MTHFR questions

[Jeana Jones]

First of all, I haven't had myself tested or anybody else in my family tested, but I'm suspecting it might be an issue. I've been working through my health issues for years, and while I've made a lot of progress, I feel like I still have a long way to go, and I'm wondering if MTHFR may have something to do with it. After all, my dad had a cleft palate and has heart disease, my parents struggled with infertility and had several miscarriages, my grandmother has celiac disease, my sister has juvenile diabetes, I recently discovered that while I have pretty good tongue function, I do have something of a tongue/lip-tie, and it seems that all the women in my family have mental/emotional problems of some sort.

Both my kids are tongue-tied, have food sensitivities, gut imbalance. With my older child, I was on a prenatal with 800 mcg folic acid, with my younger (the one with the more severe tie and food sensitivities), I avoided folic acid like the plague and made sure to get at least 400-800 mcg folate from my foods (and probably more, since I was only counting the veggies that I knew - broccoli, collards, juiced lettuce and celery, beets).

Between my two kids, I learned a bit about MTHFR, enough to switch to a food-based folate pregnancy plan just in case, but obviously, it didn't fix things. I've been reading a lot on the different genes and what affects they have, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what the bottom line of what to do would be. I've seen a lot of recommendations for protocols involving lots of folic acid and drugs or high amounts of natural supplements. I prefer foods. I wouldn't take supplements unless I have a confirmed need. It's just what I feel is right. I take artificial D3 after a confirmed deficiency during my second pregnancy (yes, I know... possibly also related to MTHFR - and gluten, which I'm pretty sure is an issue) but no other supplements else.

So what's the bottom line? If I and/or my family is affected by this gene(s), what needs to be done? Is it just that I need to get lots of natural folate and avoid folic acid? How much is lots? I know that probably varies based on which gene. I thought that it was just that the genes compromised your ability to convert folic acid into usable folate, so the bottom line would be to get enough folate and not get folic acid. Most of the things I read talk about how bad mandatory folic acid supplementation is because of this MTHFR gene that a whole lot of us have, and how we should eat folate in our foods and maybe take a natural folate supplement when TTC or pregnant, but what I'm learning now, it seems like it's more complicated than that. What would a person with this gene actually need?