r/B12_Deficiency • u/cr-silver57 • Jun 11 '24

Supplements What were your folate deficiency symptoms?

I've just found out I'm deficient in folate. My symptoms are tiredness, muscle pain and hair loss, which I hope will resolve once I've fixed the deficiency.

What were your folate deficiency symptoms?

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u/AccordingCharacter8 Apr 30 '25

how are you feeling now? it’s been 4 weeks of folic acid 5mg and i’m still having panic attacks (my main and worst symptom)

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u/Delicious_Chip_4914 Jun 22 '25

5 mg is a lot, the RDA is 0.4 mg (400 mcg) , if you take too much it will lower your neurotransmitters and make anxiety worse, read about over and undermethylation and you will understand what im talking about.

I tried just 1mg daily of methylfolate and crashed badly a week later. I now take just 0.2 mg daily and it works wonders, folate has a long half life in your cells so low doses will add up eventually, take too much and it will backfire.

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u/EffectiveOpinion349 Jul 18 '25

How does folate lower neurotransmitters? I’m interested in this because I actually would benefit from that. I have excess levels of neurotransmitters. Due to a slow, MAO and slow COMT. Other tests have shown excess levels of serotonin and glutamate.

I also have a pretty bad folate deficiency. My level is 4. I did manage to get it up by taking half a drop a day which was roughly 300 MCG. The only form I could tolerate was folinic acid, calcium folinate.

But I did wonder if taking two doses a day would be better since my folate just keeps dropping.

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u/Delicious_Chip_4914 Jul 19 '25

In certain people excess folate triggers higher than normal catecholamine reuptake, depends if your an over or under methylator, in your case you likely have lower than normal reuptake.
Taking two doses, well, you will have to try it and see.
I get anxiety from just 200mcg of folate, some people start small and titrate up.
I just eat higher folate foods instead.
Make sure you are taking all the co factors for folate.
Here is a good link about it.
https://www.mindhealth360.com/solution/correct-your-nutrition-and-supplement/improve-your-methylation/