• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Ascorbic Acid Worsening Candida

Shellbell

Senior Member
Messages
277
Update on my vitamin C journey - Please forgive me, but I haven't had time to read all the posts since I last posted from last year. One of those rough days.

Anyway, I have stopped the vitamin C protocol. Even though initially I was feeling so much better, over time, I started to decline and found I was starting to feel much worse. It was the sickest I had been in awhile. We weren't sure what was causing my issues. I became super sensitive to everything again. Initially, I was told it was die-off. I learned at this time I have lyme disease. I developed an ongoing infection of bronchitis while this was happening. My gallbladder and liver became a huge problem, as well. My gut feeling was that it was the high doses of vitamin C and too much detox. The group of practitioners I was seeing kept telling it was impossible. I kept telling myself to listen to my body and so glad I did! At that point, I stopped seeing my practitioners to see if my body would settle down. I didn't feel that I was being heard and couldn't afford to stay in the same place health wise. I felt like death.

Fast forward to this year. I have since learned that I have more than one G6PD gene variant. High doses of vitamin C and G6PD don't go together. If I would have continued, I could have killed myself. My practitioners kept telling me back then that testing for G6PD wasn't necessary because of my ethnic background being mainly Northern European and was considered rare. Fortunately, my current team says, "not so." It isn't as rare as once thought. The reasoning for me feeling well for a short amount of time was because I was so deficient in vitamin C, etc. But the large amounts built up in system to the level it couldn't handle the load anymore.

My message to everyone, please check your genes before embarking on high dose vitamin C protocols. A knowledgable doctor should know to run tests before doing so. I wish I could have continued because those weeks I felt good were fantastic. I literally felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Energy, body pain, and stomach issues greatly declined, only to return with a vengeance. I hope this helps. My best to everyone!
 
Messages
1
Now if you want the levels of Sodium Ascorbate required to kill candida you need it in the form of lypospheric Vitamin C ( in the form of ascorbic acid ) or Intravenous vitamin C. It is virtually impossible to injest vitamin C in a non lyposheric form to get your blood levels high enough for it to have an effect on candida. The only way you can get your blood levels high enough is by injesting in a lyposheric form or taking it IV ( IV with a medical professional ).

I am interested in what you say about vitamin C killing candida. So I read Dr Cathcart's article - see http://www.mall-net.com/cathcart/titrate.html. He is saying that it doesn't appear to kill candida, that at best possibly when the cells are saturated with candida, antifungals can get into the cells to kill the candida. Do you know if Dr Cathcart changed his views? If so, are there any articles where he says high dose vitamin C can kill candida? Thanks
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Messages
1
ANOTHER POSSIBILITY: There is a co-infection with Clostridium species of bacteria. Vitamin C (especially in high-doses) are known to make things worse with clostridium. This a common co-infection with candida. Clostridium must be dealt with first. All the best!
 
Messages
62
I had an Organic Acids test done a month and a half ago, and with a median range of 10-200 Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) mine came back a 0.49.
Could this level actually be CAUSED by candida, or by a fungal/yeast overgrowth? According to the test I have very high carboxycitric under the Yeast and Fungal category, and high 2-hydroxyphenylacetic and 4-hydroxybenzoic.
Clostridia Bacterial markers seem within normal range.
I've also been having a terrible time coming off of Wellbutrin, which is primarily a dopamine drug...could my not being able to get off the drug have something to do with such a low Vitamin C level? I've gone from a dose of Wellbutrin of 300mg a day, to 2 mg a day, and can't get off that final tiny bit of it for the life of me.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
In terms of becoming more acidic, am referring to levels of ascorbic acid in the range of 20-50grams,

Just wanted to add that I've been in that range (23 g/d) of pure ascorbic acid powder for 10 years, with great benefits. In this time I tested 4 capillary blood gasses, which came back each time highly alkaline (avg. 7.48; 7.35-7.45 normal range). So in my case ascorbic acid didn't increase acidity at all. the contrary.
 

Wolfcub

Senior Member
Messages
7,089
Location
SW UK
@adreno
thanks - its nice when things make sense:)

I read about people taking 10g of vit c in the evening and think - what!!!
but again its how different we are

It has to be with how different we are, like you say @maryb I take 1000mg vit C in the morning after breakfast, and 1000 in the evening after dinner and fall asleep easily 6 hours later (because I am so exhausted)

I don't know how ascorbic acid works with Candida at all....but I know it can sometimes greatly boost energy. That might feasibly lead to a "wired" feeling with some people. I remember when I was nursing my husband just before he died in 1999. I was exhausted and got little sleep. My only saving grace was high doses of vitamin C which had a stronger energy boost effect than any caffeine.
 

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
i've been taking some vitamin c yesterday and today and my tongue is now covered in white furry mucus. I sure hope this is die off but it really seems like it's making candida flare....
This is exactly what happened to me when going up to 15 grams vitamin C as per Dr M's instruction. It was an absolute disaster and I still haven't recovered. My health is 80% worse than it was before I started on it for around 7 weeks.

It flared Candida especially on my tongue and in my gut plus I seemed to loose the small amount of good bacteria I had.

I am able to tolerate Enzyme Science's Candida Complete but I have tried just one capsule Nystatin on a couple of days but it has given me horrendous migraine and at present I am feeling like death have tried a small amount of Rimfaximin for the SIBO which also came back. I have one of the worst migraines ever and would happily have died this morning as I felt so ill.

I wish I had never consulted with this particular doctor.

Pam
 

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
ANOTHER POSSIBILITY: There is a co-infection with Clostridium species of bacteria. Vitamin C (especially in high-doses) are known to make things worse with clostridium. This a common co-infection with candida. Clostridium must be dealt with first. All the best!

Thanks for that and I did indeed have high Clostridia species on a recent Organic Acid test which the doctor I mentioned had a copy of!

Pam
 
Messages
17
Update on my vitamin C journey - Please forgive me, but I haven't had time to read all the posts since I last posted from last year. One of those rough days.

Anyway, I have stopped the vitamin C protocol. Even though initially I was feeling so much better, over time, I started to decline and found I was starting to feel much worse. It was the sickest I had been in awhile. We weren't sure what was causing my issues. I became super sensitive to everything again. Initially, I was told it was die-off. I learned at this time I have lyme disease. I developed an ongoing infection of bronchitis while this was happening. My gallbladder and liver became a huge problem, as well. My gut feeling was that it was the high doses of vitamin C and too much detox. The group of practitioners I was seeing kept telling it was impossible. I kept telling myself to listen to my body and so glad I did! At that point, I stopped seeing my practitioners to see if my body would settle down. I didn't feel that I was being heard and couldn't afford to stay in the same place health wise. I felt like death.

Fast forward to this year. I have since learned that I have more than one G6PD gene variant. High doses of vitamin C and G6PD don't go together. If I would have continued, I could have killed myself. My practitioners kept telling me back then that testing for G6PD wasn't necessary because of my ethnic background being mainly Northern European and was considered rare. Fortunately, my current team says, "not so." It isn't as rare as once thought. The reasoning for me feeling well for a short amount of time was because I was so deficient in vitamin C, etc. But the large amounts built up in system to the level it couldn't handle the load anymore.

My message to everyone, please check your genes before embarking on high dose vitamin C protocols. A knowledgable doctor should know to run tests before doing so. I wish I could have continued because those weeks I felt good were fantastic. I literally felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Energy, body pain, and stomach issues greatly declined, only to return with a vengeance. I hope this helps. My best to everyone!
It could be that you were sensitive to the corn which makes up ascorbic acid often. I had bad results on ascorbic acid, but good results on magnesium ascirbaas (unfortunately it is a lot more expensive)
 
Messages
62
There is also a connection between vitamin C increasing oxalates.
That's really interesting! Do you have a source? I'd love to read about it. I'm trying to figure out whether I should try higher doses of vitamin C myself.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
That's really interesting! Do you have a source? I'd love to read about it.

Robert F. Cathcart II, M.D. writes on “Why Don’t Massive Doses of Ascorbate Produce Kidney Stones?”

“Years ago when Linus Pauling wrote his book "Vitamin C and the Common Cold", the critics immediately labeled the taking of large doses of vitamin C dangerous because it would produce calcium oxalate kidney stones. This practice of telling people that vitamin C caused kidney stones continues today by the critics of vitamin C despite the lack of clinical evidence of kidney stones in people taking vitamin C.

“It was hypothesized that since a significant percentage of ascorbate was metabolized into and excreted as oxalic acid that this oxalic acid should combine with calcium in the urine and deposit as calcium oxalate kidney stones. It is true that those of us who take large doses of ascorbate have elevated oxalic acid in our urine but no kidney stones. With the millions of people in the world taking vitamin C, if vitamin C caused kidney stones there would have been a massive epidemic of kidney stones noticed by this time. There has been none.

“I started using vitamin C in massive doses in-patients in 1969. By the time I read that ascorbate should cause kidney stones, I had clinical evidence that it did not cause kidney stones, so I continued prescribing massive doses to patients. To this day (2006) I estimate that I have put 25,000 patients on massive doses of vitamin C and none have developed kidney stones. Two patients who had dropped their doses to 500 mg a day developed calcium oxalate kidney stones. I raised their doses back up to the more massive doses and added magnesium and B6 to their program and no more kidney stones. I think that the low doses had no effect and they, by coincidence, developed the kidney stones because they were not taking enough vitamin C.”
 

jason30

Senior Member
Messages
513
Location
Europe
That's really interesting! Do you have a source? I'd love to read about it. I'm trying to figure out whether I should try higher doses of vitamin C myself.

Vitamin C is a precursor of oxalate and promoter of its absorption, potentially causing hyperoxaluria.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235877/

Ascorbic acid intake and oxalate synthesis.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27002809

Cadmium catalyzes the transformation of vitamin C into oxalic acid
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12184744

And there are probably more.

Many oxalate sources and groups advices not more then 250mg a day from whole foods or sources like tapioca , camu camu etc. But only when you have problems with oxalates of course.
 
Last edited:
Messages
246
I have had lyme and systemic candida for over 6 years now. I wanted to try ascorbic acid in high doses to help my immune system. It seems to be increasing all of my negative symptoms. Haven't been able to sleep a wink and I feel insanely wired like I do when I eat sugar (which makes candida go out of control).

Could the increased acidity actually be worsening the candida? I now have severely cracked lips which I never had before.
hope my lyme article helps: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/my-experience-with-lyme-disease.83923/
Please look up my articles whereby I mention my experience with candida, which I still have today