Make sure you take the bioactive B12 and not the crappy version!

I just wanted to post.

Please be careful of what type of B12 you take.
I believe I was not getting enough B12, even though my blood tests said I was OK.

I had never taken B12 seriously, I thought because I was taking regular vitamins and B vitamins I would have been getting more than enough. But I was not. I had symptoms but my doctor did not pick up on them

I beleive I have an absorption problem though.And taking teh crappy typical vitamin B12 has made me quite sick.

I beleive that methylcobalamin (bioactive) is the good version and cobalamin is the crappy one. (Please correct me if I am wrong here)

For years now I have had terrible mouth ulcers, extremely bad ulcers, and I was getting very sick with the attacks of them. I was getting flu like symptoms, aches pains and exhaustion whenever i got them bad. It was horrible. it was like always having the flu with them.
It was getting worse and worse. At first it wasnt that bad but then the attacks of them got closer and closer and the terrible aches and pains were getting worse and worse. then it was like constant mouth ulcers. My tongue was white, sore throats, and throat ulcers. I felt like sh*t basically. MY doctor was pretty usless and has not taken me seriously. Like she did not beleive how sick I was feeling, or that I was feeling sick from a flu when i got the ulcers, not that the attacks of ulcers were making me sick.

I got blood tests; it said B12 was low normal. I started taking more B12 and Iron. (the usual pills from the health store) I also spent a small fortune on medical stuff to try and combat the ulcers. They got better a tiny amount, not much though.

Anyway

By accident I got some bioactive B12. And my mouth ulcers have cleared up INSTANTLY. The ulcer i had when i took the bioactive b12, did not turn into the usual crater. I got no white tongue, no flu symptoms. My body could handle it and heal it well.
I’ve not had mouth ulcers for two weeks now. This is a miracle for me!! I was feeling so sick and sore and my body was so painful its like a miracle.


Seriously. This bioactive B12 was like a magic pill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe that the crappy B12 in multivitamins is allowed. Obviously my body can't use it properly. But there is no warning!

Please make sure you get a decent B12 and don't end up like me with some symptoms that are not really listed as B12 deficiency (apparently a sore tongue and mouth are symptoms but I couldn't find anything about ulcers)
....and my GP certainly didn't think I had a deficiency! I can't think of any other explanation and it must be i was deficient and not absorbing the stuff from the regular vitamin pills.

I see my doctor next week, I wonder if she will beleive me. I have no real proof it was a definency, so she probably wont beleive me. Except for years , slowly getting worse, I am feeling terribly sick and getting masses of ulcers and then instantly cured after taking this better bioactive B12.

I'd heard that the sublingual tablets by Solgar were the best. Do you have a link for the ones you are talking out Clawsy?
Which brand were you taking before?

I have taken all sorts of brands of B vitamins in the past, from the health stores and chemist. One I am most recently taking is mega B 50, made by Quest, and it is vegan. I was also taking some B12 tablets from holland and barret and this is also vegan. Readint it, it is the crappy version of B12.

The one i took by accident is not vegan or even vegetarian i am ashamed to say, (i did not know this at the time as the label says free from eggs, milk, and a lot fo other stuff and i misread it and thought it was veggie but its not. I ordered it online :( ). So I ate dead corpse yuck, BUT if i have to choose between eating that, which i already paid for or getting sick I will eat it. (OK i know it is disgusting but I prefer that to getting sick while I wait for the vegan replacement)

The one i have ordered and waiting for is vegan (apparently if I havent misread labels) and is called Enzymatic Therapy Bioactive B12. I ordered from Revital, though i am still waiting for it to arrive and its taking ages to turn up.

my local health food shop does not have a bioactive version, so i had to order online. They were not helpful.

I will try the solgar ones. I really had no idea there were good and bad versions of B12.

I cant beleive my doctor did not know about it. Geesh I couldve gotten terribly ill and they wouldnt have known why. I bet she doesn't even take me seriously.

OK what I have ordered is Vitamin B12 (as methylcobalamin); 1000 mcg
It says it is free from anything of animal origin.

The Solga stuff on their website seems not as good it is the crappy version of B12 , the same as in regular vitamins. "Cobalamin"

If I am wrong someone please butt in.


Also if you order from rivital, you dont get told if there is an error with the order process. I jsut found out my order from the 1st has not gone through even though I got an email saying ti had. (grrrr).

I'm not very clued up on the B12 issue but there was a period when I was suffering so much from the mouth ulcers you describe Clawsy - I'd have twenty or thirty in my mouth at a time, I could barely speak or eat. And my doctor would just shrug, tell me to take vitamins and that it would all clear up in ten days. Ten days of THIS? I do wish doctors would take mouth ulcers seriously; anyway glad you got to the bottom of the problem!

methylcobalamin is the good one. cobalamin is the crappy one. I was taking regular amounts of cobalamin, its whats in usual b vitamins i beleive.

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ClawsyWP

methylcobalamin is the good one. cobalamin is the crappy one.

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I didn't know there were different types. :dizzy: I thought it was all about absorption which is why the sublingual ones were best (cos you dissolve them under your tongue).
Anyway these are the ones people were being pointed towards by various vegan articles on B12 :- http://www.solgar.co.uk/modules/catb...ts100E3229.htm

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I beleive that methylcobalamin (bioactive) is the good version and cobalamin is the crappy one. (Please correct me if I am wrong here)

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If you're not sure, maybe you should consider another title for your thread? ;)

There's in ongoing discussion about the difference between methylcobalamin and cyanocobalamin (check our other thread about methylcobalamin)...

It's not a black-and-white situation, cyanocobalamin is eg. considered to be more stable.

I did a forum search for this and it is mentioned on many threads.

Korn has posted extensively here about B12. You should do a search but this article might be of particular interest clawsy.
http://veganforum.com/forums/showthr...ethylcobalamin

i'm still slightly confused about the B12 issue but i can say that i used to get terrible mouth ulcers which went away when i went vegan, i don't think i've had one in five years. i don't know if this is anything to do with vitamins but i do now take a multivitamin which includes B12 (i think cyanocobalamin) when i feel like it.

Yes I feel a bit overwhelmed with the amount of high brow debate about it so I tend not to read those threads. I've now ordered some of these Methylcobalamin type tablets and will give them a try.

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Marrers

Yes I feel a bit overwhelmed with the amount of high brow debate about it so I tend not to read those threads.

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I'm still planning to make a short 'if-you-only-want-to-read-one-B12-post-read-this-one' thread.... I'll definitely do it, because if people only read some random posts, misunderstanding can easily happen. Regarding which type of B12 pills that are good or 'crappy', maybe The Vegan Society has an answer about why they don't use the 'non-crappy' one in their multivitamin... (they use Cyanocobalamin, not Methylcobalamin - like most others).

Re 'bioactive'... it seems that 'Enzymatic Therapy Bioactive B12' doesn't have bioactive in it's name anymore. 'Bioactive' simply means that it is biologically effect/has an effect (or 'eliciting a response') on living tissue.

One reason that' bioactive' pill could work better than other supplements is that there's a lot of B12 in it (1000 mcg), while the maximum allowed amount of B12 in some countries is 9 mcg. (Veg-1 has 10mcg - only 1 mcg more than what's allowed here.)


If you're deficient in a nutrient, you may need a much-higher-than-normal amount of that nutrient to get back to your normal levels soon, meaning that a standard supplement (with a normal amount of that nutrient, and not a therapeutic dose) wouldn't cause much immediate change at all.

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Korn

I'm still planning to make a short 'if-you-only-want-to-read-one-B12-post-read-this-one' thread.... I'll definitely do it, because if people only read some random posts, misunderstanding can easily happen.

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That would be great for someone like me Korn. :)

yes, i would really love a short and concise answer and a recommendation of a good sublingual B12 supplement.

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Korn

One reason that' bioactive' pill could work better than other supplements is that there's a lot of B12 in it (1000 mcg), while the maximum allowed amount of B12 in some countries is 9 mcg. (Veg-1 has 10mcg - only 1 mcg more than what's allowed here.)


If you're deficient in a nutrient, you may need a much-higher-than-normal amount of that nutrient to get back to your normal levels soon, meaning that a standard supplement (with a normal amount of that nutrient, and not a therapeutic dose) wouldn't cause much immediate change at all.

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Edit I found the measurements.

If this thread is confusing or full of silly ideas Korn, please feel free to rename it or delete it..I honestly dont mind. I jsut wanted to warn people but maybe I am wrong!Perhaps it is about the dosage level and not the type of B12. Though why on earth was I not getting enough B12 over the years when I have been taking regular B vitamins? Maybe I dont absorb it properly?

The not very effective, original B12 pills i have been taking have 25uGor mcg (2,500% RDA). Plus towards the end I was taking a couple of B vitamin tablets a day also. the B12 in those are 50ug (5000% of RDA). (i have always taken a vitamin B with B12 in it, but towards the end i added the extra B12 pill and was taking 2 dosages of B vitamin pills a day.
So was taking about 125mcg to 150 mcg I guess.

the bioactive one i took has 500mcg B12, and I took a couple. Which is a lot more for sure.
So yes Korn you are right! maybe it was just the dosage level that helped me.
However I don't understand how I could be taking so much (before taking the bioactive), I mean 2,500 and 5,000 RDA seems a lot to be taking but to be still feeling sick with (non stop canker sores & feeling ill).


I do feel amazed though at the difference I am finding in myself from taking this extra dosage/bioactive B12. I have ALWAYS in the past taken B vitamins to get my B12, I have always thought that wouldve been enough to make sure I dont get low. But obviously something wasn't working right, because those canker sores and feeling sick have cleared up and I was suffering with those for years, with it all progressivly getting worse.

How do the doctors tell if someone can't absorb B12 properly? I will be taking the Methylcobalamin stuff always now.

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50ug (5000% of RDA)

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The RDA is normally 2.4 mcg ("100%").
5000% is 50 times as much as 100%.
Based on your numbers, they rely their calculations on a RDA of 1mcg.

There are various ways to suggest what B12 intake/consumption should be (on average) per day, and these numbers are only estimates anyway, since they don't take each person's life style (consumption of B12 antagonistic food/drink/medicine/chemicals) into consideration.

Since we already have two threads about methylcobalamin, I suggest that we continue the discussion in one of those threads (also because the situation isn't as simple as suggested here, where 'crappy' vs. 'bioactive' cobalamins are being discussed....) ;)

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However I don't understand how I could be taking so much (before taking the bioactive), I mean 2,500 and 5,000 RDA seems a lot to be taking but to be still feeling sick with (non stop canker sores & feeling ill).

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In order to get a therapeutic effect, some research suggest that you need amounts between 6-700 mcg and 1000-1100 mcg, and even when taking both the pills you mentioned, you were getting cirka only 1/8 of that amount.

http://www.cpmedical.net/articles.as...D=1720&zType=2

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Oral vitamin B12 supplements are as effective as shots in raising B12 levels in the body as long as they are administered in high enough doses, researchers report in the May 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Past studies have shown that supplementation with high doses of oral vitamin B12 is as effective as vitamin B12 administered by intramuscular injection in correcting plasma markers of vitamin B12 deficiency. However, the effects of lower oral doses on vitamin B12 levels are uncertain. In the current randomized, double-blind, dose-finding trial, researchers investigated the lowest oral dose of vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) required to normalize biochemical markers of B12 deficiency in 120 older people deficient in this vitamin. The researchers treated the subjects with daily oral doses of 2.5, 100, 250, 500, and 1,000 micrograms of cyanocobalamin administered for 16 weeks. They then observed by how much the supplementation decreased methylmalonic acid, levels of which decline as vitamin B12 levels rise. High levels of methylmalonic acid serve as a marker of vitamin B12 deficiency. The researchers determined that supplementation with vitamin B12 in the form of cyanocobalamin in all the daily oral doses tested was associated with mean reductions in plasma methylmalonic acid concentrations of 16 to 33 percent, indicating that vitamin B12 supplementation could raise B12 levels in the body. Daily doses of 647 to 1032 micrograms of vitamin B12 were associated with 80 to 90 percent of the estimated maximum reduction in the plasma methylmalonic acid concentration and thus appeared to raise vitamin B12 levels as much as a B12 shot. The study authors concluded that the lowest dose of oral cyanocobalamin required to normalize mild vitamin B12 deficiency is more than 200 times greater than the recommended dietary allowance of approximately 3 micrograms per day. Reference: Eussen SJ, de Groot LC, Clarke R, Schneede J, Ueland PM, Hoefnagels WH, van Staveren WA. Oral cyanocobalamin supplementation in older people with vitamin B12 deficiency: a dose-finding trial.

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