MTHFR- What is making us sick...?

MTHFR- A gentic mutation where one's body cannot or partially cannot process folic acid.(in my words)  This is synthetic version our folic acid that they engineered in the 70's and added to everything to help prevent birth defects. Not to be confused with folate which is awesome and comes from natural foods like lemons, oranges, greens and beans. 

Unfortunately folic acid is in nearly anything fortified, almost everything, and ironically it is making a lot of us sick without it's knowing it. When our bodies can process this it stays in our system and blocks our cells from getting the nutrients we need. Read labels!

After Boe died we were determined to make sure we were healthy and capable of having a live baby. I went to my Naturopath to find answers and an opinion. She told me about the MTHFR.  I had been feeling anxious. My husband was tired. For some people these are side effects of too much folic acid backing up in your system. It congests the cells so they can intake other nutrients. Tons of us have folic acid floating around in our bodies all the time just clogging away, even if you don't have the gene. Processing folic acid for everyone is a slow ineffective process, for people who have the mutation it is or is near impossible depending on how many copies of the gene you have. 

My husband has two copies of the mutation, I have one. I can process some folic acid and my husband none. When I was taking my prenatal vitamin that had 125% of your daily intake of folic acid, my body was on overload. (note: my prenatal was a whole food certified organic vitamin.) I was unknowingly poisoning my body and the folic acid was depriving my baby from getting the nutrients he needed.

This may have been the cause for my miscarriage, we can't say for sure but my Naturopath seems to think so. I was taking a folate vitamin with Bella but because it is in a lot of our foods, caused me to have cholestasis where my liver not functioning properly. We believe that Bella and Boe's lives were perfect and these things happen for bigger picture reasons. Some unknown or understood. Some to teach us lessons and make us stronger people.

Now with our new pregnancy the baby is growing healthy and strong. She's measuring big actually, the changes we have made in our lifestyle has helped. We quit eating food enriched with folic acid and are taking methylated folate.

I want people to know what is out there, what is in our food and the possible effects it can have on our bodies and our lives. To learn more about folic acid, mthfr.net is really helpful. There are many conditions and illnesses that folic acid may be the cause of. From blood clots to cancer, it's worth the research.