Triamcinolone 0.1% topical oral ointment with 500ug B12/2 mg ointment outperformed plain triamcinolone adding credulance that frequent B12 injections into active shingles area helps. Question is whether it needs to be methylcobalamin – B12 bioactive form for best topical effect.
he Effectiveness of Vitamin B12 for Relieving Pain in Aphthous Ulcers:
A Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Trial
Hsin-Li Liu et al
Pain Management Nursing, Vol 16, No 3 (June), 2015: pp 182-187
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1524904214001994
- The intervention group received vitamin B12 ointment. Each oral ointment box contained 500 ug of vitamin B12, triamcinolone acetonide 0.1%, and natural cherry flavor; the weight of each box of ointment was 2 mg. The control group received placebo oral ointment (containing the same ingredients except for no ..B12″
results:
So B12 helped kill the pain – but it also has bigger significance: Previously a study suggested daily B12 injected into active shingles could help with the pain. Now this substantiates it.
Post-Herpetic /Shingles Neuralgia – Benefits of Local B12 Injections
http://painmuse.org/?p=2605
Having said that B12 form is inactive and has to be converted to methylcobalamin so in the shingles study it was used. One author has suggested topical b12 to be effective would have to be methylcobalamin as well and that makes sense
Burgess, Jeff.
Re: Effectiveness of Vitamin B12 in Treating Recurrent Aphthous Stomatitis: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.
The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 22.5 (2009): 590-591.
http://www.jabfm.org/content/22/5/590.3.full.pdf
“Cyanocobalamin is not bioactive and must first be converted in the body to a bioactive form before it can be of benefit.”
Comment – article did mention oral B12 helped canker sore after 5-6 months so topical application was found needed. Same was found in shingles study. I don’t think that ointment B12 dosage can be right so have written author. – might be easier to hold a sublingual B12 pill over sore…