This morning, when I put the blue canister of salt back in its place, I made sure to rotate it so the word “iodized” was hidden. I didn’t want to hear how he doesn’t like the metallic taste of iodine. (I just did a tiny taste test and I can’t tell the difference.)
It made me wonder if lack of iodine can cause symptoms, which it does, mainly hypothyroidism, which he has.
Then I started looking at other vitamin deficiencies, like lack of B-12, which he has because of his anti-convulsant medications. (They checked to see if his rash was caused by his resulting B-12 injections, and it isn’t.)
Then I looked at lack of B-3, niacin, and there you go: niacin deficiency leads to pellagra. It looks like the rash, and it would be affected by food, and I did find a case where the anti-convulsants he’s on depleted niacin as well as B-12.
All I know about pellagra is what Mom told me: the floods in 1927 led to such a shortage of nutritious food and concurrent rashes that they made the connection. This begs the question: why not add it to the sugar like the iodine in the salt? (Leading to the answer: they add it to the flour.)
Of course, I imagine the blood test they did early on would show that he was missing niacin, but it isn’t on the site. I’m just telling myself they didn’t look for niacin. I like this diagfauxsis so much that I’m going to see if I can get Gary to have a breakfast of cottage cheese, fortified cereal, and apple slices with peanut butter, all big niacin delivery systems.
That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
5 responses to “Gary’s condition”
This has got to be SO hard, for everyone involved. All I can do is offer my sympathy. and also say that the word “diagfauxsis” is brilliant. Here’s hoping you have a solution, and it turns into a diag-true-sys (which doesn’t work quite so well, as a word).
Common Household Mom – Our family attitudes about illness are so opposite. It’s leading to a lot of issues. Knowing there are issues and why isn’t helping.
Good luck!
(some other stuff has iodine in it as well – will Gary eat seafood?)(but also I expect you would have noticed goiter; although maybe there’s a sub-goiter level of symptomatic iodine deficiency?)
KC – He doesn’t est seafood except for sushi, but the seaweed wrap gives you 150 percent of your RDA of iodine.