Yes, and it is on the label in four words. Can B12 shots give you diarrhea? Mild, short lived diarrhea is the entire gastrointestinal entry on the official label for injectable B12. It happens, and it is rare. When somebody around Tulsa texts us about it two days after a visit, the week they had usually explains more than the syringe does.
We list our sources at the bottom so you can check us.
The prescribing label for cyanocobalamin injection lives in DailyMed, the drug label archive at the National Library of Medicine. Adverse reactions there are sorted by body system, and the gastrointestinal entry reads, in full, Gastrointestinal: Mild transient diarrhea. Mild. Transient. No percentage, no frequency, nothing about how many people it happens to.
MedlinePlus writes the same drug up for patients rather than pharmacists, and it sorts side effects by how much they should worry you. Diarrhea sits in the calmer of two groups, with an instruction attached: Tell your doctor if either of these symptoms is severe or does not go away. Either, because that group holds two items. Diarrhea is one of them.
Worth saying out loud, because the label above is about cyanocobalamin. The injection your nurse brings here is methylcobalamin, which is exactly how our menu names it, and the same methylcobalamin rides inside several of our bags. Both are vitamin B12. MedlinePlus files cyanocobalamin under the alternative names for B12. The difference is which small molecule sits attached to the cobalamin core.
So we will say it plainly rather than let you assume otherwise. Those four words were written about a close cousin of what is in our syringe. What the encyclopedia does settle is where the leftovers go, and that part applies to both: Vitamin B12 is a water-soluble vitamin. Then, After the body uses what it needs of these vitamins, leftover amounts leave the body through the urine.
Your kidneys handle the surplus. If a nurse tells you exactly why a vitamin wrecked your stomach, she is guessing. We will not do that to you.
MedlinePlus on diarrhea in general: The most common cause of diarrhea is the stomach flu (viral gastroenteritis). Same page on medicine: Certain medicines may also cause diarrhea, with antibiotics and Laxatives containing magnesium sitting in its examples.
Thursday shot, rough Saturday. The person telling us about it was also three days into an antibiotic and sharing a bathroom with a second grader who had brought something home from school. The needle is the part that stuck in memory, because it came with an appointment and a nurse whose name they knew.
Severe, or not going away. Those two phrases come from MedlinePlus and we use them exactly as written. Past that line this belongs to your own physician, not to the people who handed you a vitamin.
A physician consults on every patient before a bag or a syringe gets drawn up, and Dr. Canaday, DO is the one who signs off. Your nurse gives the injection and stays with you afterward. If an infusion is wrong for you, you hear no instead of a sales pitch, and our safety standards page puts that in writing.
A B12 injection is $25, pushed during the same visit, and the first one is on us. Simply Hydrate runs $99, all in, when fluids are the only thing you came for, and the shot can go in while that bag runs. The bags carry the same methylcobalamin. We went through that when we wrote about whether a Myers' cocktail works. We come to you, often the same day, and once a visit is on the books most Tulsa-area addresses sit inside an hour's drive. Seven cities carry no travel fee: Tulsa itself, plus Owasso, Jenks, Bixby, Claremore, Collinsville and Broken Arrow.
So yes, it is on a label. We almost never see it, and when we do it is rarely the thing making somebody sick. This is general health information, not medical advice, and nobody here has examined you. When a doctor is already looking after your stomach, that office hears about a rough week first.
Cyanocobalamin injection, solution, prescribing label, DailyMed at the National Library of Medicine, government health agency, primary
Cyanocobalamin Injection, MedlinePlus Drug Information, government health agency
Vitamin B12, MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia, government health agency
Diarrhea, MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia, government health agency
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