Mineral deficincies are definitely a factor. Copper/zinc ratio is important, as well as magnesium. I don't know much more about it, though.
There are two things I think. Firstly, I think that vitamin c for some reason or another doesn't help your condition.
The second thing I think is that you must have been on too high of a dosage of vitamin C for your body to take. I felt like crap on their protocol and when I started to listen to my body instead of them I started to feel better. They were pushing 1 scoop of quantum per day and I couldn't handle it. I stopped listening to them for two weeks, and settled on 1/2 scoop of quantum per day. It worked, I started to feel a big improvement, I started to work with them and I guided them pretty much, protesting their changes and suggesting a slower titration approach. It worked well, I got up to pretty high dosages of vitamin C and felt pretty good along with the dosages. However, I hit a plateau and stopped seeing improvement.