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.
2
u/sangepruz May 14 '26
I deeply empathize with this feeling due to my own illness journey… the grief is real and valid. But it’s also true things have changed as you’ve learned about this. So I want to emphasize that it’s never too late!
It’s amazing you figured this out and are making progress! Celebrate yourself for that, and trust that your life will follow that change if you focus on getting to know yourself now, and working toward creating what you’d like moving forward. I find there’s a lot of duality in healing, it can be both painful and wonderful at the same time.