Treatment of Pernicious Anaemia
Taking B12 Pills Won't Work
In people with Pernicious Anaemia, the body produces antibodies in the stomach that prevents vitamin B12 being absorbed.
The treatment of Perncious Anaemia is by injection of Hydroxocobalamin (a form of vitamin B12) being injected into a muscle.
Doctors will prescribe the most appropriate treatment for the patient depending on the results of the blood tests. However, a typical treatment regime most GP's and consultants (in the UK) use for people on first being diagnosed is as follows:
- Three injections per week for 2 weeks
- One injection every 3 months for the rest of your life
Other (more frequent) regimes may be used in sufferers who have been diagnosed late and have neurological damage.
It's also very important to note that treatment regimes very significantly in different countries, and even in the UK, GPs and consultants use different treatment patterns, so your experiences may be different.
When will I begin to feel better
This depends on the individual. Many people begin to feel better almost immediately after the first injection and continue to make a complete recovery.
Others will feel better, think clearer, breathe easier but will never fully recover. Typically, this kind of sufferer will need more frequent injections than the standard 3 monthly regime.
It is crucial that you understand that you are going to be having regular injections for the rest of your life. If you stop having them, you will relapse and feel as bad as you did before, if not worse.
I feel I need more frequent injections but my Doctor refuses to allow this. Why?
This is a common complaint and one that has seen sufferers having a long hard battle to get doctors to prescribe more frequent injections of B12.
The reason is as follows. In the UK, doctors have been trained that, after the initial loading doses have been administered, three monthly injections are enough to allow a person to lead a normal life. For some this is ok, but other people 'use-up' their reserves of B12 faster than others.
Doctors often choose not to monitor a patient's B12 levels over a period of a few months in order to find out how much B12 a person retains and therefore requires. Where such on-going tests have been conducted there seems to be evidence that some people need more injections than others. Doctors in the U.S.A., Australia and continental Europe routinely prescribe monthly injections.
One of the aims of the Pernicious Anaemia Society is to raise awareness of the problem of frequency injections, and we hope to encourage doctors and researchers to re-think this matter.
More Information
For more detailed information on the treatment of Pernicious Anaemia, see this article.
