Imagine feeling that taking your own life is preferable to fighting your doctor for your right to this essential vitamin
Imagine being tested for B12 deficiency and even though the serum test shows you are deficient, your doctor denies treatment because she doesn’t believe that your mind can be affected
Imagine a newly qualified doctor telling you to eat more broccoli to build your supplies of B12
Imagine pleading for injections for your severely B12 deficient child only to be ignored, all this whilst the doctor calls social services to accuse you of starving your child
Imagine a helicopter police hunt for a desperately deficient OAP whose doctor thinks that three 50mcg oral cyanocobalamin B12 tablets per day will correct their severe deficiency
Imagine your child being given a diagnosis of autism only to find later that B12 deficiency was the correct diagnosis
Imagine being bed bound and unable to look after your children or yourself because your doctor thinks B12 is a placebo and will not allow B12 injections more frequently than every three months
Imagine studying hard for a career only to find your undiagnosed B12 deficiency makes it impossible to work or contribute to society in any way
Imagine being treated for cervical cancer when B12 deficiency caused your abnormal pap smears
Imagine becoming anorexic and being admitted to a mental health ward where the doctors involved in your care don’t understand that anorexia is a symptom of B12 deficiency
Imagine being diagnosed with post natal depression after enduring a long labour with B12 depleting ‘gas and air’ and only being treated with drugs instead of the vitamin your body has been starved of
Imagine being labelled as a lazy hypochondriac when you haven’t the energy to raise your head from your pillow because your doctor says a three monthly injection is adequate treatment
Imagine being one point above a B12 serum test’s lowest range, with screaming neurological symptoms and being denied treatment because a doctor says your level is ‘normal’
Imagine being unable to remember the names of your loved ones, how to cook, how to read music, how to drive your car
Imagine being tested and probed for other ‘more serious’ illnesses in your quest for a vitamin you know you need but medical professionals simply don’t
Imagine being fed a cocktail of antipsychotics, antidepressants, antiepileptics, lithium, and pain killers, when all you really need is a 55p B12 injection every other day until your myriad of symptoms stop improving
Imagine a night out partaking of some supposedly, harmless ‘hippy crack’ (nitrous oxide), and later finding that you can’t walk and that your doctor never puts 2 and 2 together
Imagine being misdiagnosed with MS due to your doctors ignorance of B12 deficiency
Imagine knowing that other countries allow their citizens to buy this essential injectable vitamin over the counter but in the UK it is restricted and rationed
Imagine being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, or dementia in your 20’s or 30’s when it’s simply vitamin B12 deficiency causing your appalling memory problems
Imagine having repeated miscarriages and rounds of unsuccessful IVF only to find that £10’s worth of vitamin B12 injections could have you on the road to natural conception
Imagine your healthy baby becoming floppy, unresponsive and failing to thrive but never finding that elusive doctor with a comprehensive knowledge of B12
Imagine your child being arrested when their anger and aggression is due to desperate under treatment for B12 deficiency
Imagine finally giving up after you have fought for help from your doctor, only to be continually ignored and told that your symptoms are all in your mind
Imagine knowing far more about B12 deficiency than your GP or any of the ’specialists’ your doctor has referred you to
Imagine an ignorant consultant calling Social Services to accuse you, a loving parent, of causing your child’s malnutrition when you have a family history of B12 deficiency
Imagine being mistakenly prescribed acid suppressants when your stomach acid is already too low to absorb B12 and then finding that eventually your legs fail you
Imagine being diagnosed with pernicious anaemia and knowing you will need treatment for life but having an ignorant doctor stop your injections when the serum B12 level is ‘within range’
Imagine having repeated cardiac arrests, prolonged stays in mental health units and when you finally work out that you are B12 deficient, being denied treatment
Imagine a life with this condition, when your family and friends don’t understand your many symptoms and who tell you ‘the doctor must know best’
Imagine finding a below range B12 result in your notes from years ago and realising that your confinement to a wheelchair and permanent neurological damage could have been avoided if only you’d been given B12 injections
Imagine just how devastated healthcare professionals feel when they realise the harm that may have been caused to patients because their training lacked vital information on B12 deficiency
Imagine the savings to the NHS if B12 deficiency if this ignorance were corrected
All the above has happened and sadly may continue to happen until something changes.
Imagine the good that will come from correct training for clinicians and therapists- please contact me for more information
Please consider signing and sharing my petition – you will be helping to save lives.
If my site and blog have helped you please see; How you can help.
Best wishes, Tracey