▷ Is Your B12 Low? Key Symptoms You Shouldn't Ignore!

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Discover key symptoms of low B12 levels and learn why you shouldn’t ignore them. Stay informed for better health and wellbeing.

Recognizing the Signs of Vitamin B12 Deficiency for Better Health

Vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to a variety of serious health issues, including symptoms like anemia, depression, neuropathy, cognitive impairment, fatigue, joint pain, and hair loss. Notable physical signs of this deficiency may include a magenta tongue, glossitis, and pancytopenia. Neurological symptoms might manifest as numbness, balance issues, and altered reflexes. This deficiency is particularly prevalent among older adults and can significantly impact overall health, including muscle strength and heart function.

Regular testing for Vitamin B12 levels is highly recommended, especially for individuals experiencing related symptoms. Unfortunately, some healthcare providers may be reluctant to conduct these tests due to insurance constraints. It is crucial for individuals to advocate for their health and seek necessary evaluations to ensure proper diagnosis and treatment. Various supplemental sources of Vitamin B12, such as Methylcobalamin and Hydroxycobalamin, can be beneficial for addressing these deficiencies and improving overall well-being.

Unlocking Vitality: Recognizing the Signs of a B12 Deficiency

Let’s talk about some of the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency these are some of the top ones listed here on my slide that that I see in my practice right so we see anemias we see depression and neuropathy and dementia people losing their ability to think clearly brain fog and the like we see a lot of joint pain and lethargy and this is this this is a.

Fatigue and lethargy really what what I would I would say when when vitamin B12 deficiency causes an anemia which we’ll talk more in depth about in just a moment one of the biggest side effects is that fatigue and lethargy but it’s especially true even if you’re sleeping well so after 8 hours of sleep or more you’re still tired you’re waking up.

Tired after having adequate sleep thank anemia that’s your thought now there are a number of different nutritional anemias there’s iron deficiency anemia there’s B12 and folate deficiency anemia there’s copper anemia B6 anemia vitamin C anemia vitamin E anemia but this is one of the most common ones and so if you’re feeling this way thank anemia and.

Ask your doctor to check your B12 ask your doctor to check your what’s called complete blood count your iron INF fertin levels and rule that out for you we also see hair loss and folks and and this is especially true of women more so than men a lot of hair loss with vitamin B12 deficiency and glossitis and glossitis is a swelling and redness or.

Rening of the tongue so if your tongue is a super bright magenta color uh when you when you stick it out look at your tongue in the mirror if it’s super Magenta in color consider vitamin B12 deficiency and potentially other B vitamins as a possibility now there’s a lot of research I I’ve kind of hand selected a.

Few things to share with you today um this is a a nice publication done here recently uh put out by the British medical journal and what they did is they looked at a lot of the data in medical literature and they tried to stratify uh the prevalence of the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency so what you can see here in this diagram is.

85% of patients with vitamin B12 deficiency had cognition problems mental health problems and neurological problems so look at these three broad categories that’s 85% of people with deficiency reported memory issues cognitive impairment Aphasia learning problems headaches and migraines they also reported mood swings irritability.

Insomnia depression anxiety some reported hallucinations and delusions we also see in the neurological aspect paresthesia which is numbness and tingling poor balance or loss of balance tentis attack Axia also loss of balance myelopathy spasticity a autonomic dysfunction and then over here you can see.

15% reported something called pancytopenia now this is not so much of a symptom as it is a clinical manifestation so what does that mean pancitopenia means that you frequently have low white blood cells low red blood cells and low platelets so if your blood Works coming back low on all three consistently and.

Nobody’s been able to tell you why and and you’ve been to the hematologist and there’s no you know like there’s no like answer think vitamin B12 deficiency it’s very common to see this this pattern I see it on a regular basis in my practice you also see something called M macrocytosis um we’ll talk more about that and hypers segmented nutrifil so.

Again these are more medical findings so your doctor if they’re finding these things if your doctor’s ever come back and said you have these things ask him to measure your vitamin B12 now you can also see here the bone marrow if you’ve got hyper plagia or megaloblastic features in your bone marrow again this is a doctor if you’re.

Being told this B12 should be being ruled out you should ask your doctor to rule out B12 so whereas these things are things you might feel on the top these are things that your doctors might find through investigation and if you’re being told these things think B12 and then over here you can see glossitis which we.

Mentioned a minute ago but then taste impairment if your if your taste buds are off uh or you can’t taste as well you might consider vitamin B12 as a potential possibility and then something called apost stomatitis which is cracks in the corners of your lips as a symptom so if your lips right here in the corners on both sides are cracking.

Aggressively that’s at the stomatitis then we have other complaints of abdominal issues poor appetite weight loss ladies infertility if you’re struggling uh to have children and then hyperpigmentation of the skin now I notice down here you see this little sign on these this is prevalence variable meaning it’s these these.

Reports were not as consistent as these other symptoms but again that’s a a generalized breakdown of a lot of reports in the literature here’s kind of part two to that you can see let’s blow this up for for you um brain function so brain fog memory problems cognitive impairment insomnia trouble going to sleep falling.

Asleep staying asleep headaches especially migraine headaches B12 is actually a migraine prophylactic if you look at some of these over-the-counter nutritional supplement formulas almost all of them contain vitamin B12 they also contain B2 uh and and something called fever F A lot of them will contain magnesium as.

Well it’s because these nutrients are migraine prophylactics um you’ll also with with B12 deficiency behavioral changes so this more specifically with your children if you’re seeing like abrupt changes in your child’s Behavior or learning problems you might consider vitamin B12 and this is especially true a lot of kids.

Um they they’ve grown up in a world where well honestly where real food is not always available and a lot of the garbage that they’re serving at the school um you the protein especially the protein sources are garbage and so these kids are being malnourished through the school lunch programs I’m hoping that’s.

Something that will change relatively soon but um and so they develop these B vitamin deficiencies particularly B12 in this case and you know then they start getting in trouble at school and they and they start having problems with learning and then Aphasia difficulty swallowing can also be a a problem a symptom and then we’ve got mood.

Dis dysfunction here so um irritability depression anxiety as I mentioned before hallucinations psychosis peripheral paresthesia so this is the pin and needles uh that you feel on the fingertips or the toes the numbness the neuropathic pains poor balance so then we get to reduced vibration sense or appropriate acception apprpriate.

Reception is is you lose balance because your joints the nerves inside of your joint points to tell your brain about your position start to malfunction um these things and and we also see deep tin reflex changes so just to show you this is a 128 Hertz fork and what what your doctor can do this is this is a lot of doctors should have.

This in their medical bag but if they hit that fork it’s going to vibrate or oscillate at 128 Hertz and so you you may not be able to hear this you know as I as I’ve hit it but this Fork is vibrating right now and I can feel it in my fingertips now when you vibrate this fork and put it on the toes of a patient one of the most common symptoms of.

Vitamin B12 deficiency is the second and third toes will not feel the vibration sensation from 128 Hertz this is this is a very early indicator that you might be vitamin B12 deficient because B12 is necessary to preserve the myin and in those distal toes like that we’ll see that’s where it’s disrupted first the.

Sensation start to go so it’s a real and this is this is something your doctor can do if your doctor knows how to do a neurological exam but but a vibrating Fork is something that every doctor should have in his medical bag as part of his physical exam ability so that’s vibration sensation that’s how we know vibration sense is lost and that’s how.

We can detect it in an early fashion and then ringing of the ear loss of balance taste impairment as I mentioned before so under constitutional we’ve got fatigue and as I mentioned earlier anemia plays a major role in that um there are a number of different types of anemia we’ll get more into that here in just a minute and then low red blood.

Cells low white blood cells low platelets we also see motor symptoms in the in the muscles we see muscle weakness um muscle weakness meaning you you don’t know why you’re losing strength but but you’re finding yourself weaker and weaker we see this a lot in the elderly where they lose their ability to get out of a chair it’s very.

Hard they have to push themselves up with their arms to help their legs because their leg muscles are becoming weaker and also altered reflexes now you’ve seen one of these maybe before this is a reflex Hammer you can hit different tendons with it usually they hit the knee if your doctor’s ever uh done one of these where he hit your knee.

With a hammer that’s a reflex Hammer but what we see when vitamin B12 deficiency starts to develop is that your your reflex in other words your leg doesn’t kick quite as much or quite as aggressively and sometimes not at all so this is an altered reflex a reduction in the reflex response and so there you have reflexes all over your body you.

Have them in your knee you have them in your bicep and in your tricep tendons you have reflexes at your Achilles tendon in your ankle so these are all areas your doctor can do an exam and perform and again if you suspect B12 deficiency and maybe your doctor won’t measure your levels maybe ask them to check your reflexes and ask them to get.

A tuning fork out and and and measure your vibration or your vibr Sensations because these are just simple kind of think of these as low Tech ways to detect that B12 deficiency um beyond that you can again down here spasticity of muscles so if you’re chronically having muscle spasms seizures and then even cardi myopathy so.

The heart muscle because remember your heart’s a muscle starts to deteriorate and break down and then we have autonomic symptoms as well and this could be incontinence either urinary or feal as well as postural hypotension so this is when you’re standing from a seated position a lot of times your blood pressure will drop you’ll get.

Dizzy this could be vitamin B12 deficiency we see this a lot in pots um and then erectile dysfunction guys if you’re struggling consider vitamin B12 as a potential possibility so lots of different symptoms here um I talked earlier a little bit about this so I’m just going to bring it back up here and that’s B12 deficiency might.

Be related to sarcopenia and older adults you see the highlights of this study um sarcopenia new geriatric syndrome which related to worse Health outcomes morbility morbidity and mortality micronutrients such as vitamin B12 may play a role in the pathogenesis of this vitamin B12 deficiency is common in older adults and should be checked.

Periodically key key takeaway here folks should be checked periodically you got to demand more from your doctor nutrition has been ignored for far too long it’s time to take it back it’s time to demand that doctors get on board because you’re paying for your insurance and so what you know a lot of this is you’re spending a lot of money for.

Insurance and the reason why you’re paying that is because you want your doctor you want your doctor to be able to treat and diagnose your situation and have a conversation with you and have insurance cover that bill but you really insurance is not covering that bill who’s covering that bill you are because you’re paying.

These big premiums into this program and so what’s actually happening now in today’s medical system is Doctors live in fear that if they run your B12 for example then the insurance company is going to flag him or her as aggressive or a bad doctor because they’re doing things outside of the typical standard of care and so the.

Doctor doesn’t want that to happen because then the insurance company quits sending that doctor patients so basically you’re paying all this money for your insurance company to tell your doctor not to do tests on you and to cut the bill and to shave the bill and to and to be less Diagnostic in the process so um demand because the only way we’re.

Going to change that system is demand it and call your insurance company and say you need to add these things to coverage um or or demand that your insurance company cover the things that your doctor deems medically necessary but don’t let him get away with it there’s plenty of evidence research based that um that cooperates what I’m saying here.

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