A family came to us having spent, over eight months, more on supplements than the programme they could not afford. Folinic acid. Methylcobalamin injections. A high-dose vitamin protocol from a clinic in another city. No test before. No measurement after. When I asked what improved, the father said, honestly, “we think maybe his eye contact”.
I want to be careful here, because the easy version of this article would be wrong.
Folinic acid is not a scam
There is genuine research behind it. In children with cerebral folate deficiency — a real, diagnosable condition — folinic acid is the treatment, and it can make a substantial difference. There is also a body of work on children who test positive for folate receptor autoantibodies. For those children, it is a reasonable thing to try.
So the problem is not the molecule. The problem is everything that should surround it.
The two questions nobody asked
Which test showed that my child is one of the children this helps? Cerebral folate deficiency is diagnosed. Folate receptor autoantibodies are measured. If neither was done, then your child was given a treatment for a condition nobody established they had. The honest description of that is a guess — an expensive one, taken monthly.
What are we measuring, and when do we decide it has not worked? This is the question that protects your money and your child’s time. If nobody wrote down what should change and by when, then there is no point at which anyone will say stop. The supplement simply continues, and the feeling that something must be helping fills the space where evidence should be.
Why “we think maybe” is the predictable answer
Children develop while you are watching them. A child who is eight months older is a different child regardless of what they were taking. Without a baseline and a defined marker, you cannot separate the medicine from the eight months — and neither can I, and neither can the person who sold it.
This is why we insist on the baseline before anything starts. It is not bureaucracy. It is the only way the question can ever be answered.
What to do if you are already taking something
Do not stop a prescribed medicine because of an article. Bring it to the consultation — the bottle, the dose, who started it and why. We will go through what was tested, what was not, and what could be measured from here so that in three months you have an answer rather than a feeling.
And if a test does show your child needs it, you will hear that from us too. The point is not to be against medicines. The point is to know.
In Delhi: bring everything your child is taking to the first appointment at our Janakpuri West centre. Book an appointment