Reclaim your brain
Kim Baughman, 42, was too tired and achy to live her life—but doctors insisted she was fine. Here, how she identified the cause of her health woes and the fast cure
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Let me just lie down on the couch for a minute,” Kim Baughman muttered to herself after returning home from an early morning trip to the market. “Minutes ticked by, then hours… I couldn’t summon the energy to move even though I knew I needed to get up and turn those new groceries into dinner for my family. When my husband got home from work that evening, I was still in the same spot on the couch. All I could say was, ‘I’m sorry.’ Another entire day wasted. I just couldn’t make my body do what my heart wanted to do.
Feeling desperate
“That was two years ago, when it felt like I was walking through quicksand all day. Extreme fatigue, brain fog and arthritis-like pain made everything a slog. I felt so weak that most days I could only accomplish one thing— even simply mustering the energy to take a shower would send me back to the couch to rest. People told me it was stress, but I knew there had to be something else going on.
“When I gained 30 unexplained pounds, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ he quipped. ‘You’re just getting older… this is what happens.’ That only made me more frustrated.
“Two more doctors echoed the same thing, telling me to ‘eat better and exercise.’ But I had already cut sugar and dairy out of my diet and hadn’t seen any improvements. I started to second-guess myself, asking my husband, ‘Am I eating things I don’t realize? Am I sleepwalking to the fridge?’
“For a while I stopped visiting doctors. They weren’t helping, and honestly I feared it would cost a fortune to finally figure out what was wrong with me and fix it. So I suffered for a year and a half. It was scary. I didn’t want to feel this way for the rest of my life. And I wanted to have the strength to help my teenage daughter, who was starting to have the same symptoms as me.
“The situation looked bleak—my husband even started to worry that I was going to be sick forever. But I held on to hope that I would recover. Every night when I collapsed into bed, I would tell myself, Tomorrow can be better. It has to be.
“One day a girlfriend, who knew about my runaround with doctors, told me about a local functional medicine office that looked at genes and focused on finding the root causes of symptoms. She had been dealing with some
of the same issues as I was, and the doctors discovered her problems were due to a mutation with a specific gene called MTHFR. I’d never heard of this gene, but my friend said it played an important role in energy and wellness. It seemed like a long shot that I’d have the same genetic mutation as she did, but I was so sick that I was willing to try anything. So I made an appointment to get tested.
The answer at last!
“When the nurse practitioner looked at my test results, she said, ‘Well, of course you’re exhausted!’ and explained that testing confirmed I had the genetic mutation. I learned that when this gene has mutated, the body can’t fully process folic acid, which is the synthetic form of folate. As a result, I had folic acid trapped in my system and it was preventing me from feeling energized. The best news from the nurse: It was possible to fix this—and to feel better fast. I left the doctor’s office in relieved tears.
I don’t have to be sick and tired!
“To heal, I immediately cut out foods fortified with folic acid, which included processed cereals, pastas and breads. I started making my own bread using organic non-enriched flour so it was folic acid–free. I also learned that my multivitamin was contributing to my health problems since it contained folic acid. I switched to one with methylated folate, a form the body can metabolize even with the genetic mutation.
“Just five days after making those changes, my husband walked past me and did a double take.
‘Oh my gosh, you look happy,’ he gasped, stunned to see me off the sofa. He was right. It was amazing to have my energy back. Even my arthritis pain eased. And my body started shedding the extra weight.
“Now I tell people to get tested for this genetic mutation—or to just go ahead and eat as if they do have it. I had my family tested and all my kids and my husband also have the mutation. Thankfully, with dietary tweaks, everyone is feeling better.
“This gene mutation explained everything—not just with my health but with my daughter’s, as well as with problems the generation before me faced, like my mom’s anxiety. I can’t express how eye-opening and empowering this discovery has been. It’s like I have a new lease on life!” —as told to Lisa Maxbauer