Just kidding, can you imagine?! 

If you’re in the UK, you will have been crunching around on dessicated grass like me. I hope you have coped with the heat, the lack of the summer sound of lawn mowing and that you have a fan powerful enough take pictures off the wall. Every day now gives Britons that once rare feeling of stepping onto the top step of a plane arriving for a summer holiday.
Trying to keep plants alive in this heat has been a trial, but a harvest of some tiny tomatoes still makes lugging all that water seem worthwhile. 😊

Being AWOL

It’s been a good while since I’ve written here and I’ve missed it.

Damian, my lovely husband had a stroke last June, largely affecting his speech and swallow and we have been navigating a different way of life for us since then. It’s been a huge learning curve and two irritating clichés come to mind most often:

Every day’s a school day and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. 

Damian’s working with a speech and language therapist but we would welcome any tips or tricks for helping the voice following a stroke, It can be awfully quiet around here these days. I know that many reading this may have been touched by such an event and other grief or loss this past year and beyond, if so  my heart goes out to you. I understand the sheer hard work and determination it takes everyone involved, especially the one it happened to, to cope when all around is in chaos. I hope that you are surrounded by love, kindness and patience.

Campaigns

If you don’t know already, the B12 Alliance have a Parliamentary Reception on the 10th of September and your MP is invited. (Let them know there’ll be food!) Use the link above to try and get them involved. As we know MPs aren’t all cut from the same cloth and if by some miracle yours is really interested, then maybe something positive will happen.

I’m trying to engage my current MP on the injectable B12 OTC campaign and hope he’ll be as interested as Jane Hunt was, so I’ll let you know how that goes. Maybe the happenings on the 10th will also incorporate this too.

You may remember that a few weeks before the change of government Jane had got us up to the first part of a Private members bill. It was depressing to have all that work from everyone who signed and shared the original petition and who harangued their MP’s, simply wash away down the drain.

Accessing B12 injections in the UK high street

Although we can’t buy ampoules over the counter some more of our pharmacies have employed the PGD route so that you can at least get a B12 injection via the pharmacy if your own GP won’t oblige. You may find your local independent pharmacy is now offering this service but I’ll highlight two of the big ones here:

Superdrug have done this for a while but only if you can prove you have a diagnosis of B12 deficiency and you GP says it’s ok. They have strict rules for can and can’t have a lifesaving B12 injection for the princely sum of £29.

Boots have some more lenient rules and will let you have a £29 injection if you tell them you’re a vegan. No paperwork required for that it seems. If only they’d help under 18’s.

The pharmacies are allowed to do this through the aforementioned Patient Group Direction (PGD). I have previously talked about this here when I wrote about the weight loss injections, that incredibly, your pharmacy can sell to you without you seeing a GP. This route, particularly Boots (no questions asked if you are a vegan!) is better alternative than using hair salon’s who also do aesthetics. Some of whom might have a dubiously trained individual incorrectly advising on B12 deficiency and trying to upsell other injectables alongside, which you don’t want! Just like MP’s, purveyors of B12 injections are not all made equal

Many people in the UK are forced to buy B12 ampoules (safely and cheaply) from German pharmacies due to lack of help from their GP. But their first needs to come from somewhere covered medically in case of anaphylaxis, which is rare but better to be safe than sorry!

What is a PGD?

PGD’s are ways of making POM (prescription only medications) available via pharmacies without seeing your GP. The medicines that can be given in this way are apparently commissioned locally and there is no national medicine list. The kinds of medicine commonly given under a PGD are; malaria tablets, flu vaccines, drugs for erectile dysfunction and for period delay.

B12 education

A chance meeting in a hospital corridor a few months ago lead to me teaching a short course to a small group of NHS physiotherapists from my local area. Here’s what they had to say:

Very engaging, giving clear, precise information. I was amazed at how low B12 can manifest in the body’s multiple system.

I Really enjoyed the exploration of possible symptoms and the valuable lived experience of sufferers of B12 deficiency. It’s so concerning that there may be countless people not getting the help they need with this condition.

Thank you, I am now aware of what correct treatment should be and who is at risk.

This was very thorough and well explained, great to hear case studies and the improvement for patients once on correct treatment.

Really enjoyed the training, I was very interested to understand how low levels affect mental health. Terrible that it had the name ‘megaloblastic madness’.

So beneficial to my practice, it has brought B12 deficiency to the forefront of my thinking again.

B12 In-depth Training course

I’ll be running another B12 in-depth training course which will take place on Wednesday 30th of September, 3pm till 6pm BST – check your timezone here.

This is a 3 Hour online course with work book, CPD certificate and follow up video call.

If you’d like to come along please –

Please share with anybody you think might be interested in increasing their ability to help their patient’s/clients with the many symptoms and aches and pains that just won’t go away.

B12 pop up Café

We haven’t met up in person for far too long and I think we need to remedy this by having another pop-up café. It will take place in lovely Leicestershire and I’ll let you know the details as soon as I have the venue booked. Many of us are makers … If you’ve attended the Pop up café before you’ll know we have stalls of interesting makers to buy from. I want to make the café’s a more regular occurrence and if you are a maker and your craft is small enough to bring along, please do share it with us on the day. If you have crafts to sell and would like to be a stall holder please email me with details of what you do. If you aren’t a crafter yet, we will have people who can help you to learn a new skill with us too.

I sincerely hope you can find time to rest, limit stress, eat well and be around people you love as much as possible.

Until the next time, my very best wishes,
Tracey 😊