Metabolism

From an Amazon review of Stelo:

By Day 5, accuracy dropped sharply:

Stelo showed 25–30 mg/dL higher than fingersticks, even at rest.

B vitamin deficiency testing:

The most sensitive diagnostic approach involves measuring serum methylmalonic acid (MMA) and homocysteine, as MMA is more specific for B12 deficiency, while homocysteine can be elevated in both B12 and folate deficiency.

The cognitive stuff crept up on me, like so many of the B12 symptoms - I explained it away until it got impossible to ignore. I had brain fog, struggled to understand what people were saying (instructions especially) which sucked when I work as a learning support teacher so half of my day is spent listening to people. I got stuck on names and some words. I have had about 18mths of not being able to remember my PIN for my bank cards, always losing stuff etc. At my worst, I got lost at work and turned up at the wrong classrooms. It was scary! I’ve been on EOD [every other day] injections for nearly 3 months and most of those symptoms are gone. Such a relief.

A B12 deficiency can cause high homocystine levels and high methlmalonic acid (MMA). It's ridiculous how unreliable the B12 serum test is, yet most GPs think that the reference range actually means something. My doc thinks of 800 as the bottom rung of acceptability instead of being the highest part of the range. She agrees that 1200 pg/mL is the goal for anyone with any kind of brain affecting mental or physical illness.

I agree that MMA and B12 serum tests are the minimum for a DX.

This excerpt is Life Extension article: Is Homocysteine Making You Sick?:

"The body produces homocysteine from the essential amino acid methionine during numerous metabolic processes. To prevent the build-up of potentially toxic levels of homocysteine, the cells use active folate, known as 5-MTHF or 5-methyl-tetrahydrofolate, in concert with vitamins B6 and B12, to convert homocysteine to other biologically useful compounds.

Most clinical testing laboratories consider a homocysteine value of less than 11.0 micromoles per liter (µmol/L) as healthy; some allow slightly higher values as normal. The Life Extension Foundation® and other experts believe that this upper limit of normal is far too high for optimal health. Studies indicate that people with homocysteine values greater than 8.5 µmol/L are at increased risk of atherosclerosis,10 heart attack,11 and stroke.12

It can effect your homocysteine but skew isn't the right word. Homocysteine test is one of the best tests for determining a b12 deficiency. If you supplement, thus correcting the deficiency, it can correct your homocysteine level.

Blood serum b12 will go to over 2000 within a few days of one single shot. Homocysteine will most likely take at least weeks of high dose b12 and folate to get back to normal. Neurological damage can still take longer to recover from.