Somebody gets their genetic test back, sees MTHFR, and buys methylfolate. Three days later I'm getting the email. Can't sleep, heart going, snapped at everybody in the house, headache sitting behind one eye that won't quit. So they cut the dose in half and the same thing happens. Then they stop altogether, feel fine inside of a week, and now they're scared of folate.
I've had that conversation more times than I can count.
They do need the folate. What they can't handle is the methyl group riding along with it. Methylfolate shows up with that tag already attached, and if you're slow at clearing methyl groups, and plenty of people are, you know about it fast.
So what do you give them instead? Not folic acid. I want to be clear about this one because I've been saying it for years and people still don't hear me. Folic acid is synthetic. Your body has to convert it before it's any use, humans are lousy at that conversion, and whatever doesn't get converted hangs around in your blood taking up the parking spots your real folate needs. The right amount of folic acid in your body is zero. Zero.
That leaves folinic acid. It's a real folate, the kind that turns up in leafy greens. It's already reduced, so it walks straight into the folate cycle instead of waiting on an enzyme to let it in, and it carries no methyl group whatsoever.
The dosing was the problem. Every folinic acid product I could find came as a capsule, hundreds of micrograms at the low end. If somebody reacts at a fraction of that, handing them that capsule is a problem. I watched people pull them apart, tip the powder onto a spoon, and eyeball a quarter of it. That's just not reliable.
So I put it in a dropper bottle. One drop is 100 mcg DFE. Glycerin and purified water are the only other things you'll find in it, because somebody trying to work out what they react to doesn't need me adding flavors and preservatives to the puzzle. Start at one drop every other day if that's where you have to start.
If you know you need folate and you've worked out that methylfolate isn't your form, this is for you.
