r/pancreaticcancer • u/d1dgerijew • 2d ago

seeking advice High-dose IV Vitamin C thoughts? Experiences?

Hi everyone! My mother has borderline respectable stage 1 pancreatic adenocarcinoma. She had her first modified FOLFIRINOX infusion on Tuesday and is tolerating it well.

In my search for information I learned about the potential positive impact of supplemental high-dose IV vitamin C. It seems like something worth pursuing.

When I asked the Oncologist managing her care about it she said “Yeah, we can do that”. I later discovered that it’s not a service offered at the infusion center where my mom is receiving treatment so I’m not exactly sure what the Dr meant by that. However, there is a local DripBar that does house calls, so we could pursue that option.

I sent a message to our other Oncology team from the institution that will be performing the surgery asking their thoughts on supplemental HIVC, and they replied “we don’t usually recommend it.” I’m assuming because the research surrounding it is limited.

The DripBar requires certain specific bloodwork and a consultation with their doctor to determine if someone is eligible for the infusion.

I’m currently planning on going ahead and getting the labs ordered and having the consultation, but in the meantime I was hoping this lovely community could share their knowledge and experiences with me.

Thank you, and I truly hope you are all doing as well as you can be.

6 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

1 comment sorted by

4

u/clarkindee 2d ago

Hi, yes, we are getting my husband 75 mg doses of intravenous Vitamin C for my husband twice a week. We are located in the US, near Washington DC. This is in combination with standard of care chemo. My husband's oncology team at Johns Hopkins is fine with it -- they won't do it but they have no problem with it. Medicare/insurance will not cover it. There are a lot of health/adjacent drip bars that will do it, but we chose to go to an actual integrative medical doctor who has a nurse who does IVs. We wanted to pursue this because even though the science behind it is not proven per se, there is enough published literature to make it worth it to us to pursue. We've been on it for a month now. Is it helping? Not sure -- my husband is on maintenance Xeloda after nine rounds of Folifirinox and he will have a CT scan next week. He's eating well and feels mostly ok right now.