Top Benefits of Vitamin B12 Injections
Have you been feeling tired lately? Does your body not seem to run as efficiently as it once had? Do your energy reserves simply feel drained? The Peak Medical Clinic in Medford, OR may be able to solve these issues with a vitamin B12 injection. If you are experiencing symptoms related to a lack of physical or mental energy, the problem could be that you are not getting enough vitamin B12 in your diet. Experts estimate that a very large portion of the world does not receive the B12 that they need. It is for this reason that more and more people are turning to injections to get the boost they need.
Top Benefits of Vitamin B12 Injections
Despite vitamin B12 being so essential for the healthful functioning of the human body, many people are unclear on exactly what this vitamin does for us. Understanding the role of B12 is key to knowing just how vitamin injections might be the solution for you.
B12 Is Essential to Normal Function
One of the main reasons you need B12 is because your body cannot function normally without its vitamins. Vitamins are organic chemical compounds that are necessary for the normal functioning of a given organism. Vitamins are micronutrients, meaning that only a very small portion of them is required to aid the functions of the animal.
However, even though we only need a very small amount of these compounds, our bodies can go haywire if they do not have the right amount of their essential vitamins and nutrients. Each vitamin serves a specific function. The advantages of B12 are among the most beneficial.
B12 Assists Other Vitamins
In a large part, the reason that health organizations stress eating a “balanced breakfast” or maintaining a “balanced diet” is that these vitamins are found in a variety of food sources.
For instance, vitamin A can be found in fish, liver, products made from dairy, and ripe yellow fruits, including pumpkins and squash. On the other hand, if you were looking for vitamin D, you would be much more likely to find it in species of fish like sardines.
People who eat only one type of food often find that their bodies are not receiving the correct amount of essential vitamins and nutrients. Your daily load of vitamins needs B12 to be complete.
The Difficulty of Proper Absorption
However, even if we are cautious to eat each of the foods that grant some of our essential vitamins, it may not be enough to overcome your vitamin deficiency. The fact of the matter is that factory farming has greatly reduced the number of nutrients in our products while simultaneously making it easier to access these foods.
This is a double-edged sword in that we can feel like we are actively receiving many more nutrients than we actually require. Each vitamin deficiency manifests different symptoms in the body. For instance, a lack of vitamin K will probably result in a deterioration of the skin and hair, whereas a lack of vitamin A usually results in night blindness, which is why even children know that the vitamin A in carrots is “good for the eyes.”
Lack of B12 can manifest in many ways. The key benefit of B12 is that the proper amount can relieve a wide range of symptoms.
B12 Can Relieve Signs of Aging
Many symptoms of B12 deficiency can be chalked up simply to aging. Fortunately, whereas aging cannot be reversed, a vitamin deficiency can. It is worth trying to get a loved one’s B12 levels up to par if they exhibit some symptoms of B12 deficiency even in old age.
Many people have simply resigned themselves to the fact that their loved one’s mental health has gone when in reality many of their symptoms can be reversed by receiving a vitamin B12 treatment. Of course, vitamin B12 deficiency is not something that affects only the old. It is not simply a “disease of aging” nor an “old person’s disease.” People of all ages can fail to properly receive vitamin B12 through their diets. When that happens, there is a set of symptoms that one expects to find.
B12 Relieves Many Mental and Physical Ailments
If you are experiencing one or more of the following symptoms, we recommend you sign up for a consultation with a professional. The most common symptoms of not having enough vitamin B12 in your system fall into these general categories: nervous system health, mental health, physical fitness, and digestive health. All of the following symptoms can be relieved by receiving an injection of B12.
Nervous System
Your body needs vitamin B12 to coat its nerves. Using B12, your body is able to manufacture a coating on your nerves called a myelin sheath. This protective sheath helps stave off neural decay while keeping you sharp and energetic. When B12 is in short supply, these nerves can become damaged. This often results in the following symptoms:
- Feeling chronically low on energy
- General lethargy
- General malaise
- Unexplained nervousness associated with rapid heartbeat
Many issues that begin as nervous system problems can quickly become mental problems. Many mental issues actually arise from the body’s lack of vitamin B12.
Mental Health
The brain relies heavily on vitamin B12. That is because vitamin B12 plays an essential role in producing hormones, the chemical “signals” that your body sends to communicate with itself. With insufficient levels of B12, one can easily experience:
- Failing memory
- Inability to make new memories “stick”
- Cloudy thinking
- Interference in concentration
- Low mental endurance
- Dementia-like cognitive decline
- Increased depression and/or anxiety
- Sudden dizziness or vertigo
Physical Fitness
Vitamin B12 not only keeps the mind running sharply, but it also benefits the more physical aspects of the body. If you experience any of the following symptoms, it may be time to look into vitamin B12 injections. These physical symptoms can all arise from low levels of B12:
- Unusual weakness
- Inability to hit physical benchmarks you once could
- Aching muscles
- Pain in your joints
- Difficulty trying to exercise
- Shallow breathing
Not only are your muscles at risk in a low B12 scenario, but everything from your teeth to your bum can be affected.
Digestive Health
Vitamin B12 plays a key role in digestion. It is required to break certain foods and compounds down to elements we can actually derive energy from. When your reserves of B12 are low or exhausted, you can easily experience:
- Failing dental health
- Bleeding gums
- Sores in your mouth
- Diminished or non-existent appetite
- Digestive problems including constipation, nausea, diarrhea, and/or stomach cramping
Experiencing any one symptom can really throw a wrench into the works of your life, but often a person with a vitamin B12 deficiency will experience multiple symptoms at once. Fortunately, the treatment is fairly straightforward.
Why Are So Many People Vitamin B12 Deficient?
Vitamin B12 deficiency is incredibly widespread. The USDA believes that nearly two-fifths of the population may have insufficient amounts of vitamin B12 in their systems. It is vitally important to understand is why many people do not have enough vitamin B12 in their systems.
Other than the negative effects that factory farming has on our nutrition, there are three other major factors for why people do not receive enough B12 on a regular basis. These factors are that many people currently take stomach acid-altering medications, that an increasing number of people are choosing vegetarian and vegan lifestyles, and that the general age of the population is skewing older.
Acid-Altering Medications
The joys of modern cuisine are always tempered against our bodies’ unpreparedness to deal with new foods. We are able to create nearly infinite new dishes within our lifetimes, but it takes hundreds of years to enact even the tiniest change on an evolutionary scale. What this means is that we are inventing space-age food while our stomachs are stuck in the dark ages. To deal with the delicious onslaught of blue cheese pizzas, white cherry Icees, spatchcocked brick chickens, and Carolina reaper hot sauce, many of us turn to stomach acid-altering medications.
Many people take antacids such as Tums and Pepto-Bismol on an as-needed basis to calm their stomachs or tame the heat of heartburn. People with worse gastric problems like acid reflux might habitually take an acid-modifying pill like a Zantac or a proton-pump-inhibitor which slows down the rate at which your stomach pumps acid into itself. These medications are often looked at as miracle cures to people with perpetually sour stomachs or the potentially carcinogenic pain of acid reflux. However, they do have a dark side.
B12 Injections Bypass the Stomach
Vitamin B12 is broken down in the stomach, where it is made available to the rest of the body. That is because vitamin B12 binds to amino acids which are found in proteinous foods, meaning it can only be released in the presence of certain enzymes and stomach acids. When these acids are inhibited or the pH balance of the stomach is moved toward alkalinity to reduce its discomfort, the process of absorbing vitamin B12 can be negatively altered.
This makes it entirely possible for a person to be eating “enough” vitamin B12 in their diet according to the daily values presented on the back of their milk carton, but acid-altering pills make it impossible for their body to absorb what they’re eating. Fortunately, B12 injections bypass the stomach and provide the vitamin directly into the bloodstream. So even if you regularly take a stomach acid-altering pill, you can still receive the benefits of a body with sufficient B12 within it when you seek vitamin B12 injections.
Vegans and Vegetarians
Many people have turned to veganism and vegetarianism over the past several decades. Some people find moral reasons for their rejection of the consumption of animal and/or animal product foods, whereas others find nutritional reasons. Still, others see the elimination of the meat trade as the only way to save a dying planet.
There can be noble reasons for these dietary restrictions. However, human beings did not evolve as herbivores, and these choices can have serious health consequences despite their reputation as a healthful way of eating. Our bodies are used to getting certain vitamins from non-vegan, non-vegetarian sources. Chief among these non-herbivore vitamins is vitamin B12.
Vitamin B12 Without Animals Products
The primary way to get B12 into your body is to consume grazing animals’ flesh, the meat of poultry, or any part of a fish. Vitamin B12 can also be obtained from eggs and milk, but these products are against the vegan code since they involve taking advantage of animal labor. Fortunately, vegans and vegetarians are not doomed to a life of vitamin B12 deficient anemia.
Although the consumption of herrings and chickens is strictly forbidden, a vitamin B12 injection is perfectly vegan to receive. As the numbers of vegans and vegetarians continue to rise, you can expect more and more people to receive their B12 through B12 injection treatments.
Reverse a Certain Type of Anemia
Aging can cause many less than desirable effects in our bodies. One of these is that we no longer absorb vitamin B12 as well as we did when we were younger. To compound this issue is the fact that the symptoms of a vitamin B12 deficiency can easily be confused with the general symptoms of aging.
When suffering from the effects of B12 deficiency anemia, your blood operates with fewer but larger red blood cells. This causes walking disturbances, trouble balancing, a decreased sensitivity to vibrations, confusion, and even a mental state nearly identical to dementia. Luckily, injections of B12 can relieve these symptoms.
The Vitamin B12 Treatment
The basic vitamin B12 injection treatment is a shot that contains a high dose of vitamin B12. This treatment can quickly elevate the levels of B12 in the patient. To determine if a patient needs such an injection, blood work is usually done first. This blood work can tell the doctor if the patient is in the correct range for B12 or if they need an injection to relieve their symptoms.
Often the basic procedure is to first determine whether the injection is needed and then to administer the injection if it is. This tends to mean that a blood serum test is made, though this will depend on the kind of symptoms the person is reporting. If the adult has B12 values that score below approximately 170–250 picogram per milliliter, then a vitamin B12 injection is recommended.
Other than the particularities of what vitamin B12 does for you, there is little that is out of the ordinary for this procedure. A vitamin is simply injected into the patient’s muscle or under their skin so that it can bypass the stomach (and the potentially altered stomach acid) to deliver the essential functions of vitamin B12 to the body directly.
Final Thoughts on Injections
If you or a loved one is experiencing any of the symptoms or complications outlined in this article, we highly recommend you seek a consultation. Most of these symptoms can be reversed with a simple application of a vitamin B12 injection. Contact us today to see if a vitamin B12 injection is the right choice for you.