Other symptoms include feeling irritable and sad all the time, having severe joint or leg pain, and having swollen, bleeding gums. Developing red or blue spots on the skin, usually on the shins, and having skin that bruises easily can also be indicators, as well as thinning hair. It can be treated easily, but if it goes long enough without treating, it can be deadly.
Physician Eric Churchill from Springfield, Massachusetts: "We diagnosed our first case about five to six years ago. The initial case was quite dramatic: Someone with a mental health issue who would only eat bread and cheese. Between then and now we have diagnosed somewhere between 20 and 30 cases of scurvy.”