I am so thankful that many have been contributing towards my alternative treatment funds. We were able to get in some more IV Vitamin C vials for the infusions. Yesterday, I was going to have Jason start an IV on me so that I could do the treatment in the evening. However, he had taken an overtime shift at the fire station, and they were keeping busy running calls. My daughter and I did stalk him on Life 360 to find him at a fire scene. Thankfully, they were about finished with the call, so we were able to say hello. At this point, we were ready to head back towards home. I was able to find a friend at a station close to my home to start the IV for me.
Once I had finished all the evening chores and cleaned up, I connected the infusion bag and settled on the couch for a long evening. I let the infusion run for about three hours to be on the safe side. I need to play it safe because I also put calcium and magnesium in the infusion. My older daughter took this picture of me as I just sat down to start the infusion.
Some of you may be wondering what is so special about High-dose IV Vitamin C? Can’t you just take a large oral dose of it? Those are some great questions! So, let me try to break it down so that you can understand why I find it so important.
There really is a large difference in oral vitamin C and high-dose IV Vitamin C. When you take medications orally, they need to be processed through the GI tract. It is safe to process a large quantity of Vitamin C through the GI tract because it is water-soluble, which means that it will be flushed out of your system instead of being stored for long periods. Of course, there are repercussions, such as possible upset stomach and diarrhea when you take large amounts at one time. When you take the IV Vitamin C, you are able to get in much larger doses without as many stomach issues.
So, what is considered “high dose”? High dose is when you take anywhere from 50 grams to 75 grams of Vitamin C. In case you missed that… the dose was in GRAMS and not milligrams! The pills you are taking at home might be 500 mg to 1,000 mg. Perhaps you have a cold coming on, so you decide to take two or three of them. That is normally a good amount for a daily supplement. However, a 1,000 mg tablet is only 1 gram. You would need 50 of them to get to 50 grams!
Why is it important to do “high dose” when you are fighting cancer? I’m so glad you asked! Vitamin C is normally a great antioxidant. Antioxidants are important because they help protect our body’s cells from damage caused by free radicals by neutralizing them. But what if we want to damage the cancer cells growing within the body? When you take high-dose IV Vitamin C at 50 grams or higher, the Vitamin C turns from an antioxidant into a prooxidant. This means that it causes free radicals to form in the body. Free radicals are also known as Reactive Oxygen Species or ROS. In the case of high-dose Vitamin C, this ROS produces hydrogen peroxide, which is H2O2 in chemical terms.
I know this is starting to sound really technical… but just hang in there, and I hope to help it make sense. Your body’s normal cells have an enzyme called catalase that will neutralize the free radicals that this prooxidant is producing. Tumor cells do not have this enzyme and cannot fight off the damaging effects of the free radicals. Therefore, the oxygen production that happens near the tumor cells will cause the cells to be attacked and killed. The molecules have split from H2O2 into H2O (water) and O1 (which was the free radical of oxygen). Your body is now able to get rid of the extra water with no issues.
Important things to note… You cannot be taking antioxidants while doing an IV Vitamin C treatment in the prooxidant state. Doing so will neutralize the effects of the treatment. I take a large amount of antioxidants every day as part of my cancer-fighting regimen. However, I have a special pill container set up for my IVC days that removes all of the antioxidant supplements. I have also learned that whey protein has antioxidants in it, so that should also be avoided on IVC days. There is one antioxidant that can be taken with or just after treatment at a low dosage. This supplement is called ALA or alpha-lipoic acid. It helps to recycle the vitamin C and maintain the levels in the tissues.
What about the studies? You may hear some conventional doctors tell you that the studies did not show any results with high-dose Vitamin C treatments. Just know that the studies were not all done the same. They did discover that oral Vitamin C, even in large quantities, was not effective. However, in some studies, they had added glutathione to the infusion, like what is normally given in low-dose IV vitamin C infusions to boost your immune system. The problem is that glutathione is an antioxidant, and that would have countered the effects of the prooxidant benefits from high-dose Vitamin C. So, no matter what the doctors tell you, just know that there are plenty of people out there who have had the treatments with beneficial results.
Best results happen with frequent and consistent treatments! That means doing these treatments about three times a week for several weeks. It is expensive to do the treatments. I have been blessed to have a friend who is helping me order the medication for home infusions. It has reduced my cost from $240 an infusion to about $125 an infusion. I am also blessed to have my husband and multiple other friends who are able and willing to start an IV on me when I need it.
If you have any questions, please reach out, and I will do my best to answer them. Keep watching the blogs for more insightful research that I have been doing on other alternative treatments, such as Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation!
