Vit-B 12 Injections in Dog

by Jane

Hi
Saw your article about b12 injections and found it very interesting.

I have a retriever puppy 9 months old. This summer he got antibiotics for an infection on the skin on his tummy. After some weeks he startet stretching a lot when he was lying down some hours after he had eating. We tried some probiotics and it worked really well for 3 weeks. He only needed very small doses. Then he started to be really stressed, and a bit "hyper" with them. We tried another probiotic and the same happened. The stretching increased through the autumn and early winter and peakes mostly 2-4 hours after feeding time. Now he is also shifting sleeping positions a lot (20 times pr hour 2-4 hours after food); lie down one side, shift to the other, get up find a new position, lie on back etc. The stretching and shifting sleeping positions started after the antibiotics. We then tried some vetenary diets and antepsin whithout any succsess. We then took some bloodsamples and everything was fine but the b12 level which was half of the minimum level. He was then 8 months old. We have taken 2 b12 shots (1ml)so far.

I was wondering; do you think the b12 shots will help his digestive problems? He gets quite hyper on them. Is that usual? What can the cause of his problems be and how is the best way to treat him?

Thanks for your answer:-)

My Comment:

Hi Jane

This is quite interesting to see if the symptoms persist or the are gone when the vit-b12 levels are back to normal.

As you might remember vit-b12 low levels can both be a cause and a symptom.

In your case it is a bit strange, as low levels of vit-b12 will take some time to develop. At the same time if the blood levels has any thing to do with a low grade IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) it is strange that no "normal" IBD symptom are present at this time.

Has there been some diarrhea or episodes of vomiting before?

If the stretching symptoms has anything to do withe the b12 level, I would expect them to disappear during the treatment. How fast it is difficult to say exact, but probably during the first 3-6 weeks or so, is absolutely possible.

It is impossible to know if there is any effect or not before you try it.

How about the dosage?

To me 1 ml sounds a little too low, but i don't know the concentration of the medicine. But it is really very low toxic and excess of it is excreted by the kidneys so you don't have to be so afraid of give too much.

If your vet think this can have something to do with a bowel disease, I would recommend trying "Entero-Chronic". This is a new "treatment for IBD dogs and can in some cases eliminate the use of cortisone.

You can find more about "Entero-Chronic" on my site.

About his "hype" - No, I don't find it normal to see dogs getting more "exaggerated" receiving injections of vit-b12. The exact cause is difficult to know - as why the same happened on the probiotics you tried.

I don't have any explanation for this. No other explanation that the vitamin in some way is a stimulant to the body and b-vitamins is used as a appetite stimulating "medicine"

Try the vitamin treatment, and see if the abdominal symptoms disappears or not. If they do he might need this medication for a long time and you might see if his "excitement" is getting better or not later on.

First step is, at least for now, to see if vit-b12 has any effect or not.

All the best

Per Schonbeck