Are you feeling weak and in search of your extreme fatigue causes? Lack of energy is a sign and symptom of vitamin deficiency. Feeling tired and weak can be caused by numerous health conditions, so narrowing it down to which one is a daunting task. A great place to start is assessing your diet to ensure an adequate intake of all essential vitamins.
There are two pieces of basic, and vital, information that help make this assessment. First, in order for your body to function properly you need to regularly consume these 13 essential vitamins:
- folate
- biotin
- vitamin A
- vitamin C
- vitamin D
- vitamin E
- vitamin K
- vitamin B1
- vitamin B2
- vitamin B3
- vitamin B6
- vitamin B12
- pantothenic acid
The next important bit of info is how long these vitamins are available for use by your body.
Some vitamins are classified as water soluble because they must be used fairly quickly or lost through urine. While the others are referred to as fat soluble because they can be stored in fatty tissue. Although you can be deficient in any of the essential vitamins, vitamin C and B vitamins are more often the ones as their excess is excreted, with the exception of vitamin B12 that’s stored in the liver for years.
Now back to those signs and symptoms. Vitamin deficiency expresses in different ways depending on which one you’re lacking. Weakness is a pervasive sign for several types of vitamin shortages. Why? One of the biggest reasons is anemia.
Vitamin deficiency anemia means your body is lacking red blood cells. As red blood cell count goes down so does your level of energy, possibly coupled with some of these other signs and symptoms:
Because each vitamin has their own unique functions, a single deficiency can cause a myriad of other health issues. Here’s just an example of additional subtle signs and symptoms indicating some type of vitamin deficiency:
- cheilitis
- dry hair
- halitosis
- epistaxis
- burning feet
- mouth sores
- appetite loss
- bleeding gums
- night blindness
- muscle atrophy
- digestive problems
- excessive bleeding
- slow wound healing
- dry, scaly, rough skin
- low resistance to infections
Since a vitamin deficiency usually develops slow, any of its symptoms will likely be subtle initially and then worsen. At your first sign of feeling weak check your diet to ensure all of the essential vitamin requirements are being consumed regularly. If your diet has been unbalanced of late, shift to a mega course of fruits and vegetables for a week or two to give your body an opportunity to right itself.