Many of you who know me well, know that I've been a vegetarian for about the past year and a half. I made the choice mainly based on how I was feeling during this time in my life where I was making significant changes to my diet. I noticed that whenever I ate meat, I felt a "heavy" feeling in my stomach and sometimes stomach pain/discomfort. So I just decided not to eat meat. I felt much better (well, I still do) when I didn't consume meat. I also started reading a really cool book (The Kind Diet) and found a lot of information I wasn't aware of (basically, where some of our food comes from...eeek!), so that also helped me make my decision to become a vegetarian.
So, fast forward to this summer. Around the end of June, I was in class one morning and noticed my neck and upper back were super sore (more so than normal). Towards the end of the day, I was in a lot of pain and then my arms, hands and fingers started going numb and felt really tingly. Yikes, that was not a good feeling. I called the clinic on my campus and made an appointment with an intern. A few days and a few x-rays later, we determined that anatomically, everything was looking okay. That was a big relief. I mean honestly, I was really worried since my arms were going all tingly and weird on me. After reviewing a few other things in my file, my intern (Jenny) decided it would be beneficial to do some lab work. We talked about my diet and supplements that I take, and decided it would be important to check my vitamin B12 level. Jenny thought this was important to do because I had a few symptoms that were indicative of a B12 deficiency. I had my level checked about 2 years prior, which happened to be a little on the low side then, so I started taking a B12 supplement and I continued to do so, especially since I was a vegetarian (you basically can only get B12 from animal products). I told my intern I would be surprised if it was low, especially since I was taking a daily supplement. Well, we got the results back and they were REALLY low. My levels had dropped about 200 points since I had become a vegetarian. I did a 7-day diet diary and we determined that my diet, along with supplementation, should have been giving me the adequate amount of B12 (with my diet, I was still consuming cheese and yogurt, which does contain B12). So we did some additional lab work to try and determine why my body was not absorbing the B12. One major concern we wanted to rule out was pernicious anemia. Pernicious anemia is an autoimmune disease where your body produces antibodies that attack these cells in your stomach that help absorb the B12. My antibody levels for this came back elevated...high enough to cause concern, but not abnormally high.
To make a long story short, I'm taking a different form of the B12 supplement (the one I was on before had to be converted in my body before it could be absorbed, so for some reason my body was not converting it, or just simply not absorbing it) so hopefully this new form, which is immediately absorbed (no converting!) will help raise my B12 level. I also started to eat meat again, which has actually been okay. I don't eat it everyday and I when I do it's usually fish, sometimes chicken or pork. I'm starting to feel better, i.e. no more tingly arms! I'll have more lab work done in a few months to see if the new supplement and changes to my diet are helping increase my B12 level. I'm happy and relieved that I found someone in the clinic to help me figure out what in the world was going on, and I'm glad that my intern didn't just stop at my back/neck pain. A B12 deficiency left untreated can cause many problems and unfortunately if treated too late, the damage is irreversible.
If anyone has more questions about a B12 deficiency, just let me know. I have information for days and I didn't want to make this blog post any longer than it already is. I included links in the body above, so hopefully that can help with any questions as well.
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