MTHFR & Depression

 Nine months ago my husband became exhausted, depressed, had insomnia and lost a lot of interest in life. We went to his very kind general practitioner who told him he was just depressed and he needed an SSRI. She started to write out a prescription without any blood tests prior to this. I gently objected, but she insisted. He took the prescription and continued to get worse and worse and more tired and more depressed. After two weeks I was really concerned and called a psychiatric nurse practitioner who saw him right away. She did the blood tests. He had MTHFR that he had inherited from both of his parents. He also had high histamine, and inflammation, and his hormones were not balanced. He was also on another medication causing him serious problems and a blood pressure medication that contributed to depression and fatigue.
MTHFR homozygous means that your liver is 70 percent more likely not to detoxify than the average person. If you have MTHFR, you should avoid SSRI’s. They don’t work and can make you worse and even suicidal. Your body does not handle folic acid well because it blocks the pathways that methyfolate would normally use and methyfolate is a key compound for methylation. Methylation is a biochemical process involved in almost all of your body's functions and if is not working at an optimal level it will translate into many different health problems and will accelerate your aging process and also contribute to mental health problems. For more information on this check out MTHFR on You/Tube and also read the book “Dirty Genes,” by Dr. Ben Lynch.
The nurse practitioner put him on methylcobalmin sublingual vitamin B-12, also folate, and Cerenity PM. Since I have a Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition, I researched high histamine foods and took him off all dairy, some fish that is high in histamine and other high histamine foods. This also helped lower his high homocysteine. We included more leafy greens in his diet which are high in folate. We added glutathione to his supplements. He had already been taking fish oil, Barlean’s lemon swirl because it tastes like lemon pie, but we upped the dose to 3 tablespoons a day.
This protocol had amazing results and he overcame his fatigue and depression
.
Read more about this in the book, "Dirty Genes." by Dr. Ben Lynch.  There are also some good presentations on You/Tube on MTHFR.