Vitamin C Deficiency in Vacaville

Vitamin C is important in the formation of carnitine, collage, hormone, and amino acid. It is also essential in bone and blood vessel health as well as wound healing. This vitamin is considered an antioxidant where it supports immune function and facilitates iron absorption.

You can acquire vitamin C from dietary sources such as broccoli, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes, citrus fruits, and sweet peppers. But, if your body is deficient of vitamin C in Vacaville, it can result in scurvy, which is a disorder characterized by abnormal dentin and osteoid formation and hemorrhagic manifestations.

Etiology in Vacaville

The most common reason why adults have vitamin C deficiency is due to an inadequate diet. Dietary vitamin C is more sought out when a person is having achlorhydria, burns, cold or heat stress, hyperthyroidism, smoking, surgery, febrile illnesses, inflammatory disorders, iron deficiency, and protein deficiency. Heated food can also destroy its vitamin C content.

Pathophysiology

When you don't have enough vitamin C in your body, the formation of intercellular cement substances in bones, dentin, and connective tissues is defective. This could weaken your capillaries with subsequent hemorrhage and defects in bones and other structures.

In children, bone tissue formation becomes impaired, thus causing bone lesions and poor bone growth. Fibrous tissue starts to develop between the epiphysis and diaphysis, and your costochondral junctions become enlarged. Densely calcified fragments of cartilage are embedded in the fibrous tissue. Both children and adults can also experience subperiosteal hemorrhages.

Signs and symptoms

Adults will start experiencing symptoms of vitamin C deficiency after months or weeks of not getting enough of the said vitamin. Early signs include irritability, lassitude, weakness, weight loss, and vague arthralgias and myalgias.

Scurvy symptoms may also show up a few months after the deficiency. Coiled hair, follicular hyperkeratosis, and perifollicular hemorrhages will start to develop. Your gums will start to become friable, purple, spongy, and swollen. Eventually, your teeth will become loose and avulsed.

You will also start experiencing secondary infections. Your wounds will heal slowly and can easily tear. Spontaneous hemorrhages can happen, especially as bulbar conjunctival hemorrhage, or as ecchymoses in the skin of the lower limbs.

Other signs and symptoms may also include femoral neuropathy caused by hemorrhage in the femoral sheaths, lower extremity edema, effusions or painful bleeding within joints.

Treatment

The best way to acquire vitamin C is through a nutritious diet that's rich in supplemental ascorbic acid.

Adults with scurvy should take ascorbic acid 100 to 500mg orally for 3 times a day and it is given for 1 to 2 weeks or until the signs are gone. This will be paired with a nutritious diet that supplies 1 to 2 times of the daily recommended intake.

In scurvy, therapeutic intake of ascorbic acid will restore vitamin C in just a matter of days. The signs and symptoms will start disappearing in 1 to 2 weeks. However, chronic gingivitis with extensive subcutaneous hemorrhage may last longer.

Prevention

It is recommended that men should take 90mg of vitamin C orally per day while women should aim for 75mg. If you're a smoker, add 35mg on top of the recommended amount. Also, eating 5 servings of most fruits and vegetables can provide you more than 200mg of vitamin C.