This post I wanted to share some important and interesting information I have recently became aware of. The MTHFR gene and how its associated with your reduced folic acid metabolism if you have this gene mutation. Also i will be introducing a fairly new test that could save your life!
If your like me and have had bad reactions to almost every medication I've ever been on its something you have thought about many times. This test is called a genetics pharmacogenomic test and while I was only tested in one area of medications you can get it for every medication and believe me it breaks it down in categories like good to take, might work ok, and not at all!
It tells you why you cant take certain medications based on your enzymes witch can cause a medication not to work at all, work slowly or become toxic in your body. These specific enzymes are used to break down activate and deactivate medications.
It went as far as telling my doctor that I was dealing with depression and anxiety right now or at that moment in time witch I was and I had a problem associated with reduced folic acid metabolism, moderately decreased serum folate levels, and moderately increased homocysteine levels witch means most of the folic acid I get I dont metabolize and that I would need a specially formulated supplement that was made for people who have this problem.
let me tell you I learned alot about why my body was acting up so to speak and always so rundown all the time. It seemed like one problem after another so many different doctors each telling me this is your problem and what medication was going to make it all better. But better never came you know what did? All the "side affects" from each medication.
The results this test showed me started me on a search for what each gene code ment for me and my body. You know when you find your mouth hanging open after you hear something shocking well that was me after I was done learning about each specific gene my mouth could not hang any lower. It was telling me based off my genes what I was suffering from or could suffer from down the road witch was scary and wow omg all at once.
For the first time I knew why in some areas I had not been feeling better and why my body always reacted to medications in such a bad way. Now I had a better understanding of what my body was trying to say and how to help make it better so I in turn would start feeling better. Witch brings me to how important folic acid is in life!!
For most woman when we hear the words folic acid we automatically think pregnancy. Why because when your pregnant your doctor will tell you that you need to start taking prenatal vitamins and they must contain folic acid.
But did you ever stop to think why its so important??
Well im going to share some very interesting and important information with you and tell you alittle about me and why i needed to learn all about folic acid.
Well im going to share some very interesting and important information with you and tell you alittle about me and why i needed to learn all about folic acid.
First things first let us learn what folic acis is and what the benefits are.
Folic acid is the superpower of the B-Vitamins! But its important to know the differences between folic acid and B9. First folic acid is a synthetic form of B9 found in fortified foods, like cereals and supplements. As with most vitamins the best way to get B9 witch is called (folate) is naturally because the body absorbs it better.
In the U.S many of our foods have added folic acid because of how important it is to your overall health.
Its important you know that folic acid in its regular form the body can not break down so when your looking for a supplement make sure it says (folate) on the bottle. But if you end up being like so many of us you wont even be able to take folate you will need the activated kind.
Witch brings me to how I learned about folic acid and all the B vitamins.
All my life I've had extremely bad reactions to medications and could never figure out why. I also have many problems im diabetic have neuropathy, Interstitial cystitis, IBS, sleeping problems, short term memory loss fatigue, major skin problems ringworm, staph, MRSA, boils, its not fun and has left my body scared. I've been anemic at times and never understood why at 36 years old I have so many health problems and its not like all this just started so more like 27 years old when things started to get bad. I've always had skin problems and bad reactions to medications though.
So dealing with all these things tends to wear you down and I had become very depressed and decide it was time to see a Psych doctor.
My first visit I started to tell my new doctor about everything I'd been dealing with over the course of my lifetime and that because of my past reactions to medications I was very apprehensive about starting any new medication. I told him about how my body would get rashes, my blood pressure would rise how I would shake get dizzy feel like I was having a heart attack and was taking to hospital because of medication.
He was very understanding but I could tell he was wondering how much of this was in my head. Like maybe I was psyching myself out because of past reactions reason being I had reactions to almost every medications I was ever put on or showed no improvement at all.
The same look I've seen many times before. In fact the phych nurse I was seeing before him thought I was making it all up cause we had tried so many different medications that didn't work or I had adverse reactions to and she finely said im sorry but you need a real phych doctor im just a phych NP and was done with me. P.S come to find out those medications ended up being on the list of medication I could not take!
But back to what I was saying I was telling him all about my history and im sure he had read the notes from my last doctor who im sure didnt help me much in fact made me seem somewhat out there! I mean im sure I sounded crazy my own family thinks its in my head most of the time and they live with me and love me so I know he was thinking it to.
Now you all are like where is this going and whats it have to do with folic acid? Now I think shes crazy too.... Well Im just about there and im not crazy well maybe alittle lol.
Anyways after I was done explaining he said im going to have you do a genetics pharmacogenomic test in my area of medicine I prescribe witch is psychotropic durgs just to see what you can take safely and to find out more about why you may have had so many problems with medication in the past.
I was like really!! you can do that? Im on bord because I really always wanted to know but then i started thinking what if its all in my head and this test shows that I should have had no reactions at all lol thats just the way I think but hey if it was all in my head I was already at the right place right?.....
So it was pretty simple a swob on the side of my cheek send it to the GeneSight lab via a little mail in kit and in 5 days your doctor will have your results.
Well im so glade that this doctor did this because the information that came back was literally life saving information!!
So when he called we have a video session its easier then going to an office he had just opened my results and started reading it in his head I seen his eyes get big. Well I see what your saying now he said, you cant take very many phych medications at all in category antidepressants only 4 medications were listed as safe to take in category anxiety/sleep medications most of witch have sedative properties I could take but 1 and category anti-psychotic medication there was 6 I could take so didnt leave him with many choices.
But why? Well like I said we have enzymes that help break down activate and deactivate medications and the enzymes that are needed in most drugs most people carry that's how they can make medications because most people carry these enzymes to activate deactivate to make them work. Well I am missing one of those enzymes witch is rear and so most medication needs both to work correctly. So what happens is if I'm on a medication thats in the red meaning cant take it either doesn't work at all, works slowly, works too much and becomes toxic in my system also not only that it can mess with your genetic code real crazy stuff and I still dont understand fully what that means. I guess thats a different post haha. But I do know my body will react different meaning skin reactions or withdrawal symptoms blood sugar drops blood pressure high and lows it messes with me to the point I've been rushed to the hospital because of a reaction to a medication before and its so scary for me that im even scared to take the medication that they say is safe because I was on two medications that were in the red one of witch I've been on for 3 years and this is what I hate and im sure it can be done but it cost more it didnt tell me weather which drug would do what to me meaning was the medication I've been on hurting me more then helping? And witch category did it fall under working very little, not at all, or becoming toxic in my body kind of like overdosing. And its not like I can just stop this medication right? And since this is so new that info is just not there so to my doctor that ment I could just stop because it was not working but NO thats not what it said so for the other medication that was in the red that he put me on while we were waiting to get the results back he said just to stop I had been on it for about a month but something told me that it was not safe so I ask are you sure I can just stop without withdrawal? Yes just stop so I did the second day I felt like I did when I was rushed to the hospital. WOW now I know what medication that took me to the hospital was now!!!! But how could that be if its not working so thats what is kind of messed up it didn't tell me witch one it was so I had to guess that because I was feeling withdrawal. So that ment it had been working but maybe just a little or maybe it was overworking making it toxic? So I had to taper off the medication myself because to my doctor it just said not working witch really means its not working properly in my body and could mean not working at all but he took it as not working at all so it was like my body was not even on it in the first place so not true and because its in the red how I feel coming off of it and how my body would react would be different as well just like when I started the medication I ended up in the hospital because my blood pressure went through the roof and I thought I was having a heart attack. And the other medication I've been on for years was through a different doctor so I would need to discuss coming off that medicine with him.
Very scary stuff I was like im so lucky that I got this test but like I said it was only in his area so he said I needed to give a copy to all of my doctors because they needed to have a full test done on me to see the full scale of what I could not take because most medications use those enzymes in order to work. So now im looking at all my other medications thinking I wonder what they are doing to me? Since most will be in the red how much of what I been going through was made worse by the medications? Or was it making me sicker was it even working? Like my blood pressure medication was that helping at all? So it showed me I needed to get the full picture and now knowing it wasn't in my head I was reacting to the drugs l
Like I though all along and when I would get sick or had a bad skin infection and was giving antibiotics I swore sometimes it didnt work or just made it worse. Anyways now that I had the PHARMACODYNAMIC GENES
GENOTYPES AND PHENOTYPES I could start looking them up and seeing what each did and what I was predisposition to and also some of the things I have already been diagnosed with was listed its crazy to read about things you could get in the future based on your genetics.
Witch brings me the long way around to learning about folic acid and that I didnt have enough of it and almost everything listed on a folic acid deficiency I am currently suffering from and that I couldn't just run out and get even the folate vitamins because I needed a special kind my body could metabolize called
In the U.S many of our foods have added folic acid because of how important it is to your overall health.
Its important you know that folic acid in its regular form the body can not break down so when your looking for a supplement make sure it says (folate) on the bottle. But if you end up being like so many of us you wont even be able to take folate you will need the activated kind.
Witch brings me to how I learned about folic acid and all the B vitamins.
All my life I've had extremely bad reactions to medications and could never figure out why. I also have many problems im diabetic have neuropathy, Interstitial cystitis, IBS, sleeping problems, short term memory loss fatigue, major skin problems ringworm, staph, MRSA, boils, its not fun and has left my body scared. I've been anemic at times and never understood why at 36 years old I have so many health problems and its not like all this just started so more like 27 years old when things started to get bad. I've always had skin problems and bad reactions to medications though.
So dealing with all these things tends to wear you down and I had become very depressed and decide it was time to see a Psych doctor.
My first visit I started to tell my new doctor about everything I'd been dealing with over the course of my lifetime and that because of my past reactions to medications I was very apprehensive about starting any new medication. I told him about how my body would get rashes, my blood pressure would rise how I would shake get dizzy feel like I was having a heart attack and was taking to hospital because of medication.
He was very understanding but I could tell he was wondering how much of this was in my head. Like maybe I was psyching myself out because of past reactions reason being I had reactions to almost every medications I was ever put on or showed no improvement at all.
The same look I've seen many times before. In fact the phych nurse I was seeing before him thought I was making it all up cause we had tried so many different medications that didn't work or I had adverse reactions to and she finely said im sorry but you need a real phych doctor im just a phych NP and was done with me. P.S come to find out those medications ended up being on the list of medication I could not take!
But back to what I was saying I was telling him all about my history and im sure he had read the notes from my last doctor who im sure didnt help me much in fact made me seem somewhat out there! I mean im sure I sounded crazy my own family thinks its in my head most of the time and they live with me and love me so I know he was thinking it to.
Now you all are like where is this going and whats it have to do with folic acid? Now I think shes crazy too.... Well Im just about there and im not crazy well maybe alittle lol.
Anyways after I was done explaining he said im going to have you do a genetics pharmacogenomic test in my area of medicine I prescribe witch is psychotropic durgs just to see what you can take safely and to find out more about why you may have had so many problems with medication in the past.
I was like really!! you can do that? Im on bord because I really always wanted to know but then i started thinking what if its all in my head and this test shows that I should have had no reactions at all lol thats just the way I think but hey if it was all in my head I was already at the right place right?.....
So it was pretty simple a swob on the side of my cheek send it to the GeneSight lab via a little mail in kit and in 5 days your doctor will have your results.
Well im so glade that this doctor did this because the information that came back was literally life saving information!!
So when he called we have a video session its easier then going to an office he had just opened my results and started reading it in his head I seen his eyes get big. Well I see what your saying now he said, you cant take very many phych medications at all in category antidepressants only 4 medications were listed as safe to take in category anxiety/sleep medications most of witch have sedative properties I could take but 1 and category anti-psychotic medication there was 6 I could take so didnt leave him with many choices.
But why? Well like I said we have enzymes that help break down activate and deactivate medications and the enzymes that are needed in most drugs most people carry that's how they can make medications because most people carry these enzymes to activate deactivate to make them work. Well I am missing one of those enzymes witch is rear and so most medication needs both to work correctly. So what happens is if I'm on a medication thats in the red meaning cant take it either doesn't work at all, works slowly, works too much and becomes toxic in my system also not only that it can mess with your genetic code real crazy stuff and I still dont understand fully what that means. I guess thats a different post haha. But I do know my body will react different meaning skin reactions or withdrawal symptoms blood sugar drops blood pressure high and lows it messes with me to the point I've been rushed to the hospital because of a reaction to a medication before and its so scary for me that im even scared to take the medication that they say is safe because I was on two medications that were in the red one of witch I've been on for 3 years and this is what I hate and im sure it can be done but it cost more it didnt tell me weather which drug would do what to me meaning was the medication I've been on hurting me more then helping? And witch category did it fall under working very little, not at all, or becoming toxic in my body kind of like overdosing. And its not like I can just stop this medication right? And since this is so new that info is just not there so to my doctor that ment I could just stop because it was not working but NO thats not what it said so for the other medication that was in the red that he put me on while we were waiting to get the results back he said just to stop I had been on it for about a month but something told me that it was not safe so I ask are you sure I can just stop without withdrawal? Yes just stop so I did the second day I felt like I did when I was rushed to the hospital. WOW now I know what medication that took me to the hospital was now!!!! But how could that be if its not working so thats what is kind of messed up it didn't tell me witch one it was so I had to guess that because I was feeling withdrawal. So that ment it had been working but maybe just a little or maybe it was overworking making it toxic? So I had to taper off the medication myself because to my doctor it just said not working witch really means its not working properly in my body and could mean not working at all but he took it as not working at all so it was like my body was not even on it in the first place so not true and because its in the red how I feel coming off of it and how my body would react would be different as well just like when I started the medication I ended up in the hospital because my blood pressure went through the roof and I thought I was having a heart attack. And the other medication I've been on for years was through a different doctor so I would need to discuss coming off that medicine with him.
Very scary stuff I was like im so lucky that I got this test but like I said it was only in his area so he said I needed to give a copy to all of my doctors because they needed to have a full test done on me to see the full scale of what I could not take because most medications use those enzymes in order to work. So now im looking at all my other medications thinking I wonder what they are doing to me? Since most will be in the red how much of what I been going through was made worse by the medications? Or was it making me sicker was it even working? Like my blood pressure medication was that helping at all? So it showed me I needed to get the full picture and now knowing it wasn't in my head I was reacting to the drugs l
Like I though all along and when I would get sick or had a bad skin infection and was giving antibiotics I swore sometimes it didnt work or just made it worse. Anyways now that I had the PHARMACODYNAMIC GENES
GENOTYPES AND PHENOTYPES I could start looking them up and seeing what each did and what I was predisposition to and also some of the things I have already been diagnosed with was listed its crazy to read about things you could get in the future based on your genetics.
Witch brings me the long way around to learning about folic acid and that I didnt have enough of it and almost everything listed on a folic acid deficiency I am currently suffering from and that I couldn't just run out and get even the folate vitamins because I needed a special kind my body could metabolize called
L-Methylfolate and its not cheap but oh well its so dam important that you cant live a good long life without it. So pay you will now there are some tricks to the trade to getting this supplement paid for by your insurance and I will link that info down below as well. But a quick run through is because its so important and is also used in the elderly they call it medical food and because you do have a deficiency your Doctor can hopefully get your insurance to pay all if not half the cost of a prescription so you do not have to pay out-of-pocket very much also in the link below on the site it says you wont have to pay more then $58 a month if insurance wont cover and that is less then one bottle by itself so there's help! I wonder how I'm going to feel after my body starts getting what it needs. Will my skin heal faster? Or can I fight a cold or flu better? So many questions in my head. I've been reading reviews from people like me who say they fill so much better I wonder how much will change I'm excited and can't wait! But I will write about the changes to come what I feel and I hope you all will leave me comments below about how you feel or if you have any questions let me know.
Will my health problems get better like neuropathy and the numbness in my hands and feet because I'll be making enough oxygen in my blood to travel all over my body? Only time and my body will tell but I hope so! Im going to list some links on what genetic mutation causes the body not to metabolize folic acid its called MTHFR stands
for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase—an enzyme that activates folic acid (turns it into folate) by adding a methyl group to it. The MTHFR gene is what dosnt metabolize folic acid into folate enough. Its very interesting and I've learned alot about what each enzyme dose for our body and why your most likely feeling the way you do.
Here are all the B- Vitamins and their job because some people get confused and think that B12 or B3 are B9.
They are all B- Vitamins but are different in what they do.- Thiamine or B1’s major role is to act as a coenzyme (helps catalyse a reaction) involved in the breakdown of sugars and amino acids that are found in whole grains
- Riboflavin or B2 acts as coenzyme and plays a major role in the production of ATP, the bodies “energy flow.” milk, mushrooms, spinach, liver, almonds are rich in riboflavin.
- Niacin is the most common form of vitamin B3 also nicotinamide is another common form. As with riboflavin both niacin and nicotinamide have a major role in the generation of ATP, it also helps break down fats carbs and proteins. Some foods like turkey, peanuts, and chicken are all high in niacin.
- Note: Niacin can cause skin to become red and warm this should subside if it continues you may be having a allergic reaction
- B5 (pantothenic acid) is a cofactor used in the synthesis of coenzyme A, which is important in the synthesis of fatty acids and the generation of ATP. Pantothenic acid is found in nearly every food, in part because it is so vital to life.
- B6 is vital in the process of amino acids an important neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and GABA. Through the AOC1 gene, B6 is also a cofactor for the production of diamine oxidase, the enzyme that breaks down histamine in the gut.
- B7 (biotin) aids in healthy blood sugar levels and is commonly recommended as a dietary supplement for the strengthening of nails and hair. Leafy greens, nuts and egg yolks are all rich in biotin.
- B12 . Hydroxocobalamin or B12 has many essential functions but the maintenance of adult neurological tissue in the brain also B9 and B12 work together to make red blood cells wotch is VERY important. Animal proteins have the highest B12.
- Folic acid or B9 is perhaps the most famous of all the B vitamins due to its importance role in pregnancy and early infancy.
- Because of what it dose in the body B9 or folate is extremely important for proper brain function and also plays a role in mental and emotional health it helps the production of DNA and RNA the bodys genetic material and is very important when cells and tissues are growing.
- Very important when your pregnant and when breast feeding also greatly needed in adolescents. B9 and B12 work together to help make red blood cells and help iron work in the body.
