B12 and Plant Based Diet

ella23

Hi All,

I guess i'd better give a little history before i go on. Hope it is not too much to be reading.
I have never had a taste for animal products. I wouldn't drink milk from six weeks old (much to my poor parents concern). I never ate meat to my knowledge as a child, except weirdly to suck marrow out of my fathers T-Bone steaks.
This continued on most of my life. Wasn't too picky in what I ate, but i would not touch meat or dairy.

In 2006 I got diagnosed with a very serious B12 deficiency and had to get injection once a month for 8 years. Also it was strongly recommended by the doctor that I start eating meat. I listened and started eating it. It took a while to adjust as my body was repulsed by putting it in my mouth, remember this was a literal lifetime of avoidance. But now 11 years later I cannot in anyway say that meat is not part of my diet. My B12 is at normal levels again and i do not take injections any more. But other little things have shown up in the few years. My weight has gone up by about four stone (Doesn't help that i developed a nice penchant for chocolate and crisps), I developed arthritis in 2009, my cholesterol is high, where it never was before obviously) and any energy i ever had has sapped.

Now i feel a change is nigh. I need to go to meat and dairy free again. This time I want to go the whole hog and go completely plant based in my diet, hopefully this will reverse the damage done to my body over the last few years.

Has anyone ever had the B12 problems that I have and if so how did they keep to the plant based/vegan lifestyle without the B12 deficiency going pernicious?

Any suggestions would really help. Would it help to ask the doctor to start giving me the injection again to keep the levels from going haywire? They are a very high slow releasing dose that supplements cannot give. I just have a feeling that they will plummet again. Thanks in advance y'all.

jive

Just take a B12 supplement daily and get checked every few months to make sure your levels are in normal range? B12 levels won't drop rapidly and getting them from the supplement is essentially the same as getting them from animal products.

Tar.Aldarion

I take one of these every 4 or 5 days and my B12 is fine. https://www.iherb.com/pr/solgar-vitamin-b12-1000-mcg-250-nuggets/8641
That's a few years worth for less than 20 euro.

Also recently a lot more products would have b12 in them, non-dairy milks, butters, and a spoon of nutritional yeast is the daily allowance too (and also delicious).

Breezer

ella23 wrote: »

Has anyone ever had the B12 problems that I have and if so how did they keep to the plant based/vegan lifestyle without the B12 deficiency going pernicious?

Small point of information: pernicious anaemia doesn't mean "really bad anaemia", it's a condition where you can't absorb B12 from the diet due to the presence of an antibody. So B12 deficiency anaemia is either pernicious or not, it doesn't "go pernicious."

Any suggestions would really help. Would it help to ask the doctor to start giving me the injection again to keep the levels from going haywire? They are a very high slow releasing dose that supplements cannot give. I just have a feeling that they will plummet again. Thanks in advance y'all.

The injection is usually unnecessary unless you have pernicious anaemia, or very low B12 levels. Most people are fine with an oral supplement. There is the odd exception, where someone can't absorb B12 orally despite not having the antibody, but it's rare. In any case, B12 levels don't plummet, they fall gradually. Take the supplement, talk to your doctor about getting a blood test once a year or so and just keep an eye on the B12 level. If it's falling you could consider a higher dose of supplement or the injection.

Tilikum

How often should we be taking B12 tablet? Everyday? 3 times a week? Or does it depend entirely on the person?

Worztron

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I take one of these every 4 or 5 days and my B12 is fine. https://www.iherb.com/pr/solgar-vitamin-b12-1000-mcg-250-nuggets/8641
That's a few years worth for less than 20 euro.

Also recently a lot more products would have b12 in them, non-dairy milks, butters, and a spoon of nutritional yeast is the daily allowance too (and also delicious).

Hi TA.

Do you only buy supplements from iherb.com or do you also go to other veg sites?

spectre

How do you get your B12 levels checked?

Tar.Aldarion

Worztron wrote: »

Hi TA.

Do you only buy supplements from iherb.com or do you also go to other veg sites?

I also use vegetology and amazon

spectre wrote: »

How do you get your B12 levels checked?

When i get a blood test (every year or so) I ask them to measure it too.

Worztron

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I also use vegetology and amazon

...

+1 Vegetology

Breezer

Tilikum wrote: »

How often should we be taking B12 tablet? Everyday? 3 times a week? Or does it depend entirely on the person?

2.5mcg daily approx. People who are deficient need much more.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/vitamin-b12/dosing/hrb-20060243

JTMan

Do you guys take any tablets in addition to B12?

What do you think of general vegan tablets like these?

Thanks.

Tar.Aldarion

I take vitamin D (70% of europe is deficient), omega 3 and iodine. I'd say figure out what you don't get in your diet using myfitnesspal or get a blood test and see if anything is wrong!

Worztron

I take vitamin D3, the vegan society supplement, and omega3 (omega 3 can also be got from food sources).

s7ryf3925pivug

DHA and ALA are both omega 3s. DHA is much better. Plant based diets are generally not high in DHA, which is why it's a good idea to supplement, even though you can get a lot of ALA without doing so. Algae oil is the good only source of vegetable DHA I know of. It's not that common in shops and often sold at a premium, but you can get it at reasonable prices online.

ella23

Breezer wrote: »

Small point of information: pernicious anaemia doesn't mean "really bad anaemia", it's a condition where you can't absorb B12 from the diet due to the presence of an antibody. So B12 deficiency anaemia is either pernicious or not, it doesn't "go pernicious."

The injection is usually unnecessary unless you have pernicious anaemia, or very low B12 levels. Most people are fine with an oral supplement. There is the odd exception, where someone can't absorb B12 orally despite not having the antibody, but it's rare. In any case, B12 levels don't plummet, they fall gradually. Take the supplement, talk to your doctor about getting a blood test once a year or so and just keep an eye on the B12 level. If it's falling you could consider a higher dose of supplement or the injection.

I know that! I've had pernicious Anaemia since 2006. I have been taking the injections since 2006. I was taking the injections until last year (the first time that the doctor found my levels adequate to go off of them) And yes, they do plummet. I don't know if you have it or if anyone you know has it. But there was a time when I knew when injection would be due from sheer exhaustion and general malaise at the end of the month.

I get a blood test once a month. Levels are still good according to the doctor. It is more I need to keep the blood tests going. So, i don't know... as the specialist said to me, there are times of respite with this condition. My wording was probably off in the original post, so apologies. Initially when i was diagnosed my blood count was very low, had to get the injections once every three days, then once a week, then once every two weeks, finally once a month. It took nearly ten years to get my bloods to a normal level and they have seemed to stayed at that level.

My original question was of my worry that it would get to the level where my body would get to a level where i was very ill again. And i wanted to check here if anybody was in the same situation. I didn't want to say it was pernicious anaemia as few people of my age have/had it, but plenty of people have a deficiency. I know it is not curable, but at the moment I am obviously maintaining it. So apologies if i worded myself wrong initially.

Thanks for the replies. I think i will just talk to the doctor, explain my situation with the meat and go from there.

ella23

spectre wrote: »

How do you get your B12 levels checked?

When you are doing your regular blood test once a year or if you happen to be at the doctors, ask them to check your B12 as part of your blood count and they will do it for you no bother.