More Genetics Fascination

We had a check-up last week with Trent's MTHFR specialist, and once again, I left fascinated by what we talked about and also loving his doctor even more! She just really understands Trent's mutation SO well and gets him.

First off, Trent is doing SO good. I want to state that because we are just so proud of how hard he's come and the young man he's turning into.

The start to the school year was really rough for him, which we honestly fully expected, because he's been saying since the end of last year that he was really nervous to move to Upper Elementary. {Quick Montessori sidebar: You are in a Montessori classroom for 3 years - Primary is 3 years old through Kindergarten, Lower Elementary is 1st - 3rd grades, and Upper Elementary is 4th - 6th grades.} Even though Trent changed schools mid-year last year, he was really nervous about this transition because it meant he went back to being the youngest in the class. But after we got over the hump of the first 2 weeks, he's been great. 

I was describing all of this to his doctor, and she recommended we talk to his behavioral therapist about CBT {Cognitive Behavioral Therapy} which basically rewires the way your brain responds to certain situations. Well, guess what? When I talked to his therapist, that's what they're doing! HAHA! So I can check that off the list - love when those line up!

The next thing we talked about was his specific mutation. She pulled up his genetic profile and commented that he also has an FOLR2 mutation.  So his MTHFR mutation means he can't properly methylate folate, and the FOLR2 mutation means he can't absorb folate - kind of a double whammy. Luckily, the medication he takes helps with both! She wants us to increase his dosage when he turns 10, which is perfect being in the summer because messing with his dosage can cause a little bit of a regression until he adjusts to it. 

That led into her deciding to prescribe him a prescription size dose of Omega-3, it's considered a medical food apparently? This will also hopefully help with his anxiety and therefore his aggression and some of his ADHD tendencies {even though he's never had a formal ADHD diagnosis, we've had several comments about him having some tendencies}.

Then we also talked about the vitamins he {and the girls} take. I asked her about Vitamin D and how I heard you needed to take it w/ K to help with absorption, and she said that was true AND the version they formulate has the K - boom, yay! She also told me to stop giving the kids vitamin C - the real benefit is when someone is sick and you get a HUGE dose through an IV - like 40,000 mg, and it can leech your copper and zinc levels, and it is the most bio-absorbable {meaning absorbed through food}. Her recommendation was the Smarty Pants multi-vitamin, since it has methylated folate in it, but we've tried that before and [shocker] Trent doesn't like it. Knowing that his diet isn't the best - we're so proud of him for now eating apples, carrots, and bananas, but he doesn't eat anything green - like he threw up when we got him to try a green bean! - we're going to try her office's version of a 'super' greens powder. He doesn't like the taste of the version we've tried before [shocker], but she swears this one is good, so we'll see!

And there you have it! Our latest checkup on Trent - more really cool information. I still want to do a 23andme profile on the rest of our family since Trent is heterozygous for each of his mutations, and I know my MTHFR combination means the girls each have a 50/50 chance of each mutation, so it'd be interesting to see what the girls actually have. 

I'm sure no one is still reading this, but I love learning more and more about this!