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poopergirl14052 said:

does iv ascorbid burn
does this hurt going in your veins. I had iv magnesium and it hurt like the dickens but i was able to finish the bag. Mag lvel was a little off. I know potassium burns also. Thanks for your posts...val

IV ascorbic acid and natural treatments
Val

Regarding your question about the ascorbic acid IV therapy: I have a port so it doesn't burn at all and I think it is pH adjusted to be well-tolerated in general. I used to work as a chelation nurse (EDTA & magnesium) and I would give patients a warm towel to put over their arm to reduce the discomfort from the infusion.

I have used 12.5 to 75 grams of ascorbic acid and the only side effect I've notice is being thirsty. I read somewhere that there may be a worsening of ascites from IV ascorbic acid but this has never been my experience. I don't know if that information is based on research or just because there is extra sodium with the ascorbic acid (it is in the form of sodium ascorbate).

Do a google search on "autoschizis" to find out how the ascorbic acid destroys cancer cells...it is fascinating! It slices up the cell membrane so that the inner contents of the malignant cells spill out while doing nothing to the healthy cells.

Often doctors will say "stop taking over the counter herbs and supplements" because they are not informed about the possible nutrient-drug interactions so it is better to be safe than sorry. I can understand that--oncologists can't be experts in everything out there.

There is still an attitude that antioxidents (like ascorbic acid) should not be used with chemo because it will diminish the effect of chemo but new research has shown this NOT to be the case at all. There is some evidence that taking the IV ascorbic acid and other antioxidents before chemo can help reduce the toxicity of the chemo.

Some natural treatments that I avoid is the use of grapefruit because of the "naringin" in grapefruit and the effect narigin has on keeping drugs in circulation longer. And I avoid St. John's Wort because it increases the liver's efficiency in removing drugs. I might consider using St. John's Wort (it is like herbal Prozac without the negative effects of Prozac) 4 days AFTER chemo to bring up the low serotonin (the neurotransmitter associated with depression) level caused by the chemo. It takes about 3 weeks for St. John's Wort to take effect and by then, it would be time for another chemo so I am not using it at this time. There are ways of measuring neurotransmitter levels (the lab is NeuroScience) so I would not take St. John's Wort unless I confirmed that I needed it.

Licorice will raise blood pressure by retaining sodium and losing potassium so watch out for that one even though it is useful for helping adrenals and energy level in general. That one should be used only under supervision of a knowlegable health care provider or herbalist.

best wishes,

Carolen

carolenk said:

Ascorbic acid IV vs oral therapy
I am certainly no expert on ascorbic acid (AA) therapy or even alternative therapy for ovarian cancer--I only know what I am doing and how I am doing--one day at a time. I have a doctor deciding how many AA IVs I will take and I am still doing first-line treatment so I expect it will be a while before I stop the AA IVs. Or maybe I will continue them on a less frequent basis until my money or my life runs out.

My son is a PhD biochemist (considerably more skilled at searching the Internet than I am) and he found some published research done using AA on people with various types of cancer who were considered "incurables" (they were not even offered chemotherapy). I will relate what I can remember to the best of my ability as I cannot locate the information to repost:

The patients were started off on IV AA 10 grams/day for a week then followed up with up to 10 grams/day orally (I am sorry that I cannot recall the exact details). The study had mixed results. Some people died as expected. Many people did amazingly well and outlived their prognosis then declined quickly and died. A handful of people improved and were still alive after more than 3 years. The researchers commented on the ability of the people with cancer to tolerate much larger doses of oral AA than people without cancer.

The usual way of dosing ascorbic acid is "to bowel tolerance" which means taking 1 gram of AA every hour until you have diarrhea. Then you back down the dose to a total of 1 gram less than the amount that caused the diarrhea. Is this what you did to get to the 12 gram dose?

I had an ascorbic acid blood level done immediately after receiving a 50 gram IV infusion of AA. The results were below normal. The doctor's explanation was that the AA was consumed by the malignant cells and converted to hydrogen peroxide.

I don't know if anyone who has/had palpable tumors has/had pain in the tumors after chemo but that's how it went for me. My understanding is that the tumors become inflamed before they die off. I had a LOT of tumors (including one behind my vagina) so I was always paying attention to where my discomfort was after chemo.

The tumors also inflamed and hurt after the ascorbic acid IV treatments. Should I wait for double blind, multi-center trials to convince me that there is some benefit in using AA therapy? Could there be some benefit in using ascorbic acid orally to bowel tolerance? So many questions, so hard to wait for answers.

take care,

Carolen

Solved my problem
I started copying the comment just before I post the comment.

When the comment disappears, I just paste it off the clipboard into a new comment and post it again.