My husband has suffered from asthma since he was a child. It comes during the summer. Well, this summer it started early due to an early spring and he had already had to sleep sitting up a couple of times when due to a different illness that our son had we read that vitamin C controls asthma. We figured that he had nothing to lose so he started taking 15-25 grams a day and after a few days his symptoms disappeared. After a couple of months he tried going off the vitamin C for a couple of days and his asthma symptoms started to return so he went back on the vitamin C again and the asthma went away again. Then we told a friend who's son takes an inhaler for allergies to mold, etc. and the vitamin C works for him, too.

The trick is to take enough of the vitamin C. Forget about the ridiculous RDA, you even have to forget about taking 1 or 2 grams a day. If you need 20 grams then taking 5 grams a day won't do anything for you. The way to tell is by finding your bowel tolerance, which means that you take just a little less than the amount that gives you diarrhea. An adult would start with something like 6 grams and take 3 grams every half hour until he starts to feel like he might have diarrhea or until he has a loose stool. You could take 5 grams every half hour if you are in a hurry and don't mind a little diarrhea, it isn't the cramping kind, but you do need to have a bathroom handy. Sorry about all the talk about diarrhea, but a little painless diarrhea is nothing compared to asthma. This gives you a starting point and you have to experiment a bit to find the amount that works for you. You have to take it twice a day because your body clears it out so fast. You can take it more often in smaller doses if you want. You can't just take one big dose a day, that doesn't work very well.

Our friend's son takes 6 grams in the morning and 6 grams in the evening, and that works for him.

If any of you decide to give this a try please post your results in this thread saying how much you took and whether it helped your symptoms. It only takes 2 - 3 days to find out if it can help you.

Oh, we like to use the powder form of ascorbic acid. Usually 1 teaspoon has 4.5 grams of C and we put it in water and add a stevia sweetener, you could use aspertame or even sugar, mix, then add baking soda in an amount that is 1/4 the amount of C powder. This fizzes and creates carbon dioxide, which is what is in soda pop, so it makes a tasty treat if you like soda pop. It also lowers the acidity if the acidity bothers your stomach. You can use diluted juice and do the same thing to vary the flavor. One semi heaping teaspoon is about 6 grams.

Hope this helps,

Kime

Some folks recommend 10 - 20 mg per every 10 lbs of body weight. There's been a lot of study on this and it has shown to actually help.
Vitamin C, unlike A or D, is not stored in the fat cells but instead passes through the body, your body will only absorb as much as it needs then pass the rest.

One of the reasons it works for asthema and allergies is because high doses reduce or lower your histamine levels. It prevents the secretion of histamine by white blood cells and increases the breakdown of histamine but has to be taken over a course of several days. A one day dose will not be effective.

Another interesting thing that I found out and like to share is 1200 mg of vitamin C daily for people who have arthritic knees has been proven to reduce the time that is needed to actually replace the knee by 50% which is huge. So if you say in theory you knew you had to have a knee replacement 10 years from now, taking the Vitaminc C regimin will increase that time to 20 years insted. No other med can claim that! The study was done by the arthritis assocation a while back.

This is very interesting! My three year old son, who has autism and asthma, is on a special diet and takes numerous supplements, including large amounts of vitamin C, as part of his autism treatment. He has not had any asthma symptoms since starting the diet and supplements. He has not taken any asthma mediaction for over four months. I did not know if it was the diet, the supplements, or a combination of everything that had helped the asthma.

This is a very good post. You are right on the money with your discription of how to use the vitamin C.

However thewre is a way to avoid the bowel movements of using to much vitamin C. You can get a Vitamin C called "Calcium Ascorbate" get a powder form it will be cheaper and Ive read it is more effective if that makes any sense.

I am looking for the study I read about the different forms of Vitamin C. Anyways it just said that calcium ascorbate vitamin C will not cause the bowel movements that any other form of vitamin C would. In other words you can use as much as you want.

We have tried all three forms: we tried calcium ascorbate first and I don't think the people who said that calcium ascorbate didn't affect the bowels actually tried it or else they just didn't take enough (calcium ascorbate only has a little over 3 grams per teaspoon, and ascorbic acid has 4 and a half grams per teaspoon, so maybe they were only comparing teaspoons instead of grams.) We can tell you from personal experience that it does cause the bowel symptoms and also it has the worst taste by far. Sodium ascorbat is also pH neutral and it tastes like salt water. Ascorbic acid is sour as you might expect, but if you add stevia sweetener the result is not unlike lemonade. You can add a bit of baking soda for fizz, up to 1/4 the amount of ascorbic acid. The ascorbic acid is also the least expensive per gram of vitamin C. I don't think you would really want to get rid of the bowel effects of vitamin C because that is what tells you how much you need to take. After a little practice you can feel when you are getting close without actually having to get to actual diarrhea. When I am getting a cold I have to take a lot more C to reach bowel tolerance, and if I don't get close to bowel tolerance it doesn't make my cold go away so it is the signal to help me know how much to take. I take a teaspoon every hour until I can feel that I have had enough. I might take two teaspoons every hour if the symptoms are already taking hold of me.

Kissa, I don't think that 10-20 mg per 10 LBs of body weight would do anything for allergies. I speak from my husband's experience. I just don't want someone to try it and think that it doesn't work because they didn't take enough. Bowel tolerance is the way to determine what a person needs, because the bowel tolerance changes with how much vitamin C a person needs. Any kind of stress will increase a person's need for C and you need to change your C dose to fit your individual need. I agree with the rest of what you said, though.