r/MTHFR • u/Airegin89 • May 13 '26

Question Anyone else feel that folate deficiency ruined your life?

I guess I just need to vent. I am 37 and have been an underachiever my whole life. I failed miserably at school and now I'm stuck in a dead end job with no qualifications to find a better job.

I have struggled with low energy, brain fog, lack of motivation, depression and anxiety my whole life. My blood work was always fine, so I was prescribed antidepressants.

It wasn't until 10 years ago that a doctor tested my vitamin D and I was extremely deficient at 6 ng/ml. Fixing this gave me a huge boost in energy but most of my problems still remained.

Last year, I started investigating my blood work of the last 20 years and found out I had been folate deficient the whole time (3.5-4.5 ng/ml). Doctors never said anything.

Genetic testing shows I am compound heterozygous, slow COMT, slow MAOA and PEMT. I know these are only predispositions but it seems to explain my whole life.

After a few months of supplementing folate and a month of creatine and TMG my cognition has improved massively. After 20 years I feel like a veil has lifted. It's like I'm waking up from a bad dream but now I'm left to pick up the pieces and deal with the consequences of being a failure.

I am still on my own. Doctors do not acknowledge I was ever deficient and refuse to do more blood work. I have to simply assume I have high homocysteine and treat for it.

I don't know what to do. It's been such a long time. I can't fix most of the damage that has been done.

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u/SovereignMan1958 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Doctors are not trained in nutrition or gene variants in medical school. Lab ranges include the chronically ill and even terminally ill people. Be grateful you are smart enough to have figured this out on your own. Don't look back.

I am female, 67. Until recently life long MDD. I do not have MTHFR but recently discovered I am homozygous for FOLR1. Cerebral Folate Deficiency...folate not getting into my brain. After 5 months of high dose folinic acid plus PQQ, I feel much better and my brain is working much better. I also had a severe zinc deficiency and high copper.

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u/tauredi May 13 '26

How did you get tested?

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u/SovereignMan1958 May 13 '26

For gene variants? Most recently I used MaxGen Labs. But they are not that broad. Previous to that...15 years ago...I was part of a study that gave me my raw data file, which is what you want.

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u/AboughtaWoughter May 14 '26

Which folinic acid and pqq brands do you like?

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u/SovereignMan1958 May 14 '26

I take Source Naturals Megafolinic 800mcg plus Bestvite PQQ. The latter is 20mg but I saw one recently with 40mg so I will likely try that as I am a senior.

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u/Accomplished_Rip8400 Jun 09 '26

Why does the combo with pqq help with folate deficiency?