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should i come off metformin
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<blockquote data-quote="Geocacher" data-source="post: 410907" data-attributes="member: 32611"><p>It sounds like you are having some of the symptoms of a vitamin B12 deficiency. Most GPs still don't know there's a correlation between low B12 and metformin even though it is documented in the British Medical Journal.</p><p></p><p>If you had slightly low B12 levels before you started metformin, and many people do have low B12 and don't know it, then being on metformin would have lowered your B12 enough to cause problems. For an average person, with a relatively helathy diet and no genetic predisposition to B12 deficiency, it will usually take 4 years or more on metformin before their B12 levels start to drop enough to cause symptoms. Metformin interferes with the bodies ability to use dietary B12 and the NHS doesn't routinely check for this because it's thought to be a rare problem even though up to 30% of users will have low B12 after four years.</p><p></p><p>Low B12 is not a good reason to stop metformin because stopping metformin won't fix low B12. What you should do is ask your GP to do a B12 blood test to rule out a deficiency. For someone on metformin even a level in the lower half of normal may cause symptoms of a deficiency. It's easily treated with monthly injections or a high dose B12 supplement taken along with a calcium supplement.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Geocacher, post: 410907, member: 32611"] It sounds like you are having some of the symptoms of a vitamin B12 deficiency. Most GPs still don't know there's a correlation between low B12 and metformin even though it is documented in the British Medical Journal. If you had slightly low B12 levels before you started metformin, and many people do have low B12 and don't know it, then being on metformin would have lowered your B12 enough to cause problems. For an average person, with a relatively helathy diet and no genetic predisposition to B12 deficiency, it will usually take 4 years or more on metformin before their B12 levels start to drop enough to cause symptoms. Metformin interferes with the bodies ability to use dietary B12 and the NHS doesn't routinely check for this because it's thought to be a rare problem even though up to 30% of users will have low B12 after four years. Low B12 is not a good reason to stop metformin because stopping metformin won't fix low B12. What you should do is ask your GP to do a B12 blood test to rule out a deficiency. For someone on metformin even a level in the lower half of normal may cause symptoms of a deficiency. It's easily treated with monthly injections or a high dose B12 supplement taken along with a calcium supplement. [/QUOTE]
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