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Does High-Dose Vitamin C Address Chronic Fatigue? An N=1 Tentative Conclusion
Related: anti-oxidant, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, cognitive bias, cognitive commitment, cognitive dissonance, ethics in medicine, follow the money, follow the self-interest, gears of the machine, health, rationalization, Vitamin C
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re: Vitamin C
I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. Trust your institutionalized doctor as you see fit, and if you get good results, terrific. Lifelong suffering or take charge of your own life and hope for more?
For important background info, see the prior post and timeline, dosing etc.
UPDATE Nov 6 2023: more than ever after 5 months of experience, I now believe that this protocol was causal, because my energy is being maintained and better than ever in 3 years, and every time I have a “sag” of energy (perhaps from overdoing something), 8 grams of lipospheric Vitamin C each day for 3 days sets me right again. Moreover, my thyroid peroxidase has dropped from 64 to 38, a medical semi-miracle—rare at best.
I use: LivOn Laboratories Lypo Spheric Vitamin C @AMAZON and Nutricost Vitamin C
Does Vitamin C dosed appropriately help with chronic fatigue?
See also: The Pharmacokinetics of Vitamin C
What does that mean? An average for individuals with wildly varying causal factors? Even with cancer, certain treatments cure some while others see no benefit.
All you can do is try it yourself.
What counts is N=1 you, not a study which averages-out results nor any mainstream study designed for the desired outcome (failure). Such fraud can be implemented by dosing, cohort selection, data collection and analysis—all corrupt—follow the money. That is how it is done to ensure Big Pharma meds are the only option your doctor can offer you.
OTOH, there are outfits out there pushing supplements for profit, a weak sauce pharma-like profit model. But Vitamin C is so cheap and widely available that there is little incentive to do research that everyone can profit from. Therefore, the only studies you will ever likely see are those that show C to be a failure.
My tentative conclusion: Vitamin C helped me
What I use: LivOn Laboratories Lypo Spheric Vitamin C @AMAZON and Nutricost Ascorbic Acid Powder (Vitamin C) @AMAZON.
Just because it seems to be working for me does not mean it will work for you. There could be completely different factors involved. This is an experience report, not a proof or recommendation.
OTOH, what do you have to lose when your institutionalized doctor has no solutions other than expensive drugs with side effects that are little better than hopeful guessing and not likely to work? If your doctor even has any ideas of what to do (most do not for this sort of thing). After decades, chronic fatigue of all shapes and forms remains largely a mystery to allopathic medical doctors. Worse, some of these doctors will label it/you as psychosomatic.
Recapping the past two months:
- Two days after starting my protocol, I saw a big improvement. Coincidence?
- Matches or exceeds the longest period of good energy in 3+ years.
- Brief periods of reduced energy could be explained as perfectly normal due to sleep/rest. Never did I drop into the malaise of the past 3 years, and recovery was quick. I am older and much less fit than before and thus my resilience is also lower, so that might even be expected.
- The past week ~8, I hiked at high altitude for long periods carrying my tripod and pack 4 out of 6 days and active the other two days in significant ways, all while dealing with acclimating to altitude up to 12000 feet. I felt it for sure, but so did my 21 year old daughter.
My tentative hypothesis is that my Vitamin C protocol as dosed was/is a causal factor in restoring vigor. The more time that passes, the stronger I would make that assertion, because a three-year pattern has been broken.
However, I cannot rule out that by some cosmic coincidence of timing that the C had nothing to do with it. Or it might be the right thing at the right time, my body being primed for it somehow.
The key metric as I see it will be whether this continues on into the fall and winter. I could relapse into a horrible low-energy state as has repeatedly happened over 3+ years. But at this point, I will dose with the Vitamin C when/if I feel that happening.
Aat this point I feel like my challenge is now not my 3-year malaise, but resuming/continuing training at a level that lets me gain fitness and get my body fat down to a level consistent with the past 15 years. Shifting to that goal is a remarkable upgrade.
Which form of Vitamin C?
My sense of it is that the liposomal Vitamin C is definitely superior, because it achieves higher blood levels of C. But it is much more expensive and so that’s why I’ve used both.
What I use: LivOn Laboratories Lypo Spheric Vitamin C @AMAZON and Nutricost Ascorbic Acid Powder (Vitamin C) @AMAZON.
If expense is an issue, then try the powder first. Also, I cannot speak to any other brand of liposomal C as I have not used them.
