Oh my God, some people make you just want to drive the sparkle pony bus right off a cliff (I prefer riding my rainbow unicorn into the sunset, but we all have our thing, master).

There’s nothing quite as much fun as waking up in a cold, drafty castle with moisture everywhere. It always sets the mood for a shift and makes it difficult for Nursie poo to get out of the coffin. It tends to set the mood for the night. I was asked the other day why the Dracula references and the dark humor in a nursing blog. While the reason is fairly simple, many nurses, especially night nurses, spend a great deal of their time in dark situations (It’s the same with Social Work). Let’s face it, in medicine, bad things happen in the night. Patients develop new problems, sometimes critical, and the professionals are the only person there to deal with that situation. It develops a sense of autonomy, but it also develops a sense of teamwork with the very small staff allocated for night shift. Also, quite honestly, I love Dracula, and I’ve been to the castle of Vlad the Impaler. I’ve even seen the hunchbacks hanging outside the Home Depot in Transylvania (…not all of us hang out there…). And while I know that Igor worked with Dr. Frankenstein, my Igor did not want to be Renfield because Renfield ate bugs (And other things. *gag*).

Speaking of eating, I was perusing the Internet as always and found an interesting article from a site called IFL science. I think we can all imagine what the IFL stands for, however, there are some pretty good science articles on that site and one of them I saw has to deal with scurvy. Makes me feel kind of piratey (#shivermetimbers). Like aye ya scurvy dogs (said all piratey of course). So, scurvy is a deficiency of vitamin C (Not to be confused with the pop singer from the 90s). It’s really that simple and guess what the treatment is? Vitamin C. This does, however, raise one of the larger themes in this blog which is, of course, a proper diet.

Today, scurvy is seen mainly in the developing world, where malnutrition is most common. But scurvy seems to be experiencing a resurgence in countries where people should have access to plenty of vitamin C-rich foods.

A doctor in the urban Boston area states that they have diagnosed between 20 and 30 cases of scurvy over the past 6 years a surprisingly high number but why?

“Many people who have difficulty affording food tend to go for food that is high fat, high calorie, and very filling,”

You can read the entire article here.

Okay, this is a batten down the hatches all-out alert that we need to start policing peoples’ vitamins and minerals. However, it starts to raise a larger point which is, do our diets provide us with enough of the proper nutrients?

Well, with the resurgence of scurvy outside of the developing world, it is possible that we’re not getting the proper nutrients. Obviously, the average person reading this blog has a very slim chance of getting scurvy as they have a ready source of vitamin C and in fact, according to Nutritions, many people take way too much vitamin C. It’s food for thought. What is my diet doing for me regarding nutritional value? It also brings larger focus on the idea that even though you want to lose weight at a speed faster than you gained it, you really need to stop and look at the overall nutritional value of what you’re eating. This means looking at your basic vitamin intake and the balance of your nutrients.

 

This doesn’t mean that you need to run down to Whole Foods or GNC and buy a ton of vitamins or supplements. There’s a pretty dang good chance that your body does not need those. The vitamin and supplement industry is so poorly regulated that if you ever actually sit down and look at it and the standards that they have to meet, you may never want to take a vitamin or supplement out of a bottle again. This doesn’t mean there aren’t good ones out there, but it means there’s a lot of bad companies producing them.

Nursie poo is kind of old-fashioned in that the best place to get your vitamins and nutrients is from food. Your body likes this the best, and quite honestly it absorbs it the best. Shortly, be warned, that I will spend a great deal of time telling you why those supplements and vitamins in a bottle is a lot of smoke and mirrors unless you’re deficient. That, however, is for another day. I must now get Igor to stoke the fire and find my good cape for work tonight (The black one with rhinestones always sets your fiery eyes alight, sir).