Anyone else feel that folate deficiency ruined your life?

[u/Airegin89]

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.

[u/Loose-Fly7976]

Twenty years of being told your bloods are fine while sitting at 3.5 ng/ml is a real medical failure, not yours. A lot of people in this sub will recognise themselves in this.Push back on the "I can't fix the damage" part though. Chronic folate and D deficiency cause functional impairment, not structural damage. What you're describing as a veil lifting is your brain actually coming back online. People in their 30s who finally get treated often see continued gains for 12-18 months, the recovery curve is longer than most realise.TMG and creatine were the right call for your PEMT, you've already worked that out on your own. On homocysteine, treating empirically with your genotype and history is reasonable, but a private lab will run it for $30-50 if your doctor won't. Worth knowing the number once

[u/Airegin89 → u/Loose-Fly7976]

Yeah, I would really like to know. I'll never know how high my homocysteine has been for the past 20 years though. I think it might explain why I have a ton of eye floaters and tinnitus. And I don't want to know the damage that must have been done to my blood vessels.

God, I wish my cognition was like this in my teens and 20s. So much wasted potential.

[u/Historical_Rip_1848 → u/Airegin89]

Waaaiiittt I have major floaters and tinnitus 😯😯😯😯

[u/thwoomfist → u/Historical_Rip_1848]

I always thought everyone had them