It is a water-soluble vitamin that is necessary for normal growth and development. Since it is water soluble, extra amounts that the body doesn't use leaves the body through urine within 24 hours. It is an antioxidant as well. Antioxidants are nutrients that block some of the damage caused by free radicals, which are by-products that result when our bodies transform food into energy. Antioxidants also possibly help reduce the damage to the body caused by toxic chemicals and pollutants such as cigarette smoke. Vitamin C is required for the growth and repair of tissues in all parts of your body. It is used to form collagen, a protein used to make skin, scar tissue, tendons, ligaments, and blood vessels. It is also essential for the healing of wounds, and for the repair and maintenance of people's cartilage, bones, and teeth. C also helps with blood pressure by strengthening the walls of the arteries. It can also prevent damage to cells caused by aging as well as help reduce stress.
Everybody needs Vitamin C, whether you are a hard training athlete, or an everyday person that is just trying to get in shape. C can help protect the immune system and help bodybuilders recover from intense training. It helps in protein metabolism. It not only provides our body with certain necessary proteins but also blocks the synthesis of vital proteins that cause infection and inflammation. It is also believed that vitamin C usage may support efforts to prevent heart disease, stroke, and cancer later in life. For male athletes, Vitamin C will keep testosterone levels high by supporting a lower ratio of cortisol to testosterone. This will help your body keep up that top level of performance you require on a daily basis. In the case of women, vitamin C not only helps to protect the breaking off of the capillaries that cause heavy blood flow for women with endometriosis during menstruation but also prevents blood clotting caused by reduction of prothrombin, thrombin, and thrombokinase concentrations in the body.
Also, vitamin C not only helps to improve digestive absorption, but also may support our bodies' actions in fighting against all kinds of diseases including endometriosis. Women also benefit by taking C because it helps strengthen the liver function to balance the estrogen level during the menstrual cycle. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, you are supposed to take in more C than women that are not. Dry and splitting hair Gingivitis (inflammation of the gums) Rough, dry, scaly skin Swollen and painful joints Decreased ability to fight infection Possible weight gain because of slowed metabolism If you stay deficient for too long, you could develop scurvy. Scurvy leads to the formation of spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from the mucous membranes. These spots are most abundant on a person's thighs and legs, and a person with the ailment looks pale, feels depressed, and is partially immobilized. Although it is mostly known to affect older adults, anyone can get it.
Scurvy can be developed in as little as 90 days if you don't have enough C in your system. Now that we know you need vitamin C and why, we have to figure out how much you should take. The Food and Drug Administration set their guidelines for how much a person should take for general health. These are the FDA recommendations for each age group and gender. Now these guidelines aren't designed for athletes. Those folks that are active obviously need more C than the non-active person would. It is believed that active people can benefit from taking anywhere from 500 milligrams to as much as 3,000 mg a day, depending on the person's daily activity level. If you are sick, you may need as much as eight grams a day for the duration of your illness. Now although it is difficult to overdose on Vitamin C since it is water soluble, it can be done if you aren't careful. How much C is too much depends on the person taking it. One thing you should not do is take it on an empty stomach.
This can lead to indigestion. Also, do not take a lot at one time. Taking extra large dosages of C at one time can cause diarrhea, disturbed sleep, and nausea. Do not take more than 1,000mg of Vitamin C at one time. Hopefully after learning all the benefits of taking Vitamin C on a regular basis, you will decide to take a Vitamin C supplement and start taking it now. Regardless of whether you are looking to pack on size, get stronger, lose weight, compete, or just stay in great shape, C is one of those vitamins that will go a long way of helping you reach all of your fitness goals. Home Abortion Remedy - Vitamin C This is a place to share our home remedies of all kinds. Please feel free to share any home remedies you like. I found this recipe in a book called "A Woman's Book of Choices: Abortion, Menstrual Extraction, RU-486" by Rebecca Chalker and Carol Downer. The books says to take 6-10 grams of ascorbic acid a day for 5-10 days. It says specifically ascorbic acid.
Don't use vitamin C with bioflaviniods in it, because they work to prevent miscarriage. Read the label and check the ingredients, write down what to look for if you think you won't remember when you get to the store. Tons of vitamin c products are available, look for the cheap generic brands, they are usually the ones that have pure ascorbic acid. Don't use anything that has Rose-hips in it, they conntain bio-flaveniods which help to prevent miscarriage. In my collection of data and information, I have spoken to women who have used the vitamin C successfully, some started treatment immediately following fertilizing intercourse. While others start when menstruation is due. This remedy seem to have a fairly decent chance of success up through the 4th week of pregnancy, when menstruation is two weeks late, after that, chances of success drop considerably. Based on the information provided by women (mostly from the sharing our wisdom section), in general these home remedies seem to be able to start menstruation about 45% of the time if used early enough.
These remedies are not a reliable way to end pregnancy, and if it doesnt work, its really important to follow up with a clinical abortion. In my opinion, vitamin c (ascorbic acid) is one of the less toxic and less dangerous choices for terminating pregnancy, which seems to be fairly effective. Don't mis-understand less toxic or less dangerous, to mean that vitamin c is not with out risks. The risks remain the same in regards to how far along the pregnancy is progressed, which determines your risk of incomplete abortion and hemorrhage. Vitamin C should also not be used by anyone with sensitive kidneys, kidney stones, or other kidney problems. When deciding how much vitamin c to take, take into consideration, your body weight, fat vs muscle, whether you smoke tobacco (tobacco messes with vitamin c uptake), do you already take a vitamin c supplement? For a confirmed pregnancy with a test, for an average woman, whose menstruation is no more than two weeks overdue, 10-12 grams per day should be sufficient.
I prefer a slightly higher dose, than Rebecca Chalker mentions in her book, do what feels right to you. Divide your total grams for the day into equal doses, equally spaced. Doses consisting of one 500 mg tablet per hour are most common. It is helpful if you have a watch with a timer to set it to go off to remind you to take your dose. I think it is important to keep a constant level circulating in the body, I think waking during the night once or twice will help to maintain this. Vitamin C is water soulable, so excess is removed from the body by the kidneys, which may be why this remedy is rough on the kidneys of sensitive individuals. When using vitamin c I like to combine it with Parsley. Parsley is one of my favorite herbs for bringing on menstruation when pregnancy is not the cause for delay. It is not strong enough by itself to cause interruption of pregnancy, but I feel it aids the vitamin c. It can be drunk as tea, freely, as much as you want, as it is non-toxic. Parsley can also be used as a pessary (a vaginal insert, as in like a tampon) A few sprigs of parsley with the largest part of the stem removed, and inserted into the vagina placed up against the cervix.
It aids in shaking the pregnancy loose, helping the cervix to soften and open, as your body heat softens the herb its emmenagogual properties are released directly at the opening of the uterus. The parsley is changed 2 sometimes 3 times a day, leaving it in all night, until menstruation begins. If you don't achieve the results you are after in five days, you could add Dong Quai tincture, or capsules. Dong Quai works to strengthen uterine contractions, helping to organize, co-ordinate those minor cramps you may be experiencing. Why wait for 5 days of taking the vitamin c and parsley before using Dong Quai? Please understand this is just a theory, but it gives the vitamin c an opportunity to deprive the uterus of the progesterone it needs to sustain a pregnancy. After 5 days, if the vitamin c has not already started menstruation on its own, which it does have the ability to do for some women, adding a uterine stimulant to the combination, in theory, would have a greater ability to knock the embryo from the uterine wall, and expel it once the pregnancy has been weakened by the progesterone interference.
This combination was used by two women who submitted their experiences to Sharing our Wisdom and got me to thinking. As I learn more, I'll be sure to post it. The vitamin C works to produce an unfavorable climate within the uterus so that the egg does not implant, or cannot maintain its grip on the uterine wall. Possibly by stimulating estrogen, and interfering with progesterone. Thus making it useful as an emergency contraceptive, when taking it before implantation occurs. Progesterone is needed to prepare the uterus to receive the egg, the uterine lining builds up each month, and if the egg is not fertilized then this is what becomes the menstrual blood, when the lining is shed to prepare for the next cycle. Possible toxicity symptoms may include nausea, abdominal cramps and diarrhea are most common, also hot flashed or rashes, headache, fatigue, and insomnia. If mega doses are taken for long periods of time other side effects may manifest. People who take anti-coagulants, who have sickle-cell anemia, or who have difficulty metabolizing vitamin c should not take mega doses of vitamin c with out the supervision of their physician.
Vitamin C is nontoxic at levels far in excess of the RDA. Some individuals develop diarrhea or loose stools from taking approximately 2,000 to 5,000 mg per day, while even higher levels do not bother others. High levels of vitamin C can deplete the body of the essential mineral copper, so take a copper-containing multinutrient formula if you�re mega-dosing on C. High doses of vitamin C may also increase the risk of kidney stones in some people, although studies indicate that those who do not have a history of kidney stones, severe kidney disease, or gout are not at risk. Because vitamin C may increase iron absorption, check with a doctor if you suffer from iron overload and want to take high doses of C. "You might want to put a warning to those who have high stomach acid levels, acid reflux, or sensitive stomaches that the ascorbic acid approach might not be the best alternative, particularly in pill form, since the stomach must digest the hard pill. (Even if one used ascorbic acid crystals, it would still irritate the stomach.)"
Another visitor has reported vaginal irritation when using Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) as emergency contraception. Placing them inside the vagina with the intention of killing sperm. She remedied the situation by removing the vitamin c tablets and douching with water. Condoms don't usually break, but they have been know to do so on occasion, and with disastrous results. Certain brands may be more prone to breaking than others. Check the expiration date on the package. Expired condoms may be more likely to break and for people who are sensitive to the lubricants or latex may experience more irritation, but an old condom is better than no condom. When lovemaking is done always check the condom for leaks, by carefully removing the condom from the penis with out spilling any of the semen, holding the top of the condom carefully placed between two fingers, slide your fingers down to the tip. All the semen should stay right in the tip. If theres a hole it will squirt. If you find any leaks or a condom breaks, to prevent pregnancy, immediately place two tablets of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C, with no bio-flavanoids) inside to vagina, right next to the cervix, this is where the sperm are making a bee-line for.
Also take internally 6-10 grams of ascorbic acid throughout the day, for the next 5-9 days. If you take vitamin c on a regular basis or smoke you may need to take more than someone who doesn't. Progesterone prepares the uterus to receive a fertilized egg. Ascorbic acid interferes with the production of progesterone, therefore preventing the uterus from becoming a nourishing place for the egg, thus preventing implantation. It is a good idea to place a drop of spermicide inside the condom, to kill the sperm right away. If a condom does break, the spermicidal lubricant on a condom is not enough to prevent pregnancy. If condoms are you sole form of birth control always be prepared for an emergency. I think it makes sense for every woman keep a bottle of ascorbic acid on hand, just incase. This is part of a networking newsletter I did a couple of years ago. It ran for 3 issues, I never did finish the fourth issue, the newsletter evolved into a website. Much of the material presented in the newsletter was my was of sharing with others what I had learned and information I had gathered with other women.