Don't do what I did...or didn't do!!

I posted the following message on the main forum, but thought I'd post it here too.  I hope many will learn from my mistakes. I am 4 years post-op.  Since last May, I have been having dizzy spells, very sore throat almost all the time(it hurt to swallow a banana) clumsiness, constipated (first time ever!) dehydrated, muscle cramps in my legs and spasms in my back and sores in my mouth.  I was noticably forgetful a lot.  I went to the doctor last May for my sore throat mainly, but also wanted to discuss why I was so dizzy and about my clumsiness.  I was very worried and already self-diagnosed my self with M.S.  The doctor wasn't very concerned about my dizzyness, thought I experience a 'vagal episode'.  She also prescribed some nasal spray...she thought my sore throat was possibly from post nasal drip due to seasonal allergies.  She also did some blood work, which was all normal, except my potassium was a little low. (which she figured was why I had muscle cramps)    Well, my symptoms only got worse, especially my throat.  I have never in my life had trouble swallowing pills and now all of sudden, pills kept getting stuck in my throat.  I couldn't even get them down with drinking a full glass of water.  I would have to eat a piece of bread or something to get it to go down.  This was very scary for me.  I can usually swallow two of those large green Niquill gel pills at the same time.  I decided to go see and ENT.  He spent about 5 minutes with me and looked down my throat (not with any instruments though) and said he couldn't see anything wrong with it and said maybe it was indeed sore due to post nasal drip and told me to continue taking my nasal spray and he prescribed Allegra for me.  (this was back in July 07') My sore throat would come and go, but I had it most of the time.  I felt very tired and weak all the time.  I would experience shortness of breath while doing the slightest bit of exercise.  Our bedroom is upstairs in our home and I had gotten to the habit of taking a few steps and resting before I went all the way up, because my heart would pound so hard and I would get so winded.  If I was having a dumping syndrome episode (which also makes my heart pound) at the same time, it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest.  I thought I must be really out of shape!   About a month ago, I went to a different doctor for my sore throat again.  He listened to my heart and said something about my heart murmur.  To my knowledge, I had never had a heart murmur.  I mentioned to him about being dizzy.  He looked at the insides of my botton eyelids and thought they looked pale.  He thought I might be anemic.  He had them draw some blood and I left and went back to work.  His office called me about 30 minutes later and said I needed to come back to the clinic right away.  They said their instruments couldn't ready my hemoglobin level because it was so low, so they sent it over to the hospital for testing.  I went to the clinic right away and the doctor told me that he wanted me to check into the hospital right away and get a blood transfusion.  He said I was walking around with less than half amount of blood in my body than I should have.  My hemoglobin level was 5.5. Normal levels for women is 12-16.  They usually start giving blood transfusions at level 8.  I walked across the street and checked myself into the hospial.  I received 3 bags (units) of blood and it brought my level up to 9.1.  I spent two nights in the hospital.  It took about 4 hours for each bag of blood.  They gave my a B-12 shot, prescribed some iron pills and sent me home.  ( I don't remember what my B-12 level was, but it was very low.  I believe normal iron levels for menstrating women is about 60-130, mine was 1.4)  The doctor said I had virtually no iron in my body.  I had Pernicious Anemia.  Pernicious means deadly or destructive.  It is called that because people used to often die from it, but now they know what causes it and usually catch it in time before it gets too bad.  It can cause nerve damage, strokes and heart attacks.  It is caused by being deficient in B-12, which is needed to produce red blood cells.  I had never had a B-12 shot.  I will now get one at least once a month for the rest of my life.   I can definitely say I have learned my lesson.  I had stopped taking my multi-vitamans every day.  I now take 150 mg of iron twice a day and am now taking my multi-vitamans religously.  I will also get regular lab work done.  ( I hadn't been doing that either)   Please don't do what I did.  Follow your doctor's advice and take your vitamans.  Get a CBC (complete blood count) test and complete lab work done to make sure everything is ok.......(The doctor I originally went to in May did blood work, but not a CBC)

Almost all the symptoms have gone away.  I'm still a little tired though.  I can go up my stairs without being out of breath and my heart doesn't pound anymore.  My heart murmur has almost gone away and last but not least...I haven't had a sore throat in 3+ weeks   Yippee!!!!

Thank you for posting your experience.  Thankfully, you are ok!  It could have been a different story. It seems the furher out we get, the "more normal" we tend to feel and forget how important our vitamins are for LIFE!  Thanks for the very importnat reminder.  Be well.    Julie

Thanks so much for posting this great reminder! Glad all is well now.

Wow, thank you soooooooooo much for sharing your story... I hope you don't mind I will be sharing it with others as well... Too many folks think that they don't need to follow the vitamin regime cause they feel fine etc.   I am so glad you are getting better !!! Amen... Please keep us posted and continued health to you !! Huggs Debbiie

I'm so glad that you're ok!!! How scary!!! Thanks for sharing your story.

So glad to hear that you're recovering. Thank you for sharing this--it's a good reminder. Have you posted this on the RNY board? If you haven't, it would be very helpful for the pre-ops and new post-ops there to read a BTDT story. Vitamins can seem like such a small thing, especially when your labs are still looking good.

I know what your saying , this happen to me but I didn't get as bad as you, but they thought I had Angina and i get my blood work , every 6month to a year, and take multi vit, and b-12 everyday. but i needed that Iron pill everyday to make me feel so much better. can you imagin that little Iron pill makes that much of a diffrence. I m glad you are feeling better and take those pills.

Thanks for the advice. I've been guilty of forgetting my vitamins and B-12 supplements. It was my New Year's resolution to do better.

I have heard of pernicious anemia before but I always understood that it was a hereditary condition(this runs in my bro-in-law's family and his dad and sister have had problems with it.). With pernicious anemia, only intra-muscular B-12 will do the trick, and sadly you must get these shots regularly for the rest of your life.  Your story made me very curious, so I did a quick look-up and I found this on Wikipedia: "Pernicious anemia (also known as Biermer's anaemia or Addison's anaemia or Addison-Biermer anaemia) is a form of megaloblastic anaemia due to vitamin B₁₂ deficiency dependent on impaired absorption of vitamin B₁₂ in the setting of atrophic gastritis, and more specifically of loss of gastric parietal cells. While the term "pernicious anaemia" is sometimes also incorrectly used to indicate megaloblastic anaemia due to any cause of vitamin B₁₂ deficiency, its proper usage refers to that caused by atrophic gastritis and parietal cell loss only." I was anemic pre-op, but post-op it got really bad.  I too got lazy about taking my vitamins and had very similar episodes to yours: dizziness, fainting spells, heart palpitations, extreme weakness, shortness of breath and general malaise that turned out to be anemia. Just had to step up my iron and B-12. When I'm feeling especially out-of-sorts, a packet of Emergen-C and an extra iron tablet usually picks me right up!  That whole bit about prenicious anemia being related to missing gastric parietal cells makes a lot of sense for WLS folks and I'm surprised this isn't talked about more in conjunction with WLS.  How amazing that it wasn't noticed by your doctors at first!  I'm so glad you were able to find answers and treatment. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us here.  Best of luck to you in your recovery. :)

I'm so glad to hear you are doing better, thank you for sharing your story.  I for one have really slacked on my vitamins as adamant as I was for the first 2 years it's just been a hit and miss thing since. I'm going to copy and paste your experience in a word document and put it on my refrigerator, I don't want to go through what you've experienced, it had to be scary. Good luck!