The effects don't seem to be lasting

patjrvj.

I hope you’re doing better this week. I want to tell you a little about what my wife has been dealing with and I think it may have a lot of bearing on your situation. By way of background, my wife hasn’t really been seeing much benefit from TMS or Ketamine and, of course, SSRI’s and SNRI’s have done little to help her in years. She also did very poorly on atypical anti-psychotics and all the usual adjunctive therapies. So, her doctor ordered a genetic test for her and it turns out that she two mutations on her MTHFR gene, which causes a 70% reduction in her body’s ability to create the MTHFR enzyme, which is needed turn folic acid into L-methylfolate. This in turn blocks other down stream reactions, including the produce of SAM-e and certain other building blocks needed to produce seratonin, dopamine and neuroepinephrine and certain other key neurotransmitters.

Having this genetic defect does not mean a person will suffer from depression (although the degree certainly makes my wife far more prone to depression), but it definitely means that when a person does suffer from MDD or BP, they will be very resistant to treatment. My wife is also deficient in B12, which reduces her ability to create serotonin and red blood cells (among other things) through the methylation process. She is also deficient in vitamin B6, which makes it harder for her liver to clear toxins. Combined with her methylfolation issues, she has high homocystein levels, which causes inflamation of parts of her brain, liver, gall bladder and GI tract.

So, for years, my wife has suffered from treatment resistant depression, anemia, acne, PMDD (which is like severe PMS) and motion sickness. You might not think these things were connected, but the root cause for these problems is that darn genetic error that is blocking methylation cycle. When it comes to depression, this blockage (which is severe in my wife’s case) actually makes the usual treatments for depression toxic for her. She gets every side effect and little to know benefit.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to resolve this problem since you can take L-Methylfolate in high doses and completely bypass the blockage, along with certain necessary vitamin B co-factors. We literally just learned this last week and it was completely eye-opening!!! Fixing the methylate cycle isn’t a cure for depression, but it makes all the other things that were not helping the depression work again!!!!

I don’t know if you have had any issues with PMDD, anemia, motion sickness etc., but there is a strong connection between the MTHFR gene mutation and fibromyalgia. Google both words and you’ll see thousands of papers and articles on it. If you’re methylation process is blocked, you’re not producing enough dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine–which is a big contributing factor for depression. The methylation process is also responsible for the production of other neurotransmitters, including melatonin, GABA and glutamate. When your serotonin and melatonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, and GABA and glutamate neurotransmitters are out of balance, your nerve signals are not functioning properly and your CNS misfires systemically. You feel this in the form of pain—i.e., fibromyalgia.

If I were a betting man, I bet that you have at least one MTHFR mutation that is impacting the methylation cycle for you and possibly other vitamin deficiencies. You should have your doctor do a genetic test to see if you have this mutuation and the extent that it is impairing your methylation cycle, He should also do a blood panel to check your serum levels for homocystein and for vitamin deficiencies.

In the meantime, the connection in your case seems so obvious (now that I have read about 40 hours of material on this subject) and have spoken at length with my wife’s doctor, you might want to start taking the supplements now—you don’t need a prescription since high dose L-methylfolate just became available without a prescription in the past couple of years. My wife’s doctor gave her a prescription for Deplin, but it wasn’t covered by insurance and cost $180 for a month’s supply. This is totally unnecessary since you can get the same thing at the same dosage without a prescription for less than $60. Ultimately, you want to take 15mg of L-Methylfolate. https://www.amazon.com/MethylPro-B-Complex-L-Methylfolate-Formula-Capsules/dp/B0731TFNJ7/ref=sr_ph_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1522097144&sr=sr-1&keywords=methylpro However, you’ll need to take more B-Complex factors to aid the process. So you’ll need to take at least 3000mcg of B12 and 200mg of B6. If you decide to take these supplements, don’t start at 15mg on the first day. My wife made that mistake and she went off the deep end!!!! You need to start small. Take the B6, B12 and 2.5mg of L-Methylfolate to start in the morning. We bought 5mg tablets to start: https://www.amazon.com/MethylPro-L-Methylfolate-Professional-Strength-Capsules/dp/B0731TN7P6/ref=sr_1_7_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1522097495&sr=8-7&keywords=MethylPro&dpID=41ff52A1%252BGL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch Break those in half, so you’re taking 2.5mg to start in the morning, along with vitamin B6 and B12. You need to do this to clear the backlog of crap that has been building up because your methylation process is blocked up. If you tolerate the 2.5mg for 3 days, then take 2.5mg in the morning and 2.5mg at night for another 3 days. Then take 5mg in the morning for three days. If that goes ok, then take 5mg in the morning and 5mg at night for three days. If that’s still going ok, take two 5mg tablets in the morning and one 5mg tablet at night for three days. If you tolerate that well, then you go can start taking the 15mg with complex-B in the morning.

As you can see, you have to start this process slow and move up in baby steps. If you awaken the methylation process too quickly, things can go haywire fast because you’re flooding your nerves with all sorts of neurotransmitters that they are not used to processing. MY WIFE DID THIS BY ACCIDENT. She had samples from her doctor that had different names and didn’t realize it was all the same thing. She took 22mg of L-Methylfolate last Tuesday and the effect was freightening!!!! You can go from feeling on top of the world to want to rip people’s heads off or crying uncontrollably in less than an hour—literally!!! However, my wife’s mistakeis easily avoided by starting slow. Moreover, you can also if you start to feel the signs of over-methylation (start getting a little nutty feeling, maybe a bad headache etc.), you can take 50mg of niacin every 20 minutes or so until the symptoms are gone. So, you you would want to keep a bottle of niacin handy at all times. https://www.amazon.com/Source-Naturals-Vitamin-Metabolic-Support/dp/B001B4OYYC/ref=sr_1_17_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1522097880&sr=1-17&keywords=niacin Since this is the lowest dose I could find, you just have to break the pill in half.

By the way, this is not a replacement for taking your other meds. My wife is still taking her Viibryd and Welbutrin, but fixing this problem will actually allow those meds to start working (which happens fast, since she already has them in her system for months/years). So, after the initial two days of hell (which never should have happened if my wife had listened to the instruction she had been given), she took a day off from the meds and then started back up at 2.5mg. That day, my wife feel really darn good. She’s now up to her second 5mg a day (2.5 morning and 2.5mg at night) and she is tolerating it well. She didn’t need her niacin today. Best part is, when I called her to ask her how her day was going, she told me “I am doing well. I had a really nice day.” Uhhhhhhhhhh…… I haven’t heard that from her in years–even after ketamine and all these TMS treatments!!!!!!

WARNING: Some doctors and medical sources (including WebMD), will tell you that L-Methofolate is well tolerated even at 15mg and can be taken right away. This is WRONG. The studies these p-docs and neurologists read (my wife’s p-doc is a neurologist also) talk about dossing, tolerance and efficacy in very general terms. However, if you go on the forums and do your own homework and watch lectures to doctors given by naturopathic doctors, they’ll explain how you have to titrate the dosage and the very serious issues that can happen if you start at a very high dose. Most p-docs seem to be unaware of this because the studies done on the high dosing and TRD didn’t specifically consider how it effects people with MTHFR genetic issues (which effect them to varying degrees). So, even if you can start out at the high dose used in those studies right off the bat, why chance it? Start slow and build up will is still the way to go.

Obviously, my wife and I are still at the beginning of this supplemental journey, but so far things are really looking up. We have suffered with this depression (and anemia and PMDD) for years and nothing ever seemed to work. Now we think we have an answer for the first time!!!! So, now that we are clearing this metabolic blockage, the TMS and meds can finally do their job. I think there might be light at the end of this tunnel!!!!!!!!

TMS made my depression so severe it’s 2 years later and i’m sick. I had to go onto disability and suffer everyday pain and sickness i never had before. It’s a freakin Dangerous procedure. There messing with your brain with powerful magnets. There is no reversal if you get worse. It stays that way. I’m just waring you. This treatment is dangerous. I’ve never recovered and have lost everything spent thousands on Doctors since TMS.

Hello. Just update. There is evidence the TMS can make one worse. It comes from Columbia University. They did a study using fMRI to target areas because it does t work for many and can make one worse. They have said everyone is different and regular TMS is very generic with regarding finding the correct spot to put it. My life has been ruined by this treatment and spending thousands of dollars on psychiatrists with no help. It made my entire body hurt and 2.5 years le never o fix. I’ve even seem Dr Oerera who was on the Dr Oz TV show promoting TMS a few years back. He won’t do it again because I had a bad reaction. They must put a warning about maki g one worse so people can decide if it’s worth. I never had any warning and have lost my life as it once was.