Hi Guys Hope you are all doing ok and was just looking to see if anyone could offer any advice at all. I found out a fortnight ago that my mri showed multiple lesions, today gp informs me that lumbar puncture was inconclusive, not enough evidence to confirm or rule out a diagnosis, no mention on evoked potential result but bloods came back with low folate reading of 1.6. Now bloods were done few weeks after being on steroids for optic neuritis and I read that they can cause low folate, anyone know if this is right or not as gp said low folate could cause lesions. Bloods have to be redone at end of november again and I’m also waiting on another mri of spine now too. (Also B12 was fine) Any advice would be gratefully appreciated Thanks Yvonne
I don’t think this will help very much, but I’ve done a quick search and can’t come up with anything that convinces me that steroids could cause folate to drop that low if it had been normal beforehand. Everything on-line is carefully worded with “may cause” folate to be depleted. I can’t access the full text of the only study that seems to get cited, but the abstract doesn’t give the impression that steroids would almost wipe folate out. I could be wrong though!
I also checked about folate and lesions and it seems that, like low B12, it can cause demyelination so your GP was right.
So I would think that low folate being behind your symptoms is a definite possibility, but I guess new blood tests, getting your folate levels up and new MRIs will reveal all.
Fingers crossed!
Karen x
Thanks for that Karen, they aren’t doing anything about folate levels until new bloods are done but fingers crossed we can get to bottom of it all by christmas. Thanks again Yvonne Xx