OKEY DOKEY, TEA.
Thanks for the daymares. I mean, is tea not the most innocuous of all the beverages!? I know Diet Coke is janky and Four Loko is belch-flavored antifreeze and goblin blood is full of hexes, but can we not let our guard down around tea!? Apparently not, if you’re the kind of Michigan woman who uses 100 teabags per day. She discovered the dark side of tea the hard way. Dun-dun.
For the past 17 years, the now-47-year-old woman has been drinking at least a pitcher a day of something described as “thick tea” (ew)—a hyper-concentrated brew made from at least 100 bags. When she began suffering from pain and stiffness in her limbs, back, and hips, doctors discovered that x-treme tea consumption had caused her to develop a rare bone disease.
It led to her developing skeletal fluorosis – a bone disease caused by consuming too much of the mineral fluoride.
The Detroit Free Press reports she saw doctors at the city’s Henry Ford Hospital after getting pains and stiffness in her back, arms, legs and hips.
X-rays showed areas of abnormally dense bone in some of her spinal vertebrae and calcifications in the ligaments of her arms.
The New England Journal of Medicine reported that her fluoride levels were four times higher than is normal.
Dr. Sudhaker Rao told LiveScience she was referred to him suspected of having cancer, but he recognised her condition after coming across it in his native India.
He said excess fluoride is usually removed by the kidneys but if someone consumes too much of it then the mineral forms deposits on the bones.
So, just in case you thought anything in life was safe, it’s time to PANIC VIOLENTLY.
No, just kidding. Obviously excess in any form can be problematic, but now that the problem has been identified the tea lady is reportedly recuperating comfortably. She has given up her tea habit, and doctors expect her to make a full recovery as the fluoride deposits gradually dissolve. In closing, I would just like to say, ma’am, I am so sorry that that happened to you, I’m glad your bones are feeling better, and if you need me, I’ll be over here drinking sand out of this autoclave.
Michigan mom, 47, addicted to super-strong tea, loses all her teeth and develops rare bone disease [NYDN]
Photo credit: Rafa Irusta / Shutterstock.
