so I've been doing some experiments with vitamin C intake. I recently learned that the half-life of vitamin C is only 30 minutes. That means that after just two hours in your body about 90 to 95% of the vitamin C is gone. Doesn't matter how much you take, within two hours of most of its gone. This surprised me, as I thought it stuck around for a good 4 to 6 hours. I was wrong

so I started dosing vitamin C every two hours. I was using the buffered form, calcium and/or magnesium ascorbate

I was doing between three and 5 g every two hours, with no bowel reaction. I was quite surprised at the effect it had. For years I have suffered from nerve pain and muscle wasting. The consistent dosing of vitamin C every two hours most definitely helped the nerve pain, also helped my energy, as well as feeling some strength in my extremities. This was all very surprising to me, and unexpected, and most welcome

So yesterday I ran out of the buffered form, and was forced to tak pure ascordic acid. That is when I finally got the bowel reaction, and then later on a major Herxheimer reaction. I most definitely should have scaled back once I had the bowel reaction, but I did not.

The Herxheimer was rather intense. Much more intense than I thought simple vitamin C could induce. I felt feverish, and achy over my whole body. I felt as if a gang of five men had beaten my entire body from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I sat in my chair holding myself, rocking back and forth, and groaning. Literally!

But the thing is I knew full well it was a Herxheimer reaction. I did not feel as if "something is really wrong here".

Next day I started to feel better and within 24 hours I was pretty much fine.

This leads me to believe that the pure ascordic acid is actually a much more powerful form of vitamin C than the buffered variety. And it makes sense to. Calcium and/or magnesium and/or sodium ascorbate is already chelated, i.e. it already has a mineral bound to the acid.

pure ascorbic acid is fully reactive and therefore much more likely to bind to pathogenic substances like bacteria and fungus viruses etc.