of wine I'd drunk while sitting in the chair but I knew there was something more.

Had I reached the age where instead of falling over I was "having a fall."?

Next time I saw my GP I mentioned the falls and the fact one foot had gone numb and she peered at my last blood tests and noted my B12 was low. She re-did the tests and lo and behold it turns out the lack of B12 could well be responsible for my falls and the sensation I have of being on a boat. Which I mentioned a lot while on a boat while everyone else assured me the boat was not rocking.

B12 deficiency can cause a host of issues including brain fog and exhaustion but to be honest I always put these symptoms down to fibromyalgia. I've just started a "loading" course of B12 injections every other day for two weeks to be followed by regular top up injections for life and I'm excited to see if I might actually feel a bit better!

There's a family history of pernicious anaemia which is a wonderful Olde Tyme sounding disease so I'm currently waiting for the results of a test for that although I'm told it's not a very reliable test and false negatives are common- 50% of the time!

People who should be particualry aware of the potential for B12 deficiency are those who follow a plant-based diet, anyone with a family history and people on Metformin.

You can read more about B12 deficiency, symptoms and treatment options via the NHS website.