So you are worried about injections, or you've started them and wonder what's happening? Don't expect miracles - things usually happen in a particular order.
Timeperiod | symptoms likely to change |
6-24 hours |
your friends will probably notice that you are more sociable and less irritable (you may not notice anything) you may feel more sleepy, or find that you are still awake way past your usual bed time |
1-3 days |
You're probably beginning to feel more energy, better able to concentrate, better able to remember things. You are beginning to get your life back But you are still tired a lot of the time In some cases, you can now feel aches and pains all over your body. This is what we call "reversing out syndrome". When your nerves start to work again, you feel aches and pains that you haven't felt all of this time even though they have been there all along. You may even get spasms as a newly healed nerve starts to send signals to muscles that don't know what to do with them |
1-3 weeks |
Start to feel sensation in limbs and skin where you had numbness before. Tirednesss should definitely be going by now. Paralysis and loss of power should be at least partially restored |
3-6 months |
ability to concentrate and remember things. Sleeping through the night. If you had menorrhagia, that should be clearing up about now (if you couldn't get pregnant before, now is the time that you are most likely to start being able to get pregnant) |
The most common side effect is blotchiness of the skin or pimples. We think this is caused by homocysteine - once there is enough B12 in the body to start to get rid of the homocysteine, the body gets rid of it as quickly as possible and some will come out in the skin.
Most people want to put a cream on like E45, however that just traps the homocysteine near the skin. During this period (no more than 10 days) it's probably better to wash it off with water, ie a shower or a flannel bath.
You may get palpitations, or phantom pains/ pins and needles, or other effects of the nerves starting to work again (the heart is a big bundle of a special sort of muscle which is also nerve, so when the other nerves start to work, so does the heart and this may cause palpitations). Any of these effects should be gone within a couple of days so see your doctor if they last any longer.
If the B12 is working, then you should notice improvements in some areas even if you don't notice the symptom that you most want to cure, improving. B12 is natural to the human body, so its healing effect is going to be gentle; more like a good sleep (you often wake up tired) than a cup of coffee (artificial stimulant).
Get plenty of rest during the healing process.