A vitamin when it became poison

It was a few months ago, Dr. Sasmeet Roy arrived at Centra Lynchburg General Hospital early in the morning and got busy with his work.

This treatment center is located in Lynchburg, Virginia, USA. Dr. Sasmeet Roy is a nephrologist. Meanwhile, he came across the file of a seventy-year-old woman, Jenny. Jenny was admitted to the hospital last night. The patient’s kidneys were not functioning properly.

After finishing work, he reached Jenny’s room to meet her. Seeing her face, Dr. Sasmit realized that this woman was in pain. Janey had developed cancer in the lining of the uterus and was undergoing treatment. Now his kidneys were not working properly. Thus, the poor woman was caught in a new dilemma. Jenny’s granddaughter was getting married soon. She wanted to participate in this joyous event in good health. But life had something else planned.

The doctor who was treating the patient for cancer had sent her to the hospital because the tests revealed that the level of creatinine in Jenny’s blood was very high. This substance is produced when the ingested protein is broken down in the body. Under normal conditions, the amount of this substance in human blood is 0.5 to 1.1 mg per deciliter. But the amount in Jeni’s blood was found to be seven times higher ie 6.8 mg.

This was alarming. The reason is that the excess amount of creatinine in the blood is removed from the body by our kidneys. Thus, this substance does not prove to be harmful to human health. Since the substance was found in large quantities in the patient’s body, it meant that the kidneys were not functioning properly. That’s why the doctor immediately sent Jenny to the hospital.

Dr. Sasmeet Roy first took information from Jenny. For example, discovered that she is drinking adequate amounts of water? In fact, people who undergo chemotherapy while undergoing cancer treatment, often die of hunger and thirst. Jenny said she drinks water. The doctor still put him on a saline drip. Then an ultrasound was done to see if there were no tumors in the kidneys.

The main function of our kidneys is to clean the blood from all kinds of waste and waste products. Every minute, half a cup of blood is removed from the kidneys and cleaned. Kidneys suck the toxic liquid out of the body through urine. Blood in the kidneys passes through a structure called ‘nephron’ which has two parts: glomerulus and tubule. The first part cleans the blood. The other pumps the purified blood back into the body.

Diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and lupus gradually destroy this natural special structure of the kidneys. Certain types of cancer, infections, and certain medications can cause inflammation of the nephron structure, which is medically called nephritis. This medical disorder also damages the kidneys.

Why did the problem arise?

However, it was not known from the medical examinations why the excess of creatinine in Jenny’s body was born. During this two days passed. When Dr. Sasmit came to see her, he noticed that Jenny was weaker than last time. His color had also turned yellow. She also looked lazy. As if the threat to his health was increasing. The doctor thought that she might not be able to absorb the chemotherapy drugs that she had been taking for the past six months.

The problem was that all of Jenny’s tests came back normal, even though her physical condition was getting worse. Alarmingly, the amount of creatinine in the blood was constantly increasing. It was a sign that something was wrong. However, the tests also revealed that Jenny’s blood is increasing in acidity. This was another important sign of kidney failure. Meaning his kidneys had stopped working. Now it became necessary to undergo dialysis of Jeni so that the body can be freed from toxic elements. If this waste did not come out of the body, it could have affected the heart and liver and put Jenny to sleep of death.

It was obvious that the seventy-year-old woman had reached the border of death. This shocked all of Jenny’s doctors, including Dr. Sasmit. Finally, Dr. Sasmeet became a detective. He repeatedly asked Jenny about the routine of daily life. He was sure that the old lady was forgetting something important. His guess proved correct.

The knot is untied

It was revealed that for a few months she had been seeing a doctor based in the nearby town of Charlottesville. That doctor was injecting him with Vitamin C. He claimed that these injections would make Jenny hungry and improve her overall health. When Dr. Sasmit learned how much vitamin C was being given to Jenny, he hit his head in shock. However, this revelation unraveled the mystery of why Jenny’s creatinine increased and how her kidneys stopped working.

Vitamin C is an important nutrient required for human health. With its help, our body makes compounds that keep the heart, brain, veins and nerves healthy. It protects human cells from harmful substances. Protein and iron are absorbed by the body. Due to this, wounds heal easily. We get this vitamin from food. It also has pills.

An adult needs 75 to 90 milligrams of the vitamin per day. He can take a maximum of 1800 mg. Children and adolescents need less of this vitamin. Dr. Sasmit found that Jenny was taking 1,000 grams of vitamins every week through injections. The doctor also assured the woman that this treatment can cure the cancer.

Surprisingly, this incompetent doctor did not know that vitamin C can be poisoned when humans take it in high doses. This is because when the body has too much vitamin C, the kidneys try to excrete it. Then this vitamin stored in the kidneys turns into a substance, oxalate. It is a sharp crystalline substance.

Oxalate does not usually affect the kidneys, but it does form stones. But if the amount of vitamin C in the blood increases to a certain extent, the produced oxalate starts to damage the nephron structure of the kidneys. It kills glomerulus and tubule cells. Thus the kidneys become ineffective. The same process took place in Jenny’s body because she was taking high doses of vitamin C by injection.

Dr. Sasmit immediately put Jenny on dialysis to clean the blood and rest the kidneys. The woman’s condition recovered within a day. After a few days she recovered. But oxalate damaged his kidneys. However, he now has to undergo dialysis three times a week to rid his body of toxins and keep him alive.

Three lessons

The above incident teaches us three important lessons. First, take the required amount of vitamin C daily through food or pills. Overdosage will cause medical complications. For example, today is the season of Kanu and Malte, in which vitamin C is abundant. So eat them in moderation. Secondly, even in a developed country like America, there are doctors who can endanger precious human lives due to their inexperience and ignorance. Thirdly, the doctor should always have a detailed discussion and answer questions with the patient so that he can understand the nature of the disease well. The close relationship between the doctor and the patient gives the blessing of health to the person by curing the disease quickly.