Is it possible to find the values of MySQL variables if I do not have SELECT privileges on mysql.user? I am getting a 'msyql server has gone away' error sometimes when doing a large binary insert, so I wanted to check the settings on mysql, things like wait_timeout and max_allowed_packet. However

show create table mysql.user


returns

[Err] 1142 - SELECT command denied to user '557574_prod'@'96.25.95.162' for table 'user'


I'd rather not hit up tech support whenever I want to know some of the relevant settings, so I was wondering if there might be a workaround?
You could do things like these:

SHOW VARIABLES;

SHOW GRANTS;

Show status;