This sucks.
I asked Karsten to buy me some of that Airborne herbal stuff and I took it yesterday, but I had also taken some Emer-Gen-C supplements, and I guess I ended up consuming over 8,000 mg of vitamin C yesterday. So when I woke up this morning, I had a very upset stomach. Let’s just leave the description there, shall we? I did a little research and found that that’s basically what happens when you consume toxic levels of vitamin C.
And although my cold-like symptoms have almost vanished, I still have one hell of a fever (no thermometer around, so I don’t know how high, but I have that raw nerve sensation all over my skin which is definitely a fever thing for me).
Here it is, Paddy’s Day, and I’m propped up in bed with my laptop, wishing I could be out doing all the gazillions of things there are to do tonight. But at least I’ve got my “Irish Pride” t-shirt on.
If y’all go out tonight, have a drink for your ol’ pal Kate, would you? There’s a friend.
Mega vitamin C isn’t actually toxic. You just pee out the extra. I’ve taken 23,000mg of vitamin c several days in a row. You get the orange diarrhea five times an hour, but that’s what happens when you take too much. When I only took 20,000mg I had a lot of gas but no diarrhea. The dosing depends on how badly your body needs it.
Here’s some more info “Vitamin C is remarkably safe even in enormously high doses. Compared to commonly used prescription drugs, side effects are virtually nonexistent. It does not cause kidney stones. In fact, vitamin C helps dissolve kidney stones and prevents their formation. William J. McCormick, MD, used vitamin C since the late 1940’s to prevent and treat kidney stones. (2) Robert F. Cathcart III, MD, reports that he started using vitamin C in massive doses with patients in 1969. He writes: “I estimate that I have put 25,000 patients on massive doses of vitamin C and none have developed kidney stones.” (3) Said Dr. Klenner: “The ascorbic acid/kidney stone story is a myth.” Recent scholarship has confirmed this. (4,5)
How much vitamin C is an effective therapeutic dose? Dr. Klenner administered up to an astounding 300,000 milligrams (mg) per day. Generally, he gave 350 to 700 mg per kilogram (2.2 lb) body weight per day. That is a lot of vitamin C. “
I’m not going out tonight, But I have a bottle of Bushmill’s here so I’ll drink one in your honor.
The good news is that C isn’t exactly toxic, for exactly the reason you (unhappily) discovered: When you get too much, it exits the body by the closest available pathway.
I won’t be going out myself tonight – too freakin’ tired. I didn’t even realize it was St. Patrick’s Day till I read LJ this afternoon …
Ugh! I’m so sorry. Man, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who managed to C themselves into illness. Hope it all goes away soon.
P.S. Airborne? The pink grapefruit flavor is *so* much better than the regular.
You take care now.
I envy your icon, big time. 🙂 I love Jim.
This was the lemon-lime, which was OK. But if I need to try again, I may give the pink grapefruit flavor a try.
Airborne has a pink grapefruit flavour? YUM! I will have to be on the lookout for that one. I usually get lemon-lime.
ugh, i’m so sorry! hope you’re doing better, man! i can’t believe that hasn’t happened to me – i go nuts with the vit C when i’m sick, eep.