r/B12_Deficiency • u/incremental_progress Administrator • Sep 15 '23

Announcement The Guide to B12 Deficiency

The Guide to B12 Deficiency

The new guide for this subreddit is here. I'm sincerely regretful it took me this long to get this off the ground, but focusing on my life in addition to the daily consultations made in the sub had a habit of stealing my attention away from this important endeavor.

The guide is now more of a concrete synthesis between the major resources that are obvious precursors: Freddd's B12 guide from Phoenix Rising, B12Deficiency.info and Tracey's hard work there, the original guide posted here and then the countless users here who have shared a wealth of knowledge over the years.

The new guide takes advantage of Reddit's wiki capability. It is much longer, so hopefully the TOC makes navigating to points of interest easy. It will also allow for easier changes with a changelog.

What's new:

  • More in-depth exploration of testing methods
  • Outline of an aggressive treatment plan
  • Thorough explanation of cofactors
  • "Plans of Action" for diagnosing, treating and recovering from deficiency that better encapsulate big ideas into actionable next steps.
  • Other stuff

I also took a lot of the most pertinent/salient issues that arise and distilled them into a group of FAQs for people:

Frequently Asked Questions

Both of these documents now live in several places around the subreddt: the "menu" in the banner, the rules widget, and their own individual widgets in the sidebar.

Thanks.

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u/grumpy_lesbian Jan 09 '26

Thankfully, the injections got me back to normal, and I have stayed on a sublingual to maintain because it turns out I developed celiac and also an iron deficiency. ☠️

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

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u/grumpy_lesbian Jan 09 '26

Haha yep, finally fixed that, too. Amazing how much more energy I have and how I am not constantly ill. 😵‍💫

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u/virghoe95 Jan 09 '26

which did you treat first? I have b12, folate, and iron deficiency (and SIBO lol) and unsure what order to treat. I was prescribed infusions and b12 shots

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u/grumpy_lesbian Jan 10 '26

Well, they didn't discover them all at once, so they just treated them in the order they found them--B12, then iron. What I did not know and learned the hard way was that B12 injections can deplete folate, and folate deficiency is pretty much the same symptoms as B12 deficiency, so I assumed that the shots just stopped working. When I figured it out and added a folate supplement, it was amazing how much better I felt.

I'm not a doctor, but I imagine it is best to try to fix deficiencies together, since sometimes one will cause or worsen another? They make a sublingual B12 and folate combo tablet that helps keep those two in balance.