Have you heard of a gold ring color your finger black? Sometimes that happens, as it did with one of my recent patients. It may be because of hormonal changes, pH of the body being off or a chemical reaction with your skin chemistry, or it may indicate a sensitivity to the gold ring or earrings (which is never 100% gold ring), or it could indicate iron deficiency.
When a person is pregnant two things happen: hormones change and increase of iron demand. Hormonal changes do affect our chemistry and how we respond to minerals, since remember to create hormones you need two ingredients: minerals and fats. In addition, our reproductive hormones are controlled by thyroid. If we have any thyroid stress, our hormones will not be working adequately in the reproductive arena either creating various symptoms related to hormonal imbalance. If pregnant, it could mean morning sickness, vomiting, etc. If not pregnant, it could mean any symptoms of PMS, pain during menses, clots in the menstrual flow, etc. The increase of iron demand could represent a direct relationship to pregnancy as you need to make more blood for the baby and iron is essential for the child’s development. The other reason could be due to thyroid stress which creases increased utilization of iron and thus depletes iron storage.
Direct deficiency of iron stored could be tested by blood: “Serum Ferritin” test. Thyroid stress could be identified via nail analysis as well as Thyroid Antibody test also known as TPO. Other hormonal imbalance could be identified via Tongue diagnosis. However, another reason why body could respond in black skin coloration to gold, is the pH of your body. Ideally your tissue pH, which we test using narrow range pH paper with your saliva, should be between 7.2 and 7.4. At these ranges, I have not observed a person who would be capable to have a gold ring or other gold article, color their skin into a black shade.