Nutrient deficiency in 18 year old?

Kacey · Nutrient deficiency in 18 year old?

My daughter, 18, has over the last few months started sleeping constantly. She is vigorous, healthy, very active (sports), and just in general with-it for her age. So, it isn't being a teenager. She went to a regular Dr for a load of blood tests. These showed borderline low numbers for vitamins B, D, iron, TSH, etc. But borderline. The Dr mentioned that it was strange that so many of them were borderline. If it had only been one or two she wouldn't have been concerned.

More tests. More results. - initial diagnosis - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Ok, no offense to anyone that truly has this illness - but after 3 or 4 weeks of test I think that it is a bit premature for that diagnosis.

Anyway - (we live in Denmark) - she goes to the US for a visit and my mom takes her to a Natural Medicine dr. He calls me and says - WOW, your daughter is massively nutrient deprived (based on a long questionnaire she filled out). She needs IMMEDIATE infusions of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) to the tune of 25 grams infused per week for 4 weeks.

My daughter thought the guy was a little - um, out there. He seemed reasonable to me, on the phone, BUT I have to question infusing this large amount of vitamin C into someone based on the answers to some questions.

My daughter eats as healthy as she can (she lives at boarding school). Salads, as much meat as is provided, and some fruit. She doesn't eat candy or junk and rarely drinks. (She's at a good body fat percentage and is careful with her intake). I would like her to eat even less carbs and more meat but it isn't realistic at boarding school.

So, my question is - does anyone have any experience with these ortho-molecular Dr's (focused on metal toxicity, individual treatments of vitamins, etc.)? I'm prepared for a LONG bout of testing in the general system (which is well supported in Denmark - and they are open to natural medicine as well) - but in the meantime, my daughter is getting more and more fatigued.

Any ideas, suggestions??

Thanks.
Kacey

Rich

Has she had blood work done recently? She is beautiful by the way.

Dean

I'm sorry to hear about this, Kacey.

It could be related to thyroid problems, perhaps. ??? Not knowing must be very frustrating, I'm sure.

She is gorgeous, BTW.

Kacey

Hi all - Thank you! I think she's beautiful but of course I'm biased!

She has had a bunch of blood work done - all showing borderline low. So, I guess I'm going to push for a bunch more. :-( She is in boarding school about 4 hours away so it is hard to get done remotely but we'll see. (at least better than two years ago when she spent the year as an exchange student in China - when she got sick there was NOTHING I could do and no way to understand the doctors at all!)

I just don't know how I feel about infusing all this Vitamin C. Confused

Rich

Please do not take this as advice just saying........

I did find this though,

The North American Dietary Reference Intake recommends 90 milligrams per day and no more than 2 grams per day (2000 milligrams per day).[42] Other related species sharing the same inability to produce vitamin C and requiring exogenous vitamin C consume 20 to 80 times this reference intake.[43][44] There is continuing debate within the scientific community over the best dose schedule (the amount and frequency of intake) of vitamin C for maintaining optimal health in humans.[45] It is generally agreed that a balanced diet without supplementation contains enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy in an average healthy adult, while those who are pregnant, smoke tobacco, or are under stress require slightly more.[42]

High doses (thousands of milligrams) may result in diarrhea in healthy adults. Proponents of alternative medicine (specifically orthomolecular medicine)[46] claim the onset of diarrhea to be an indication of where the body’s true vitamin C requirement lies, though this has yet to be clinically verified.

Kacey

Hi Rich - Thanks for that. I believe there is an element of truth in what these 'Dr's' are practicing but I don't want my daughter to be a science experiment. Not yet anyway. I think I'd like to run out of more traditional options first.

She is 18 - so even though she feels terrible - she feels like she'll 'just get over it'. Hard to convince her to get to the Dr. Ahhh well, the world is round - we'll get there eventually!

Thanks.
Kacey