New (to me) symptom of severe iron deficiency

[humanbean]

I'd never heard of this before and thought it might be useful to somebody...

People who are severely iron deficient can have the whites of their eyes (the "sclera") develop a blue tinge.

semanticscholar.org/paper/B...

[posthinking01]

Hi I developed a blue spot on my tongue last week when unwell and when I looked it up it meant low oxygen - i.e. anemia I daresay. Human body amazing how it 'talks' to us if you know where to look.

[arTistapple]

humanbean and posthinking01 . We see stuff like this in ‘romantic’ fiction written in earlier times. It’s obviously been observed without ‘knowing’ the reasons. I can’t help thinking in a clinical environment it would go unnoticed - like just about everything else in a clinical environment which requires observation skills.

I discovered a ‘fat’ blob on my eyeball about 50+ years ago. I found out many years later it’s a sign of liver dysfunction. I did indeed suffer Hep A as a child. Similarly, I later developed fatty deposits around the eyes due to high cholesterol. Tests are clear for actual liver dysfunction but cholesterol is a big issue for many hypos... However in our case high cholesterol is a metabolism issue - probably due mostly to low T3.

[helvella Administrator]

Another possible cause of blue conjunctiva is argyria - excess silver.

The choice of photograph is very extreme.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria

Also - and very much in tune with your post:

Systemic argyria with severe anemia (hemoglobin 2.4 g/L)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[arTistapple in reply to helvella]

Crikey helvella that is extreme. However we are all pretty concerned about what we might unwittingly be exposed to. So many people still finding out they have asbestosis (mesothelioma) and the connection has been known since at least the 1930s. Not quite as slow as medics uptake of understanding and application of thyroid knowledge!

[helvella Administrator in reply to helvella]

Image from paper

Thumb/thumbnail showing argyria colouration

[TSH110 in reply to helvella]

😱

[TSH110]

I knew the eyes are affected by malaria because my students in Africa told me they could tell I had it by looking at my eyes and the colour of the whites was affected.

I had a look for papers on it. It is well known with cerebral malaria:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

…but I have vivax. Sure enough the eyes are indeed affected:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

Anaemia is one cause with a blueish tinge but yellowing cos of jaundice can also occur plus a shed load of other nasties.

Both papers are open access

So the eyes are more than a window to the soul!