Reddit mentions of Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses

So I'm not a doctor, and I don't want to advise you to jump to injecting before talking to someone. But B12 serum tests alone aren't the best diagnostic for every situation. It will show how much B12 is in the blood stream, but it cannot show how well it is being used by the body. So if you're supplementing, it will show there's a lot. And when someone is injecting, the test becomes pretty useless as a diagnostic tool because the person being tested will always show a maxed out testing range. That's why there's a few tests that you would need to do to see the full picture. There's a good book I read this summer. Could It Be B12: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses. It's easy to follow and understand. You could read an ebook version and make notes to ask your doctor about some other tests you might like to run.

I think the author, Sally M. Pacholok, also has some videos on youtube.

Edited to add: I forgot earlier, but if you want to follow the route most western docs prefer, you would need to go off b12 supplements for 4-6 weeks to go back to a “blank slate.” That would make a blood serum test its most helpful

>I'm very ignorant about diets and b12. The necessity of b vitamins is a new concept to me.

It is to most people.
-
It's rarely discussed, even among doctors -- who themselves (as with actually many things "medical" and "diet") generally speaking know diddly squat about it, beyond the fact that it's one of the official RDA "vitamins" and "Oh yeah, in this one class at bandcamp I mean back in med school -- I think it was 'Diet 101' or something like that -- they told us if someone is a vegan/vegetarian, they should probably be taking some kind of a daily B12 vitamin supplement thingee."

-
Also, you have to keep in mind that while problems with "anemia" (and "treating" it via diet by primarily eating significant amounts of liver in one form or another) goes back to the mid 1800's -- the actual identification of B12 (and "intrinsic factor") is a mid-20th century thing (the actual molecular identification of B12 not until 1956,with the quick "syntesized" crap happening shortly thereafter {and IMO a mistaken conclusion of "TADA problem solved"}); it's full impact & importance has arguably been under the radar in the meantime -- eclipsed by all of the Ancel Keys/Cholesterol nonsense.

Moreover, the OTHER issues I've discussed -- how the uptake is in inhibited by things like antacids, Zantac, Prilosec, etc -- well those are all even MORE recent (late, basically 1990's, last decade of 20th century) things... which upset the "problem solved" applecart (and likely reveal that it never really WAS "solved" with a little "pill" -- that may be sufficient to eliminate acute/fatal stages of anemia, but it doesn't fix all the rest -- again especially as MOST people's diets NOW are actually vastly different than they were circa 1960).

-
If you want to do more digging, I'd recommend reading "Could It Be B12?" -- which admittedly comes off as a bit "alarmist" & even "over the top" (at least --ironically enough -- to people like myself who have & always have had, proper B12 containing diets, and suffer from NONE of the stuff vegans & others do -- no GERD, no "acid reflux", no "chronic fatigue", nor depression/anxiety, etc)... but I suppose given the abysmal state of many people's mental & physical health (due to a major B12 deficiency; again those gastro meds {which some people eat like candy or a "daily vitamin"}), perhaps the "alarmism" is warranted.

---
>What I mean is someone who wants B12 has to already be aware of it and actively look for a for foods that contain it. Most people don't consume liver or bone marrow. I personally eat liver a lot and I find it delicious, I just hate the after taste.

Well, these days, I suppose you're probably right... there is so much ABSOLUTELY atrocious/abysmal "diet/nutrition" advice out there -- the WORST being the "vegan" crap, but the official mainstream "heart healthy" stuff ain't all that much better -- and so many people eating a completely SHIT convenience/snack/fast food diet (even if they're NOT ostensibly "vege/vegan").

-
BTW there's lots of convenient ways to eat liver -- liver pate, liverwurst, braunschweiger etc. -- and the same with other "organ" meats; many/arguably even most "traditional" sausages by the way used to (and some still do if made in "traditional"manner) have good amounts of those types of meats in them.

(As opposed to crap like "hot dogs" which are a sort of faux-food, frankenfood, highly/overly processed crap with no one is really sure WHAT fillers, or what's all been done during processing.)

-
And that's not including straight-forward prep cooking or baby beef liver, or chicken livers-- again several ways to make that VERY tasty (and yes, even eliminate the "aftertaste") -- chiefly doing a quick "boil" then frying with butter and/or bacon & onions...YUM!

-
ALSO -- assuming your "uptake" isn't FUBAR'd -- your body DOES "store up" B12; and once you have a sufficient store (ideally you should have been born with enough, but of course "vegan" mommy... well who knows) it actually takes quite a long time (years) of crappy diet (or again, uptake inhibiting meds) to deplete it to a hugely problematic state... so it's not like a "normal/good diet" person really needs to eat some "pound of liver" every day (or even every week), especially if they're regularly consuming OTHER meats, animal products (eggs, milk, cheese, etc)... and (yet again) NOT regularly "popping" one or more of those uptake inhibiting meds. As all of those other animal products DO contain sufficient "maintenance" B12.

---
>I never once believed humans should not eat meat...and when you look at vegans the smart ones give you a list of all the pills (vitamins and suppliments) one must take to compensate for the lack of nutrients that is only found in meat. So when I see that it's an automatic sign that they're full of shit and basing their diet not on reality but subjective morality.

-
Yeah, it really IS rather amazing to me -- shouldn't be, because I've seen enough people who do it -- how many people have a whole like "Skittle" dozen+ pill assortment (including "one a day" vitamins, plus prescriptions, various OTC stuff) that they ingest regularly, daily or even multiple times per day.(And then in addition to that, still OTHER stuff that they take -- too frequently IMO -- for various other problems).

-
And one would THINK that having a little "pile o pills" (meds, supplements, vitamins, whatever) like that would -- in and of itself -- be enough to ring the proverbial alarm bells for THEM as well; but I guess not.

-
I mean shit... probably 90% of the stuff in my medicine cabinet -- even basic/banal crap like Aspirin & Ibuprofen -- is waaaaay past the "Exp Date" (we're talking YEARS), because I so rarely have the need to take any of it.

-
LOL,I just looked, and -- just as one example -- yup there's a big old PINK bottle of "PeptoBismol" stuff... still "sealed"; but with "Exp Date 03/16" on the label. I'm sure there's nothing wrong with it... and now that I think about it, I'm also fairly sure I didn't even buy it for MY own use but rather for someone else.*

---
* Note: Occasionally I do "salvage ops" of troubled guys (post divorce or other problems) and let them crash/live here in the little back/guest bedroom for a few weeks/months to get back on their feet, get a job, get their own place, etc. Anyway, back in mid 2014, one such guy had, in addition to other things, just gotten out of gastro/lower-intestine surgery (long story, details not important), so I think the "Pepto" was bought as a "just in case" med for him. But apparently he never needed any of it.

https://www.amazon.com/Could-Be-B12-Epidemic-Misdiagnoses-ebook/dp/B00MERDLOE