The bruises of a woman of a massage pistol were a sign of something worse: scorbut

The bruises of a 37 -year -old woman from a massage pistol ended up having a foreign cause that anyone could have expected. In a recent report, doctors documented how women had developed the rare scorbut condition.

Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania detailed the bizarre turn of events in an article published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine as part of a regular segment highlighting medically complex cases. Women ‘bruises were only the first sign of worsening health problems that finally landed in the hospital. Fortunately, after several false tracks, her clinicians correctly diagnosed the woman’s vitamin C deficiency, and she recovered.

The bad culprit

According to the report, the woman visited the emergency room for four days to have acute pain, swelling and bruising on the upper part of her left knee – symptoms that started after using an electric massage pistol on this area. It carried a genetic mutation which increased its general risk of blood coagulation, which was managed with a slimming of blood, and also had a long history of heavy menstrual bleeding. Anyone can potentially bruise or injure themselves by applying too much pressure with a massage pistol, however, and as the initial tests have found no other underlying reason for its symptoms, it was released and simply said to stop using the pistol.

Several weeks later, however, she visited the emergencies again, now with new symptoms of stunning and breathlessness while exercising. She was then admitted to the hospital. The doctors suspected that she had an anemia caused by a lack of iron, and she was released with an order of iron pills and weekly IV infusions.

Despite its treatment, its anemia and overall health continued to worsen. She visited emergencies six weeks after her hospitalization with new chest pain, night sweats and sudden weight loss of 15 pounds. She also had a high heart rate and a low level of oxygen in the blood, and soon, she was admitted to the intensive care unit.

Doctors determined that it had developed pulmonary hypertension, a type of fatal blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs and the right side of the heart. But all their tests continued not to show any clear indication of what caused him a disease in the first place.

Throughout all this, his left leg continued to show bruises and swelling. And when the doctors re-examined both legs, they found stains and distinctive discolored hairs curled up in the shape of a corkscrew. They also found that she had developed “soft-soft nodules” along her gums. Unlike its previous and more general symptoms, these skin problems ultimately underlined a very specific culprit, so rarely encountered, blow: scurching.

Asked, the woman admitted that she had deliberately avoided eating everything that containing citrus fruits ago, following an episode of hives that she attributed to the consumption of citrus. The tests did not detect vitamin C in its system, and it immediately started to supplement.

Only two days after her new therapy, she was released from the USI and finally the hospital too. His health continued to improve regularly in the coming months, and follow -up tests have shown that his heart problems have dissipated.

Rare but still around

Thanks to the generalized knowledge that we need regular doses of vitamin C of our diet, scurvy is no longer the formidable threat that it was centuries ago.

But even today, doctors still see it from time to time. Some research has also suggested that the incidence of scorbut in the United States has climbed recently, especially among vulnerable groups such as children with sensory problems, the elderly and others who find it difficult to eat or allow themselves healthy fruits and vegetables.

This case was more foreign than most, however, because pulmonary hypertension is generally not linked to scurvy. The authors note that the condition is often difficult to diagnose at first because – as in this case – the first signs tend to be non -specific symptoms potentially caused by many different things. As rare as it is, doctors hope that their report will be able to provide doctors with a right lesson that scorbut is still there.

“The current case recalls that scorbut continues to occur in the United States and highlights its potential severity and clinical characteristics,” they wrote.