How to Use Vitamin C During Illness

How to Use Vitamin C During Illness

How to Use Vitamin C Therapeutically
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TREATMENT OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES WITH MASSIVE DOSES OF VITAMIN C

Robert F. Cathcart III, M.D.
(Reprinted with permission of the author)

Copyright (C), 1994 and prior years by Dr. Robert F. Cathcart. Dr. Cathcart gave his permission "to distribute via the internet as long as material is distributed in its entirety and not modified."

I want to emphasize first that the main reason that massive doses of vitamin C work against infectious diseases has little to do with the vitamin C functions as ordinarily understood. They work in massive doses because we are throwing away the vitamin C for the extra electrons carried. These extra electrons neutralize the free radicals (molecules missing electrons) that mediate all inflammations and cause the symptoms and deaths from these infectious diseases. It is not really a matter of medicine; it is a matter of chemistry. Doses of ascorbate which are massive enough to force a reducing redox potential into tissues affected by the disease will always neutralize the free radicals.

For maintenance doses, take an amount of ascorbic acid that is comfortable for you about 4 to 6 times a day. Remember that the dose may vary depending on how you feel.

The better you feel, you take less. The worse you feel, you take more.

Always, always, always drink water with ascorbic acid by mouth! Never let yourself get seriously dehydrated which can happen if you are very nauseated from the illness or medications.

Start with pure ascorbic acid crystals or powder. Then after you learn to read the needs of your body, switch over to capsules or tablets. Always take these with water. Over a long period of time ascorbic acid powder or crystals could cause topical damage to the enamel of your teeth. Capsules or tablets will not do this. (Editor's note: Buffering dissolved ascorbic acid powder with some sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) before drinking will render it pH neutral. And fizzy, too. Scroll down a bit at http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v4n4.txt Vitamin C as sodium ascorbate is also nonacidic.)

If you are exposed to the flu, increase your doses to very close to bowel tolerance. If you feel a virus is threatening, take doses even as frequently as every hour during the day and take an extra dose in the middle of the night if you wake to urinate.

WHAT TO DO FOR THE FLU

If you get the flu, take doses every hour, or maybe even more frequently, until diarrhea is almost produced. Actually, the diarrhea is not that bad so it might be better to tolerate a little diarrhea at first. If the flu is causing diarrhea, this may be difficult but those with experience in taking ascorbic acid can tell the difference between the flu diarrhea (which is uncomfortable) and the loosening of the stools by ascorbic acid (which is not usually uncomfortable).

If you are unable to take enough ascorbic acid by mouth to control the flu see an orthomolecular physician for intravenous sodium ascorbate. Ask the owners of a mom and pop health food store. They will probably know the names of physicians who will give intravenous sodium ascorbate in your area. (Editor's note: I do not maintain a database of such physicians, and am therefore unable to provide you with names or referrals. Trying a "Google" search may help you.)

INTRAVENOUS VITAMIN C

Sodium ascorbate intravenously can be given in bottles containing 60 grams of sodium ascorbate in 500 cc of water, lactated Ringer's or normal saline or half normal saline. D5W is OK but actually I like to avoid the sugar. By the way, do not eat sugar when you have the flu. It is best not to eat sugar anyway.

If 60 grams of sodium ascorbate does not reverse the symptoms given over 3 to 4 hours, then 120 grams in 1000 cc or 180 grams in 1500 cc may be administered. When enough ascorbate is given rapidly enough, it will eliminate the symptoms because the symptoms are mediated by free radicals. If enough electrons are made available through massive doses of ascorbate it will eliminate the symptoms including all the inflammation. It is matter of chemistry, not medicine.

Children take reduced doses IV. Usually a 10-year old takes adult doses. Sometimes you have to give chewable ascorbate by mouth in children. This does not work quite as well as ascorbic acid by mouth. Chewables are buffered of necessity to protect the teeth and are not quite as powerful, but better than nothing.

People who cannot obtain sodium ascorbate by vein (remember insurance will not usually pay for this, because it works and therefore reduces the needs for drugs) and who cannot tolerate bowel tolerance doses of ascorbate will get some lesser benefit from more moderate doses of ascorbic acid by mouth or from buffered C by mouth. They do not work as well against acute symptoms but may prevent serious complications. Remember that those people who die of the flu mostly have acute induced scurvy. If you take moderate doses of ascorbates, they should prevent acute induced scurvy. With any physician who does not believe this, have them take your serum levels of ascorbate when you are sick.

Children who are dying of the flu mostly have what I call "acute induced scurvy." Read the story about babies dying of acute induced scurvy in Dr. Archie Kalokerinos' book "Every Second Child." I, personally, treated one 2 year old who would not take the vitamin C I prescribed because of a viral disease and a temperature or 104 F. In the middle of the night during a snow storm, the mother called saying she thought her son was dying. I saw him immediately in the middle of the night. The boy was almost comatose with his back arched. I quickly gave him an intramuscular shot of one gram of sodium ascorbate in 4 cc of water without preservative. In a minute or so he was sitting up acting perfectly normal. The response was so dramatic that there was no question that the mother would have the child take the ascorbate subsequently. This was exactly the type of case described by Dr. Kalokerinos in Australia. There was no question that in an hour or two, if I had done the legally correct thing and sent him to the hospital, he would have been dead of acute induced scurvy.

ADDITIONAL READING:

1. Cathcart RF. The method of determining proper doses of vitamin C for the treatment of disease by titrating to bowel tolerance. J Orthomolecular Psychiatry 1981; 10:125-32.

2. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C: titrating to bowel tolerance, anascorbemia, and acute induced scurvy. Medical Hypotheses 1981; 7:1359-76.

3. Cathcart RF. A unique function for ascorbate. Medical Hypotheses 1991; 35: 32-7.

4. Klenner FR. Virus pneumonia and its treatment with vitamin C. J. South. Med. and Surg. 1948; 110: 60-3.

5. Klenner FR. The treatment of poliomyelitis and other virus diseases with vitamin C. J. South. Med. and Surg. 1949; 111:210-4.

6. Klenner FR. Observations on the dose and administration of ascorbic acid when employed beyond the range of a vitamin in human pathology. J. App. Nutr. 1971; 23: 61-88.

7. Klenner FR. Significance of high daily intake of ascorbic acid in preventive medicine. J. Int. Acad. Prev. Med. 1974; 1:45-9.

8. Stone I. Studies of a mammalian enzyme system for producing evolutionary evidence on man. Am. J. Phys. Anthro. 1965; 23:83-6.

9. Stone I. Hypoascorbemia: The genetic disease causing the human requirement for exogenous ascorbic acid. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 1966; 10: 133-4.

10. Stone I. The Healing Factor: Vitamin C Against Disease. Grosset and Dunlapp, New York, 1972.

11. Pauling L. Vitamin C and the Common Cold. W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1970.

12. Pauling L. Vitamin C, the Common Cold, and the Flu. W.H.Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1976.

13. Pauling L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better. W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1986.

14. Kalokerinos A. Every Second Child. Keats Publishing, Inc., New Canaan, 1981.

15. Cathcart RF. Clinical trial of vitamin C. Letter to the Editor, Medical Tribune, June 25, 1975.

16. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C in the treatment of acquired immunedeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Medical Hypotheses 1984; 14(4): 423-33.

17. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C: the nontoxic, nonrate-limited, antioxidant free radical scavenger.
Medical Hypotheses 1985; 18:61-77.

18. Cathcart RF. HIV infection and glutathione (Letter to editor concerning Vitamin C tolerance in AIDS).
Lancet 1990; 335(8683);235.

19. Cathcart RF. The vitamin C treatment of allergy and the normally unprimed state of antibodies.
Medical Hypotheses 1986;21(3): 307-21.

20. Hemil H. Vitamin C and the common cold. Br J Nutr 1992; 67:3-16.

Andrew Saul’s books are FIRE YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html ) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html ) .

Andrew W. Saul

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This page is not in any way offered as prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness, infirmity or physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health program necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and no one should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it from a physician.

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Last Updated:
July 2019