Vitamin B12 Deficiency And Its Diagnosis

It is not really difficult to surmise the possibility of vitamin B12 deficiency because of symptoms such as poor memory, anemia, depression and fatigue. These conditions like the other symptoms, however, are too nonspecific to diagnose vitamin B12 deficiency. This means that in order to accurately diagnose vitamin B12 deficiency as a disease, the signs and symptoms must first be ascertained to be related to its deficiency and not to another ailment.

Vitamin B12 deficiency can be accurately determined only by use of diagnostic tests. Yet, most are still not certain. Hence, a battery of tests is usually done like:

1. Babinski reflex is a reflex seen only in infants that is outgrown as the brain develops. Ability to exhibit indicates damage in nerve paths.

2. Complete Blood Count or CBC and Reticulocyte Count can generate a lot of information about blood conditions. Reticulocyte Count is a measure of immature red blood cells (erythrocytes) to indicate if new erythrocytes are being formed in the bone marrow.

3. Homocysteine test and Methylmalonic Acid (MMA) Tests are used to to determine the reason or reasons for the low vitamin B12 levels; these blood components ate inversely related to vitamin B12.

4. Serum Vitamin B12 level and serum folate levels are good indicators of the levels of vitamin B12 and anemia.

5. Serum LDH (Lactate Dehydrogenase) Test measures the amount of LDH in the blood to check for anemia of vitamin B-12 deficiency, Megaloblastic anemia and Pernicious anemia.

6. The Schilling test can yield more definite results as it determines if the body is taking up vitamin B12 normally.

*Stage I –Find out if the body has the ability to take in vitamin B12 normally. Abnormal results will require that the patient proceeds to next stage.

*Stage II –The condition in the stomach is assessed by the administration of a radioactive along with intrinsic factor to check if the intrinsic factor in the stomach is being synthesized to absorb vitamin B12 well. If it yields unusual results, then the patient move s to next stage again.

*Stage III -The test is done after 2 weeks of antibiotics to find out if an infection is causing the Vitamin B12 deficiency.

*Stage IV: -This stage will ascertain if pancreatic enzymes is causing the deficiency.

Should all the tests confirm the condition of vitamin B12 deficiency, it is important to see a physician right away to prevent complications.