Well, you said a "mouthful" there!

Hi ATV,

To quote Dr. Thomas Levy, MD, "...the three most important considerations in effective vitamin C therapy are "dose, dose, and dose. If you don't take enough, you won't get the desired effects. Period!...you will rarely ever fail to observe a dramatic response...if you take a large enough dose for a long enough time..."

ATV, dosage is THE key! Consider: If a doctor prescribed a dose of Antibiotic to a patient, it would come with both an amount and frequency of dosage. Hypothetically, if that patient decided to cut that prescribed Antibiotic dosage in half, and/or ingest it at one-half the prescribed frequency, and then did not get the results expected, could we really/honestly say that they tried the Antibiotic out, and it did not work? And so it is with ascorbic acid. Dr. Cathcart has written that he did NOT see significant results in his patients UNTIL they approached Bowel Tolerance: "The clinical symptoms of...diseases and other conditions...are markedly ameliorated ONLY as bowel tolerance dose levels (the amount that almost, but not quite, causes diarrhea) are approached."

As Cathcart's article [that I linked previously] points out, you let you body signal how much ascorbic acid it wants/needs [at any particular moment] via its Bowel Tolerance [reaction]. As that same article also points out, ATV, the amount of ascorbic acid that you may need to ingest [to get symptom amelioration] could be [at least initially] in the HUNDREDS of grams per day. Let your body "dictate" that amount.

If you find your stomach gets too acidic [which may happen on occasion, particularly at first], the solution is VERY simple: Just ingest whatever amount of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda, thereby creating sodium ascorbate in your stomach) you need, to alleviate the problem.

From your post, ATV, I would say you are "between a rock and a hard place," i.e. the time for half measures is long past!

Antioxidant ELECTRONS: You need them in VERY large quantities in order to correct your health issues. The only source that I have EVER found that can supply them in large enough amounts, i.e. THERAPEUTIC doses, healthfully, i.e. safely, over a long enough period of time, is ascorbate. Hydrogen ascorbate (ascorbic acid) has TWICE the "free"/extra/alkalinizing/toxin neutralizing/antioxidzing ELECTRONS, gram-for-gram, as the mineral ascorbates, e.g. sodium, calcium, magnesium, etc. As Dr. Cathcart, who has more clinical experience "prescribing" Bowel Tolerance doses of ascorbic acid than any person in history, put it, "...the dramatic effects are always with ascorbic acid orally and sodium ascorbate intravenously. I have not been able to achieve the ascorbate effect with mineral ascorbates orally. Mineral ascorbates are fine forms of vitamin C, but when you are really sick, the mitochondria are failing in their refueling of the free radical scavengers with electrons. The ascorbic acid carries 2 extra electrons per molecule, where the mineral ascorbates...carry only one (plus, per molecule, the mineral ascorbates are heavier due to the mineral weighing more than the hydrogen the mineral replaces). So the mineral ascorbates are not potent enough to accomplish the ascorbate effect. There may be other reasons that we do not appreciate additionally."

Any brand will do, ATV, as long as it is ascorbic acid. I get mine [one gram tablets] from Costco. The powder/crystal form is theoretically the best [and usually less expensive] because you do not have to ingest any tableting fillers with it. But that is not key: The key is getting a Bowel Tolerance dose [of electrons] into yourself DAILY!

Take it as often as you can, with and/or without food. It makes no difference. Dividing your daily intake into as many doses as possible will allow you to ingest a larger total amount. The animals all [with few exceptions, we being one of them] produce their own ascorbic acid, in MULTI-gram doses [standardized to 154 pounds], "24/7," i.e. every MINUTE of every day, for their entire lives. Dividing your total daily dose definitely helps with the total absorption.

If you have any other questions, comments, and/or concerns, ATV, by all means get them addressed!

Best of success to you [and you are most welcome]!

Sincerely,

David