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Digestive enzymes: Could they be changing my B-12 absorption?

Victronix

Senior Member
Messages
418
Location
California
I have a recent issue where I'm wondering if digestive enzymes could be changing my B-12 absorption or interfering with it.

I was diagnosed with a B-12 deficiency over a decade ago, with extremely low levels after a round of antibiotics for pneumonia, and have always had digestive issues.

I've been taking Enzymatic Therapy's B-12 infusion for several years now, and just in the past couple of months I've gotten pretty bad (surprising) numbness in my hands and feet, so have increased the B-12 dosage by 500 (I take 7000 per day). So far, the 500 helped nicely - initially - but now it is going back to numbness again, so I will probably need to go up to 1000 more to address it.

But I haven't needed to change the dosage in years, so this is disconcerting.

The only thing has changed is that I started taking a digestive enzyme with ox bile, Thorne Bio-gest (https://www.thorne.com/products/dp/bio-gest-reg-60-s) which has: Hydrochloride, Bile Salts, Glutamic Acid, Pancreatin and Pepsin.

So I'm wondering if there was some type of reaction that might be happening that is changing my absorption, or interfering with the B-12 somehow.

I've never tried to consistently take digestive enzymes before, but I got a gall bladder infection this Spring and my doctor recommended taking them. I also take estrogen, which is why she recommended one with bile salts, since taking estrogen can tax the gall bladder over time.

Any thoughts?