Kathleen (Chicago, Illinois) on 02/08/2010:

This is only the second time that I have posted, and I wanted to thank you for your kind words regarding my first post.

I promised that I would update everyone IF I was able to finally conquer sciatica. Well, I DID IT! I said that I was going to try Magnesium as suggested on your site. Didn't seem to help me.

What finally did the trick was "flooding" with Vitamin C per Dr. Frederick Klenner's web site, Doctor Yourself. Please check out the testimonal under Back Pain (at the bottom of that page). Unlike the testimonial, I was not completely out of pain on the fourth day; it took me six days.

I took two grams (2,000 milligrams) every hour I was awake. What I finally figured out was that the man that wrote the testimonial was taking a teaspoon every hour (that's four grams).

Just in case you are concerned at the high level of Vitamin C, it is a water soluble vitamin which the body will throw off if it can't use it. There is no known Vitamin C toxicity to humans.

The reason it worked is very simple. I had a Vitamin C deficiency severe enough to cause sciatica. Wish I had known that before!

What I also didn't realize was that the intermittent backaches that I have had in the last five years or so were also a Vitamin C deficiency and a precursor to the more severe sciatica! I have not had even a hint of a backache since I began treating the sciatica.

I am now on a maintenance dosage of Vitamin C of about 10 grams per day (still working out exact amount) which I will remain on for the rest of my life. You know when the body cannot use the level of Vitamin C that you are taking. You get diarreha and just cut back a bit until you have the right level for you.

This is what is so critical that I learned from the web site and my horrifying experience. Humans, monkeys, guinea pigs, and fruit bats don't produce their own Vitamin C, but without it, we will die. The web site is based on the Linus Pauling branch of medicine named Orthomolecular Medicine. It was Linus Pauling's theory that we probably began our journey in the tropics and had a more than adequate supply of fruits and therefore Vitamin C. At some point, a differential in our DNA eliminated our ability to produce Vitamin C and worked to our advantage (our bodies didn't have to do double duty and produce Vitamin C as long as we had an adequate supply) until we moved out of the tropics. That's when we got into trouble, big, big trouble.

I could go on and on, but I would just like to close with this. Other than knowing that Linus Pauling was the primary advocate for Vitamin C and was marginalized, I didn't know anything about him. He is the only human being that won not one but two Nobel Prizes in two separate areas, the first was Chemistry, and the second was Peace. Also, his work was the basis used to work out DNA! He is probably the most gifted scientist this country has ever produced. So, what was wrong with him? Was he dishonest? Was he not sane? What is going on.

He made the unfortunate choice to advocate for Peace during the McCarthy era and was labeled a socialist. The government went so far as to revoke his passport for a few weeks, but changed their minds so that he could pick up his Peace prize.

The second reason is that the medical establishment including pharmaceuticals have no financial gain in health. There is money in illness; there isn't money in health (sorry, I've forgotten where I read that).

Check Pauling's biography on Wikipedia. Check out Klenner on the front page of Doctor Yourself under the Orthomolecular Medicine link and then History on that site. Klenner worked out that Vitamin C only works in large doses throughout his long, illustrious career.

My primary reason for advocating natural alternatives for myself is safety. It was a blood pressure generic Lisinopril that triggered my sciatica and my descent into an unfathonable Dante's inferno. I will use SAFE alternatives in the future as often as possible.

Good health to everyone this year!