Does Anyone Have Experience Of Using Lugol's Iodine Solution? For Deficiency/Methylation/Other

[Jigsaw]

Useful documents:
* This document from grizz on CureZone has some interesting info and sub-links.
* Stephanie Buist's Iodine Supplementation guide. This is an updated version (Rev.2a).

When I started taking iodine (J.Crow Lugol's 2%), with the cofactors, I experienced lower back pain, heart palpitations, mild head pounding at times, and pallor for a few hours after taking a drop of 2% iodine. Apparently these were signs that the kidneys and liver were having difficulty getting rid of toxins (bromide detox).

Pulsing the iodine (taking every two days), taking milk thistle for liver support, and the salt loading protocol as described by Stephanie Buist ND (in her useful and informative Iodine Supplementation guide) was useful. From her guide:


After the initial symptoms I then developed arm pimples and skin rash, runny nose, cold body and extremities (cold only for a few days).

At one point I started having kidney pain again and realized that I was detoxing bromide that was in some trace mineral drops I had started a couple of days before. I stopped taking the trace mineral drops and the kidney pain disappeared within a day or two.

After a drop or two of 2% every day or two for a few weeks I increased to 3-8 drops depending on how I felt. Then within a few weeks went up to 24 drops (~72mg/day). I took 100mg/day (split into 3-4 doses per day) for roughly a month and then noticed extreme fatigue after each dose so I dropped down to 50, then 25, then 15 before the fatigue resolved. The fatigue may have been a good sign. or a sign of low iron, or something else.

I spent several months at 12mg/day, then eventually dropped down to 1 drop per day (~3mg).

I'm going to increase again and see what happens.

Benefits at various times included:
* Increased libido (which decreased at very high doses)
* More energy
* Deeper, more sustained sleep
* Eyes no longer bulging (this varied, I think I bounced between hypo- and hyper-thyroid at various times as my body adjusted to the extra iodine)
* Baby soft skin

There is a lot of information in SB's document but this is especially interesting:

Hi @PatJ

I'm just finishing up Lynne Farrow's Iodine Crisis (found a nice free pdf online ) so am familiar with Stephanie Buist and the Curezone stuff.

I thought the 2% Lugol's has 2.5mg (1mg elemental iodine, 1.5mg potassium iodide) - are you takimg one drop to be 3mg because the dropper method isn't necessarily the most accurate system of measurement?

Thanks for sharing your iodine journey so far. It's difficult, isn't it, when you hit big detox/side-effects. So many positive stories about pushing through, or pulsing, or salt-loading, or a combination of all of those (plus, obv, the recognised companion nutrients like B2, B3, mag, C, etc). But when something makes you worse for a long time, and none of those things are working to resolve the problems, I agree with you, I think it's time to reduce and pick it up again after a break.

Does Stephanie Buist recommend a 48 hour break to give over-burdened kidneys and liver a chance to flush halogens out? Farrow and Brownstein do.

Re bromide in baked goods, Mountain Dew, etc. Am in UK, and we banned bromide from dough in c.1990-something, and I don't drink canned drinks, ever. I also have a waterbed, so I don't think that's going to have bromide in the mattress, because the mattress is a big plastic bag. Who knows. I do know that bromide and fluoride are a huge problem, and I do know I've definitely been pushing bromide out, because my sweat and pee changed odour - bromide (I read) is Greek for "Stench" or "Stink like a goat", dependimg on who you read


I also know absolutely that the chemo and/ the radiotherapy I went through in 2007-8 definitely definitely depleted the iodine in my skin at least - I went from tanning from looking at a picture of the sun to being completely unable to tan at all. I was on E-CMF, the F being Fluoracil, which is a fluoride. (Having said that, you also can't tan if you are D3 deficient, and I have tanned deeply and more easily since I repleted D3. Maybe iodine repletion would improve that further.)

Oh, flippng brain-fog.....

Had got up to x5 drops of 2%, so 12.5mg. Took a further x5 drops at lunchtime today, so 25mg, which equals x4 old Minims of iodine, still salt-loading. Waiting to see how I respond to that. Going purely on instinct and just felt I needed more today.

Also find molybdenum v helpful when toxic. I use Chem Defense by Source Naturals. Has B2 and reduced glutathione in it too.


Brain has left the building, I'll have to stop now, because I suspect I'm waffling. Soz!

 

[Jigsaw]

Hi,

I took the iodine after reading a lot about, much of which I have forgotten. I started here http://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Iodine followed the links and read on.

Well, at least she's acknowledged Brownstein, Flechas and Abraham.....they are the three main docs behind highlighting iodine deficiency and treatment. She tends to present stuff as if it's all her own work, which I confess I take exception to, because much of it is not. Most of what's on that page is widely available all over the net. Nothing new there. But quelle surpris, she sells an "equivalent to iodoral" iodine product in her online shop. Fancy that.

I've gone right off Myhill in the last few years.

At the moment I am using potassium iodide, just because I could not afford the iodoral, and it does something but I have gone through 50mg iodine a day for over 60 days and have not resolved that pain. Or that strong hunger for iodine.

Do you mean 50mg of pot iodIDE, or iodINE?

Re iodide and iodine - if you look at Lynne Farrow's Iodine Crisis, iodide and iodine occupy different sites and do slightly different things.

KI was only added to iodine when Dr Lugol made his iodine formulation to improve the uptake of the elemental iodine. I don't think it's supposed to be used on its own.

I imagine your body is saying it needs iodINE.


The Lugol's drops available in UK are pretty cheap, certainly cheaper than iodoral, and I got 3x 30ml bottles of 2% Lugol's for about £12, I think. It wasn't much. There are different strengths, including the original 5% solution that has 6.25mg iodine (2.5mg) and p. iodide 3.75mg) per drop. I went for the weakest because I anticipated a strong detox reaction partly due to chemo. I will probably get the strongest (12%) solution when I've established my dose.

On the iodoral, when I start smelling the iodine in my urine the pain in my throat has resolved or will soon. On the KI this is not so.

Because iodINE isn't the same as iodIDE? Do you mean that you still smell iodine in your urine, but your sore throat stays unresolved on KI?

Iodoral is only enteric coated Lugol's. It releases in the small intestine instead of the stomach. Some people find that Lugol's can irritate their stomachs, so Iodoral gets over that.

Personally, as long as I'm tolerating the much cheaper drops with no stomach sensitivity, I'd much rather use the drops. I won't be able to afford Iodoral at the doses I'm going to be needing once I've titrated up. Why did you choose Iodoral over the drops?

with a familiar pain low down in the adams apple and around the throat.

Are you hypothyroid? As I understand it so far, hypothyroid thyroid glands will be enlarged and sore while they are being repleted with iodine/iodide/Lugol's/Iodoral/whatever version of iodine formulation you're using.

 

[Jigsaw]

A-ha BECAUSE in my personal experience there is no T4 => T3 conversion without serotonin! Additionally,

Estrogen => serotonin => T3

I think it's more likely that unless you're makimg and absorbing T3, serotonin production fails.

I am not aware of serotonin being part of the T4-T3 conversion process. It's largely done by a liver enzyme called 5'deiodinase, which removes one of the four attached molecules of iodine on T4 (hence T4), this becoming T3 - 3 iodine molecules attached.

Where in the pathway is serotonin involved in converting T4 to T3?

Ditto oestrogen making serotonin - I don't understand. Please give me some references to look at .

 

[Gondwanaland]

Where in the pathway is serotonin involved in converting T4 to T3?

Ditto oestrogen making serotonin - I don't understand. Please give me some references to look at .

Sorry, just personal observation

 

[pamojja]

After a drop or two of 2% every day or two for a few weeks I increased to 3-8 drops depending on how I felt. Then within a few weeks went up to 24 drops (~72mg/day).

I'm a bid confused by the description of this Lugols Iodine Solution 12% 100ml product. Seems to be 5% but calculated differently as 12%.

Ingredients

Health Leads makes Lugol's solution based on an American formulation: Lugol’s contains iodine (I) and potassium iodide (KI). For a 1000ml (1 quart) amount: 44g (1.5oz) of iodine and 88g (3 oz) of potassium iodide are added to distilled water and when dissolved this is topped up to make 1000ml of solution.

What’s in our Lugol’s?

Per metric drop: 2.2mg of iodine and 3.3mg of iodide, yielding 5.54mg per drop of elemental iodine.

According to Wikipedia a "5% solution consists of 5% (wt/v) iodine (I2) and 10% (wt/v) potassium iodide (KI) mixed in distilled water." However, the convention for naming Lugol’s solution this way is misleading. Potassium iodide also contains iodine. In fact, 76% of the weight of each KI molecule is the iodine atom. Therefore, in order to understand the full amount of iodine in a solution, add the amount of pure iodine (I2) PLUS 0.76 of the weight of potassium iodide. For our solution the quantities are: 44g + (0.76 x 88g) = 111g. Rounding this up gives you our 12% solution (as calculated by a weight/volume measurement).

Other factors need to be considered that contribute to the strength of the solution. For example, how much is a “drop”? In providing the above information, we have decided to follow the standard metric description that 1 drop = 1/20 of 1ml. (You may be interested to know that we measured 15 vertical drops from the actual pipette as equal to 1ml). Plus, whether the drop is a vertical or horizontal drop also factors in to the quantity. When comparing the strength that is claimed on a bottle of Lugol’s Iodine, in addition to what has already been stated, other considerations include the quantity of distilled water used and the ambient temperature when the product is made.

Considering everything stated here, 12% can only be stated as an APPROXIMATE amount of iodine content.

The History of Iodine and Lugol’s

Jean Francois Coindet (1774-1834) was the first to use iodine for medicinal use. Lugol’s was first made by French physician J G A Lugol in 1829. Dr Lugol researched substances that could help treat infections and found that iodine could be used and showed promise in this field. He used the 1:2 ratio of iodine to potassium iodide that is still used today.

 

[PatJ]

I thought the 2% Lugol's has 2.5mg (1mg elemental iodine, 1.5mg potassium iodide) - are you takimg one drop to be 3mg because the dropper method isn't necessarily the most accurate system of measurement?

Thank you for pointing that out. My foggy brain was calculating it wrong.

I've recently switched to 3rd-i iodine at 5% which provides approx. 6.25 mg total per drop. I'm taking 5 drops per day now and going through the rash and body acne phase that I went through last time.

Does Stephanie Buist recommend a 48 hour break to give over-burdened kidneys and liver a chance to flush halogens out? Farrow and Brownstein do.

She has a few things to say about moderation:
"Note- You should not need to do this [salt loading] for more than 3 days. If your symptoms persist then you need to consider reducing your dose of iodine."

Her document contains a section about the two phases of detox performed by the liver, with a list of supporting nutrients, and a discussion about various body systems involved in proper detox and why it's so important to support them.

She doesn't recommend a specific break time but does say:

If you are experiencing detoxing while supplementing, the strategies listed previously can help
to lessen the severity of the process. Intermittent supplementing (taking iodine a few days on
with a few days off) is a strategy that I used when toxic and detoxing faster than my body could
handle. During this time you continue to take the supporting nutrients outlined in the Guide to
Supplementing while taking a break from iodine. The Salt Loading protocol can also help to
move bromide out of the body more quickly and effectively so that it is not recirculated and
stored in the body.

The saying “No pain no gain” is not something you want to strive for. The goal is to
supplementing with enough iodine to release toxins while not releasing too quickly so that it
stresses the body and overloads the detox pathways. A steady low level detox that is well
supported will get you to your destination – abundant health.

 

[PatJ]

I'm a bid confused by the description of this Lugols Iodine Solution 12% 100ml product. Seems to be 5% but calculated differently as 12%.

The numbers I gave were influenced by brainfog and wrongly calculated. jigsaw has set me straight. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Jigsaw]

Thank you for pointing that out. My foggy brain was calculating it wrong.

I've recently switched to 3rd-i iodine at 5% which provides approx. 6.25 mg total per drop. I'm taking 5 drops per day now and going through the rash and body acne phase that I went through last time.



She has a few things to say about moderation:
"Note- You should not need to do this [salt loading] for more than 3 days. If your symptoms persist then you need to consider reducing your dose of iodine."

Her document contains a section about the two phases of detox performed by the liver, with a list of supporting nutrients, and a discussion about various body systems involved in proper detox and why it's so important to support them.

She doesn't recommend a specific break time but does say:

Hi @PatJ,

I've read all of her document now - actually, one of her links to a paper took me to a second, or previous, whatever, slightly different version of that iodine document. I went off and read it not long after I last posted. I appreciate all info, so thankyou for that

There are a few things she says that are much clearer than in Iodine Crisis, and a few things that she seems to disagree with Farrow about, like iodine's potential to kill off good bacteria as well as bad.

Farrow recommends taking probiotic yoghurt ir similar one hour after taking Lugol's. Buist says iodine is an adaptogen and doesn't kill all the good guys off like antibiotics do.


I think the 3-day salt-loading rule sounds like wise advice, but I still need to read Brownstein's "Salt Your Way To Health" before deciding about how I choose to use the protocol. I am very toxic, and salt definitely helps. I'm reluctant to limit it to three days at a time, because even when I pulse, I'm still getting a lot of unpleasant side-effects, and they very definitely ease with my pink Himalayan salt or my other organic sea-salt.

I do take her point that if symptoms persist, you need to reduce the iodine a bit. That makes perfect sense.

I need to read Brownstein's salt info, I think. See if I can find any justification for what is basically my sheer impatience to reach 50mg asap, closely followed by 100mg.

I'm a breast cancer survivor, and my one remaining natural breast is very lumpy. I want to head that off as soon as I can, so maybe I can be forgiven for seeming impatient.



No worries about the one drop thing - I cheat anyway, by keeping a chart with all the amounts per drop of all the diferent available strengths I'm as foggy as hell at the moment, but I get a few hours in late evening when it clears and I can study and make notes (which I then can't understand next day). My Lugol's chart is in my notebook, because it's very easy to get confused when you have to rummage through sixteen layers of fog to find something.

Anyway, 15% strength gives 18.75mg per drop (just showing off now!) The standard Lugol's, or the original formula, was a 5% solution giving 6.25mg per drop, and when iodine was the Universal Medicine, conditions were treated by prescribing a certain number of "Minims", one minim being one drop of 5% solution, so 6.25mg.


Prescriptions went from 2 - 6 minims, according to Farrow, right up until c.1950 when antibiotics were first marketed (according to Farrow) and iodine was removed from bread etc and replaced by bromide instead.

Antibiotics pushed iodine out of the position it used to have in the world of medicine, just at the same time as everyone was losing iodine in bread and being fed bromide. Call me cynical, but I don't think that was any mere coincidence. I think it was deliberate.

I'll see if I can put a link up to one of the free pdf links to Iodine Crisis, and thankyou for the Steph Buist link - some really useful stuff in there, and it's always good to get different perspectives

I'm still wondering whether to take any notice of Farrow's advice to take Vit C away from iodine, or whether to go with my instinct and Buist's opinion that C is fine taken alongside iodine.

There are always conflicting opinions in any specialty, aren't there?

 

[Richard7]

Hi @Jigsaw,

I was relying on old and flawed solutions to problems. I cannot exactly remember why I went for iodoral instead of lugols. But the choice was made in 2013 and it may have just been the cheapest solution when transport was taken into account from the people who would send it to me at that time, or I may have made a mistake with the maths.

A few days ago I looked back into it and realised that lugols was much cheaper and have ordered some.

the approx 50mg of iodine was from rom 65mg of potassium iodide.

 

[Richard7]

iodine as an antibiotic wow.

I had been fancifully wondering if that was its impact in my blood. I have been wondering what happens to all of that bacteria that gets into our blood in PEM and what benefit urinating a lot of iodine/iodide could have, but what it did/might do in our guts somehow escaped me.

According to this abstract http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3181/00379727-106-26366 it is chiefly absorbed in the small intestine and stomach, but I suppose some will still make it to the colon.

Also from this abstract https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006481 taking more iodine should reduce our ability to absorb it.

 

[Jigsaw]

iodine as an antibiotic wow.

I had been fancifully wondering if that was its impact in my blood. I have been wondering what happens to all of that bacteria that gets into our blood in PEM and what benefit urinating a lot of iodine/iodide could have, but what it did/might do in our guts somehow escaped me.

According to this abstract http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3181/00379727-106-26366 it is chiefly absorbed in the small intestine and stomach, but I suppose some will still make it to the colon.

Also from this abstract https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006481 taking more iodine should reduce our ability to absorb it.

Well, given that it is still in use as a powerful antiseptic in wound dressings like Inadine, and also as tincture of iodine in operating theatres (at least, I think that's what the yellow stuff is that you see them swabbing over the incision area before they get to work with their scalpels), it clearly has very profound antibacterial effects.

There isn't any benefit in urinating out a lot of iodine, as such. The iodine loading test, which measures how much iodine you're excreting, in theory shows how much you're absorbing - what doesn't get absorbed gets excreted. It is supposed to show how deficient you are - if you excrete almost none, you must be guzzling it up and are therefore deficient, if you excrete high levels, you aren't absorbing it and therefore, the theory goes, you are not deficient.

However, you can excrete high levels of iodine in the presence of deficiency, because bromide/chloride/fluoride is blocking the iodine receptors, so people doing this test often report that their initial loading test showed higher levels of iodine than subsequent tests carried out after months of iodine supplementation.

Re iodine absorption. Yes, stomach and small intestine are where it's absorbed. Absorption sites are a different thing from residency /storage sites - iodine is present (or should be) in every cell in your body. There are some major sites, like the skin (20%), muscles (32%), thyroid, pancreas, adrenals, gut, etc. It doesn't stay in the area of absorption, it travels in the bloodstream to the different storage sites.

(Sorry, I can't remember the figures for thyroid and other sites, I'm foggy today due to bromide coming out. I upped to 5 drops twice a day yesterday, and it's really kicking in. On my 2% solution, that's a total of 25mg, which is halfway to my first goal of 50mg, though because of previous breast cancer, I really want to be at 100mg. I'm hypothyroid, too.)

Some people have taken Lugol's and Iodoral together, because they think taking Iodoral alone will mean their stomach misses out. It won't, because as I said, iodine, like every other nutrient substance, will travel in the bloodstream and either get used immediately, or get stored until it's used.

I'm glad you checked the cost of the drops again None of us have the cash to throw around on unecessarily expensive supps!

 

[Jigsaw]

iodine as an antibiotic wow.

I had been fancifully wondering if that was its impact in my blood. I have been wondering what happens to all of that bacteria that gets into our blood in PEM and what benefit urinating a lot of iodine/iodide could have, but what it did/might do in our guts somehow escaped me.

According to this abstract http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3181/00379727-106-26366 it is chiefly absorbed in the small intestine and stomach, but I suppose some will still make it to the colon.

Also from this abstract https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006481 taking more iodine should reduce our ability to absorb it.

I'll look at that abstract, but it looks like it's stating the obvious in a negative way.

Of course repleted sites won't absorb anything like the the amount that depleted sites will- they don't need to! If it's full, it's full!

However, it's a constantly changing situation, and since iodine, like all the other nutrients, gets used daily - hourly even - keeping your levels up on a regular basis is necessary.

You can either get tested repeatedly once you've repleted, or just watch for iodine deficiency signs like cherry angiomas. - I only found out today that these are those funny little spots that look like small, bright red moles on your skin. (If you pick them, blood comes out and they scab over.) I've had them on my abdomen for decades I was always told they were nothing to worry about, but apparently they are a definite sign of iodine deficiency - in this case, I imagine it would indicate specifically a skin iodine deficiency.

Back in the days before we depleted our soils, and before we started messing around with processed foods and chemically-laden products, we would have been able to get our daily iodine (and other nutrients) from our daily intake of good foods. This is why we eat every day, several times a day, because the nutrients we eat get used up relatively quickly. Now we can't, so supplementation would be necessary even if we hadn't been bombarded with halogens like bromide, which compete with iodine for the same receptors.

(Bromide is the big bully of the halogen family. It has a lower atomic weight than iodine. Elements with a higher atomic weight cannot displace elements with a lower atomic weight, hence bromide displaces iodine because it has a lower atomic weight.)

Taking anything you're deficient in does NOT reduce your ability to absorb it. That implies that receptors switch off due to over-exposure. I fail to see how that could be true of any vital substance. It sounds to me like yet another anti-natural medicine paper designed to put health professionals and patients off trying supplementing iodine.

Ask yourself this - what benefit would there be to Big Pharma if everyone became iodine replete? Or Vitamin D3 replete? Or any other vital nutrient?

Do you not think it's curious that iodine was the Universal Medicine until c.1950, when, strangely enough, antibiotics were first marketed? And that that "coincided" with the removal of iodine from baked goods and the addition of iodine-displacing bromide? A double whammy for our health, and consequently a huge new market for Big Pharma.

I have learnt to read scientific papers with cynicism. Many of them are funded by Big Pharma, and their agenda is to protect their bottom line by steering us away from health without pharmaceutical drugs. It really is that simple. Read "Bad Pharma" by Ben Goldacre for more on this subject.

 

[Gondwanaland]

Please give me some references to look at

here it goes

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181966/
Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2011 Mar; 13(1): 127–138.

Hormone treatment of depression
Russell T. Joffe, MD*
Russell T. Joffe, Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, LIJ North Shore Staten Island University Hospital, New York, USA; Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA;

Abstract
There is a well-established relationship between alterations of various hormonal systems and psychiatric disorders, both in endocrine and psychiatric patients. This has led to clinical and research studies examining the efficacy of the different hormones for treatment of depression. These data will be reviewed with particular regard to the thyroid, gonadal, pineal, and adrenal cortex hormones. The data generally provide limited, but varying evidence for the antidepressant efficacy of these hormones.

Keywords: depression, thyroid, melatonin, testosterone, cortisol, adrenal, estrogen

https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-0500-2-173
Effects of chronic estradiol treatment on the thyroid gland structure and function of ovariectomized rats

• Menna M Abdel-Dayem† and
• Mohamed S Elgendy†Email author

†Contributed equally
BMC Research Notes20092:173
DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-2-173

Abstract
Background
Estrogen therapy is widely used nowadays in women to treat many postmenopausal symptoms but it may have some undesirable effects due to multiple organs affection. So, the aim of this study was to determine the effects of chronic estradiol treatment on the structure and function of the thyroid gland in ovarictomized rats as a model simulating menopause.

Findings
Thirty adult female Wistar rats divided into three groups were used in this study; the first group was sham-operated, while the second and third groups were ovariectomized. The first and second groups were injected with olive oil while the third group was injected with estradiol dipropionate daily for three months, after that; hormonal assay for T3, T4, TSH and specimens of the thyroid were taken and processed to be examined by light and electron microscopy. The results of this study revealed that serum levels of T3 and T4 decreased in ovariectomized animals and significantly increased after estradiol treatment, while TSH increased in ovariectomized animals and decreased with estradiol treatment. Histological and morphometric study in ovariectomized group revealed marked accumulation of colloid in follicular lumens with decreased epithelial height in addition to increased connective tissue amount. After estradiol treatment the follicles became smaller in size, having small amount of colloid with increased epithelial height in addition to decreased connective tissue content. Ultrastructural study supported these results in addition to the presence of large amount of intracytoplasmic colloid vesicles after estradiol treatment.

Conclusion
Low estrogen level may lead to mild thyroidal hypofunction while estradiol treatment may lead to hyperactivity so it should be used very cautiously in the treatment of postmenopausal symptoms to avoid its undesirable stimulatory effect on the thyroid.

https://www.nahypothyroidism.org/deiodinases/
Deiodinase type I (D1)
D1 converts inactive T4 to active T3 throughout the body, but D1 is not a significant determinant of pituitary T4 to T3 conversion, which is controlled by D2 (1,7,10). D1 but not D2 is suppressed and down-regulated (decreasing T4 to T3 conversion) in response to physiologic and emotional stress (11-22); depression (23-45); dieting (46-51); weight gain and leptin resistance (47-91); insulin resistance, obesity and diabetes (91-99); inflammation from autoimmune disease or systemic illness (11,100,102-115); chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia (121-125); chronic pain (116-120); and exposure to toxins and plastics (126-134). In the presences of such conditions there are reduced tissue levels of active thyroid in all tissues except the pituitary. The reduced thyroid tissue levels with these conditions is often quoted as a beneficial response that lowers metabolism and thus does not require treatment, but there is no evidence to support such a stance while there is significant evidence demonstrating it is a detrimental response (135-142).

In addition, D1 activity is also lower in females (143,144), making women more prone to tissue hypothyroidism, with resultant depression, fatigue, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and obesity despite having normal TSH levels.

Deiodinase type II (D2)
...
Additionally, D2 also has an opposite response from that of D1 to physiologic and emotional stress, depression, both dieting and weight gain, PMS, diabetes, leptin resistance, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, inflammation, autoimmune disease, and systemic illness. D2 is stimulated and up-regulated (increased activity) in response to such conditions, increasing intra-pituitary T4 to T3 conversion while the rest of body suffers from diminished levels of active T3. This causes the TSH to remain normal despite the fact that there is significant cellular hypothyroidism present in the rest of the body.
...

 

[Jigsaw]

here it goes

Thanks @Gondwanaland

That looks interesting. I'll give it my full attention later - currently engrossed in a cop drama!

J x

 

[PatJ]

Buist says iodine is an adaptogen and doesn't kill all the good guys off like antibiotics do.

I would like to know if anyone has tried experiments to prove it. I'm too foggy to look into it at the moment.

See if I can find any justification for what is basically my sheer impatience to reach 50mg asap, closely followed by 100mg.

After my initial side effect period I was able to ramp up very quickly, adding a few drops of 2% each day. I probably could have gone up even faster but wanted to be cautious.

Apparently detoxing can happen in waves. The last time I was taking high dose iodine I started to get very sleepy after a dose. I was so tired anyway at the time that I gradually dropped to a very low dose to get some energy back. I think the sleepiness may have been a good sign of healing. If it happens this time I'll stick it out for awhile and see what happens.

Antibiotics pushed iodine out of the position it used to have in the world of medicine, just at the same time as everyone was losing iodine in bread and being fed bromide. Call me cynical, but I don't think that was any mere coincidence. I think it was deliberate.

Today while looking up the vitamin c/iodine question (see below) I found this booklet:
Iodine Remedies - Secrets from the Sea

I've only skimmed it but this stood out:

In an article titled, The Wolff-Chaikoff Effect: Crying Wolf?, Dr. Guy Abraham explains that the misinformation about iodine can be traced to the Wolff-Chaikoff study at University of California at Berkeley in 1948 that resulted in the removal of iodine from the food supply.

The study, that was later referred to as the Wolff-Chaikoff (W-C) Effect says that iodine intake of 2 milligrams or more is excessive and potentially harmful.

I haven't read the article or any conflicting views of it, but I thought you would be interested.

I'm still wondering whether to take any notice of Farrow's advice to take Vit C away from iodine, or whether to go with my instinct and Buist's opinion that C is fine taken alongside iodine.

This page gives details about what happens when iodine and ascorbic acid mix:
"As the iodine is added during the titration, the ascorbic acid is oxidised to dehydroascorbic acid, while the iodine is reduced to iodide ions."

There are always conflicting opinions in any specialty, aren't there?

To the point that most things I research drive me to think: do basic research for risks, find out what protocols exist, and then just try it. I'm tired of spending weeks of my life for each health topic, reading so much conflicting opinion and theory presented as fact.

Thanks for the extra information. CureZone has an iodine FAQ you might like.

 

[CCC]

We just use the iodine and KI solution transdermally.

The longer it takes to soak in, the less it's needed. So if it soaks in instantly, there'll be another drop the next day. Otherwise it's a drop or two once a week.

I prefer transdermal options where available. @ahmo put us on to the idea, and it works well: no gut issues.

 

[PatJ]

We just use the iodine and KI solution transdermally.

There haven't been many experiments to examine the effectiveness of transdermal application of iodine, but this article explains studies done on iodine absorption and concludes that transdermal isn't nearly as effective as oral (but if it's your only option, then it's useful.)

One can conclude that skin application of iodine is an effective, if not efficient and practical, way for supplementation of iodine with an expected bioavailability of 6-12% of the total iodine applied to the skin. The serum iodide levels were 10 times higher at 2 hours post-intervention with oral ingestion of 100 mg iodide than with 160 mg iodine applied to the skin

The skin patch test isn't very reliable either. From the same article:

...the skin iodine patch test is not a reliable method to assess whole body sufficiency for iodine. Many factors play a role in the disappearance of the yellow color of iodine from the surface of the skin. For example, if iodine is reduced to iodide by the skin, the yellow color of iodine will disappear because iodide is white. In order to regenerate iodine on the skin, one needs to apply an oxidant such as hydrogen peroxide, complicating the test further. The evaporation of iodine from the skin increases with increased ambient temperatures and decreased atmospheric pressure. For example, the yellow color of iodine will disappear much faster in Denver, Colorado at 5,000 feet above sea level than in Los Angeles, California at sea level, irrespective of the amount of bioavailable iodine. The iodine/iodide loading test is much more accurate...

 

[CCC]

There haven't been many experiments to examine the effectiveness of transdermal application of iodine, but this article explains studies done on iodine absorption and concludes that transdermal isn't nearly as effective as oral (but if it's your only option, then it's useful.)

The skin patch test isn't very reliable either.

We'd seen the same paper and came to a different conclusion: absorption is lower, but less spikey, which is better in our case. We are applying only one or two drops a week - so it's very low dose and one less thing to swallow. It goes on with the zinc solution and B12 oils in the morning.

We don't really use the skin patch test in the usual way that people think. It is a relative measure, not as an absolute measure, and it correlates with symptoms.

The complicating factors you quoted are less applicable in that context. And being housebound, we don't change 1000m in altitude from day to day, and the temperature changes here are usually progressive with the seasons (except when a cold front goes through and you lose 10 degrees Celsius in 10 minutes - ouch). It's all about commonsense when taking these ideas and applying them at home.

 

[Jigsaw]

The numbers I gave were influenced by brainfog and wrongly calculated. jigsaw has set me straight. Sorry for the confusion.

Actually, having seen the Lugol's strength chart, where 2% has a total combined iodine/iodide of 2.5mg per vertical/metric drop, the 5% is 6.25mg, the 7% is 8.75mg, the 10% is 12.5mg (which should be right if 5% is 6.25mg), the 12% is 15mg, and the 15% is 18.75mg per drop, many of the products advertised as 10, 12, or 15% have much lower values.

A lot of the 12 and 15% solutions calling themselves Lugol's only have 7.62mg combined iodine and potassium iodide per drop.

My 7% Heiltropfen Lugol's has 8.75mg per vertical/metric drop. This is more than any of the 15% "Lugol's" I've seen. Other 7% products state 3.55mg per drop - that's a HUGE discrepancy.

My 2% Heiltropfen Lugol's has 2.5mg per vertical/metric drop.

Be aware!

 

[PatJ]

3rd-i iodine has accurate mg/drop for a Lugol's mixture. They also have quite a range: 2%. 4%, 5%, 24% (30mg/drop), and 46% (58mg/drop); SSKI, and some blends with selenium or fulvic acid.

I'm happy with the 3rd-i instead of J.Crow Lugol's. It's less expensive but is equally effective.