Vitamin C Forum

zarfas wrote:Some places that offer IV-C want $ 600 worth of blood tests before doing IV-C

why?
can IV-C hurt you?

The most common test is for G6PD deficiency (the test measures the activity of this enzyme in the red blood cells). There are extremely rare reports where IVC has resulted in intravascular hemolysis in some persons with G6PD deficiency. And although it is extremely rare, intravascular hemolysis is a serious matter as it can result in kidney failure or even death. Therefore many practitioners will not administer IVC to a person with G6PD deficiency.

I don't think the cost of this one lab test is anywhere close to $600, however. I assume other tests are discretionary and may be unrelated to the safety of administering IVC.

What OxC said. Also, if you are already in kidney failure, some doctors worry that IVC can cause problems since the kidneys wouldn't be able to clear the high C blood levels very well. I have no idea if there is any merit to this worry, but I've heard doctors recommend not giving large amounts of IVC to people in kidney failure. So it's possible some of the lab tests are checking for kidney function. This is way too uptight in my opinion. Anyone with kidney failure severe enough to have any risk from IVC would be unlikely not to already know it!

As there are a number of places that do IVC for well under $200 and do the G6PD test I can assure you the $600 blood test regimen is bogus.

G6PD is an enzyme that helps your body deal with abnormalities in the blood, and having a deficiency should preclude you from getting high dose IVC (above 5g per hour). This is a blood condition of some patients whose ancestry primarily originates from countries where malaria is common. This hemolytic condition is more common among the following:

1 in 12 Greek Cypriot men,
1 in 5 African men,
1 in 10 African-Caribbean men,
1 in 5 Indian men,
1 in 30 Chinese men,
1 in 5 Thai men.

For women that rarity is squared (for example, 1 in 144 Greek Cypriot women compared to 1 in 12 Greek Cypriot men) because for women generally both parents must have the defect.

I am aware of a number of suspicious situations where the practitioner did not want to do IVC and the patient was told they were G6PD deficient despite not fitting into any of the groups above.

It is also worth noting for those who received high-dose IVC with G6PD deficiency, it has very rarely been fatal (after much research I've been unable to find a fatality), and those who've experienced the contraindication were usually back to full health within a week though it did require many transfusions and they were in bad shape for a day or so (See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 3-0043.pdf).

"Low-Rate IVC" for All?
Conventional rates for IVC are usually from 10g/hr to 30g/hr. Although rarely known, and rarely done, most people with the G6PD deficiency and even renal/kidney/dialysis issues can still get low-rate IVC ... even up to the 3g/hour range, which is quite low by contemporary IVC standards, but this amount is still more than enough to provide *all* the benefits of the very high dose ... they just may need to do it for 2X as long (unabated) to approximate the same benefit (up to 4X longer if the oncological benefit is desired). African ancestry persons with G6PD deficiency are most tolerant of low dose IVC, while Asian ancestry persons with G6PD deficiency are the least tolerant of IVC.

Us Irish ancestry is quite prevalent.

Zarfas im coming to missouri soon so if you find a place let me know please.