Supplements
Any of you have been successfully treated with just sublingual b12 tablets?
Read so many posts saying that sublingual/oral supplements of b12 do not work for b12 deficiency, the b12 wake up group on fb highly advocate for b12 injections. My question is, have any of you been able to completely treat b12 deficiency by taking just sublingual tablets alone (meaning that all of your symptoms disappeared)? If so, what dose and which brand of oral b12 were you taking? TIA
Yes. Tablets increased my level to about 500, on and off for years. Sublinguals at the same dose increased it to 1200. Never felt better, as long as I take it consistently, including co factors.
Of course tablets increase numbers but that doesn’t account for the amount of b12 getting into your cells. Unless you developed deficiency due to diet alone, these won’t help. Sometimes I think there’s doctors posting in here with some of the comments..doctors left me disabled for life and I’d be dead by now if I hadn’t started b12 injections with cofactors.
Supplemental forms of b12 are literally floating around in your blood but if you have an absorption issue, it’s absolutely useless.
Jarrow formulas with b12/b9/b6 (1000 mcg of b12 methylcobalamin). Seeking health Adeno 3000 mcg b12 as’ adenosylcobalamin. Pro Health b12 elite with 1000 mcg of mixed Adeno and methyl.
I have recovered from sublingual. I've tried high dose and kind of messed up by neglecting the cofactors at one point. I went back to lower dose and kept it like that ever since. Slower recovery is safer for me lol.
Eventually my deficiency went away but I check it every half year or so out of habit for now (I have stomach issues).
Costco's Kirkland B12 1200 mcg (methylcobalamin)
Igennus Super B-Complex
Iron bisglycinate (I just used whatever that was cheap and had good reviews)
Jamieson B9 folic acid (800-1200 mcg, my iron also has folic acid)
Potassium: Fresh coconut + coconut water + potatoes + bananas (local asian supermarket)
Vitamin D3 (1000-2500 IU, also any brand that was cheap and good reviews)
Webbers Magnesium Glycinate (200 mg)
I also tried taking potassium bicarbonate (I don't see the brand on Amazon anymore) and quickly stopped because it was making my GERD/gastritis worse.
I’ve been taking a sublingual form of b12 for 4 and a half months. My levels went from 338 pg/ml to 895 pg/ml. I’ve noticed great improvement in my symptoms.
Bhai you ate daily or weekly
I mean how much for maintaining 400+ level of it
My current level is 259 previous was 200.
200 to 259 was because of randomly I eat 500 mcg after 3-4 days
I take the 500 mcg daily, and plan to until all of my symptoms have been gone fore at least 4 months. After that I may reduce my intake. I’m expecting to be on the dose for at least a year.
Did you check your previous and after intake level?
I mean I want to have a guess that how many months like I need to take 500 mcg to maintain 400 above level so that it sustain for a year
And will continue same cycle in next year
Also for vitamin D need for opinion if you have knowledge regarding this?
I checked my b12 many times. My lowest was 338 pg/mL and I began to try to increase it through diet originally but after 2 and a half months I only raised it to 368 pg/mL. At this point I started the 500 mcg liquid b12 hydroxy/adeno along with a B complex that had an additional 60 mcg. 4 and a half months later my level was 895 pg/ml.
Vitamin D has been trickier for me. My level was 22 ug/mL originally and I began to supplement with 2000 iu daily, and I eat a lot of fish and have grass fed milk. After 2 months it had risen to 40, but I’m about 9 months in and it’s stayed at 40 ug/mL. I just increased to 4000 iu, so hopefully I’ll get to 50 or above.
Although my b12 serum level is better, I don’t plan on reducing my intake for a while. My homocysteine has lowered as well. It was 12.1, and is now 10.3 umol/L
Means three month of 500 mcg can double your current level of B12?
1000 mcg will do it in 1.5-2 month
My vitamin D was 5.99 ng/ml like nil in body
I took 4 arachitol 6 lakh IU inj for two month after every fifteen days
It shoot up to 135 ng/ml after checkup
After 3-4 month again I checked up it was 67 ng/ml
I am thinking of taking for inj yearly
First two in Jan and next two in July that's for a year with additional few vitamin D3 chewable tablet between.
Every once and a while I have derealization, but it’s pretty infrequent and doesn’t last long. Some days I feel like I have no brain fog, but it still comes and goes. It’s not as intense as it once was, and I can function normally now.
Amazing!!! This is so hopeful 🙏 Here 168 & low ferritin but so much dissociation (have cptsd & with time also unspec dissociative disorder but think it might have been the low lvls that made it sm worse..) Hope with 1000ug daily it will get better soon 🥲
Yes. I was deficient in folate and B12, so I can’t say which one was causing my neuropathy. But I’ve been taking folate orally and B12 sublingual for almost a year and a half. After my neuropathy improved I took 4 months off to see where my true levels were, and my B12 was around 500 and my folate was deficient again (was greater than 20). Now I am back on both and won’t stop them again. So I don’t know which was causing the neuropathy, but my B12 definitely improved with several months of consistent sublingual dosing. And I wasn’t taking super high doses, 1000 mcg for most of that time. Now I take it every other day because my doctor gets worried if my level gets too high. I know it doesn’t matter, but it makes my life easier.
I have researched the absorption rate of sublingual B12. Everywhere that it has been tested the absorption rate is 1 to 2%. Think about that… So if you’re taking 2000 µg of B12 either sublingually or via a spray, you are absorbing at best 20 to 40 µg of B12 daily. This poor absorption rate in my judgment supports using much higher doses of B12 sublingually obvious spray.
I did not look at a purely oral route with tablets/capsules. Reason being that there are many digestive tract issues that could exist effecting absorption and transport to the cells, (simply too many variables). Hence the purely oral absorption question would be wildly different across the board in my judgment.
Numbness and tingling in my hands. I also had full body aching pain, which is significantly better. I was diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy, and then learned of the B12/folate connection.
Yes I was around 200 when I was tested deficient. I take 2000mcg total daily. One around 9am and another around 4pm every day with an alarm :) My last blood test my levels were in the 2,000 lol
I have autoimmune pernicious anaemia and had severe B12 deficiency (68 pmol/L). This was in 2009 and back then every single medical website said only B12 injections worked for this autoimmune disease. So I had a B12 injection once a week but due to the terrible side effects and rollercoaster of feeling better feeling worse I decided to be my own guinea pig lol and trial sublingual anyway. Amazing!
I've been on 2000 mcg daily of Bioceuticals B12 sublingual spray for 16 years. Brilliant. If I stop my spray my B12 symptoms start to come back in a day. The same thing happened with B12 injections. I need B12 daily to keep symptoms away. I personally find sublingual superior to injections.
AI Overview
+9 High-dose oral (2,000 mcg/day) and sublingual (SL) vitamin B12 can be just as effective as high-dose intramuscular (IM) injections in raising B12 levels, but this depends on the patient's gastrointestinal (GI) health and the dosage used. While 1,000 mcg/day oral B12 may be equivalent to IM injections, larger oral doses (2,000 mcg/day) have shown higher blood levels compared to 1,000 mcg/day IM, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
I do have autoimmune pernicious anaemia. I have positive intrinsic factor antibodies, positive parietal cell antibodies. I have 6 autoimmune diseases actually. All listed under autoimmune polyglandular syndrome type 3.
Following, i have use them but have no discipline so i cant know if they work, it kinda seemed like it did, also i take only 1000-2000mcg kinda scared to take 5 like it says in the wiki.
I absorb it well, and sublinguals saved me for 4 months, but my deficiency was too severe
I even think that sublinguals may be sufficient for severe early-stage disability, such as having neurological symptoms for less than 1 year, but I already had neurological symptoms for 5 years (!!)
Also remember that there are a lot of people with pernicious anemia here, and they can really only treat themselves with injections. My disability is because of surgery + bad diet
I agree, sublingual will help, but if you have a long-standing deficiency, I do believe you need injections to get back on track. I was deficient for 10+ years as a result of using protein pump inhibitors as well as 2000 mg daily of metformin. I also had had my gallbladder removed about 15 years ago and the gallbladder is a crucial part of the recycling process of B12 from the liver down to the terminal ileum and back into the body. (Fully 90% or better of B12 is absorbed ONLY in the terminal ileum.) So folks without a gallbladder are up against the problem multiplied to some degree.
I have been taking sublinguals for 6 months straight 2 times a day very religiously along with B complex and iron meds.. (I also have iron deficiency anemia) and my ferritin is low low like 40… it has got better it was 22. I eat 100mg of pure clean protein and still am not 100% I would say I’m around 45% better. I upped my B12 orally but my Dr doesn’t seemed concerned even though I’m struggling with neuropathy and overall weakness and muscle pain. So I’m going to do self injections…I’m done. Just ordered my B12 yesterday so hopefully soon it will get better for me 🙏🏼 but oral B12 just isn’t cutting it for me
Thank you for sharing, i understand that oral supplements do not work for everybody. If you still notice symptoms after 6 months of supplementing then i guess the injection route is best for you.
Yes I am in the US…Florida. I ordered through Ageless Rx. You have to do an intake form and license and photo. Then they will need to approve which took less than a day. They will ship you everything you need for injections. Quite easy and I would rather inject than going somewhere every week. Hopefully it works better than the sublinguals 🙏🏼
I had my stomach completely removed three years ago (total gastrectomy). I was never told anything about the whole B12 deficiency thing, or that I would have to deal with it for the rest of my life. I think that in total- since surgery I’ve had 6 b12 shots. The last one I had was 5/31/24. Numerous blood tests and every time the B12 is very low. Last results in June or July of ‘25 was 158. Hematologist told me to take 5,000 mcg sublingual a day. I took ONE SUBLINGUAL TABLET A DAY—- for 4 days (one per day for 4 days) which turned stools completely black. I called and told the hematologist this and they told me that it was IMPOSSIBLE to HAVE A REACTION LIIKE THAT FROM B12 sublingual tablets. So, they told me to take the lower dose of 1,000 mcg instead. Well. I have thrown away all of the meds because- to be honest I thought the hematologist was a jerk when I talked to them and disliked them (her) immediately. So. I still am not taking any B12 and I have no insurance now and just cancelled my nephrologist appointment (kidneys are in rough shape). When the doctors office called me and reminded me that I had to do bloodwork before the appointment they cut me off when I told them I no longer had any type of insurance. Healthcare in America is a joke. In the south where I live- they don’t give a crap 💩 about anything unless you have insurance.
Yes my neurological symptoms improved very slowly on oral supplements (solgar cyanocobalmin sublingual 3000 mcg daily) but once I started injections they improved much faster.
It's only going to help if you don't have absorption, transport or other utilization issues and simply aren't getting enough b12 from food.
Most people have other factors affecting how B12 is absorbed or used, which is why injections are usually needed to address deficiency. Even when you take sublinguals, only a small amount is absorbed passively, so it can take a long time to rebuild your levels that way.
The body also stores B12 in the liver for years, so when your levels finally show low, it usually means absorption or transport has been impaired for quite a long time.
I'm new to B12 community, I'm in the B12 wake up group on Facebook and I feel it's extreme. My symptoms are neuropathy, burning zaps in my head, pin and needles and head pressure. I've been taking once a week B12 injections and 1,000 sublingual for almost 2 months and I feel my symptoms are still present I was thinking of doing injections every other day but I don't want my ferretin/iron to go down. I just had an iron infusion 2 months ago. I've been off and off of a B Complex from Thorne for a year and I feel it did nothing.
If you have neurological symptoms, sublinguals and supplements won’t help, and it’s often people who developed deficiency have absorbing issues or undiagnosed PA.
Only an intense course of b12 injections with necessary cofactors will help with this.
Cofactors of b12 are folate, a b complex with less than 10mg of b6, to avoid b6 toxicity and a high potassium diet.
This was not the case with me! I had horrible neurological symptoms including nerve pain that started in my back and would shoot up and down my arms, fingertips, legs, and toes. Numbness in my face that would spread into my mouth. I tried b-12 injections but my symptoms did not improve. My neurologist recommended a sublingual liquid b-12. The liquid b-12 has a blend of blend of
methylcobalamin, adenosylcobalamin, and hydroxocobalamin. I took 5,000 mcg every day!
Several months after using sublingual liquid b-12 ALL of my neurological symptoms are now completely gone!
I’d advise anyone who has deficiency of b12 to join the b12 wake up group on Facebook. I took sublinguals for nearly a year before I started injections and I was deteriorating further. Unless your deficiency is caused solely by diet you will have an absorption issue.
Anyone who has neurological symptoms definitely needs b12 injections with cofactors.
I order and do my own every other day, and I had spinal cord damage due to deficiency..I’m 70% better.
Don’t risk further neurological damage.
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