Japan Nuclear Issues : Taking Iodine?

I am worried about this nuclear plant issue in Japan.  There are at least 3 reactors that are facing meltdown.  This is very scary not only for those in Japan, but for the entire world.   This could have catastrophic implications for the entire world depending upon how bad this gets.  If I were in Japan, I'd get the hell out of there and get as far away from these nuclear plants as possible.  Much further away than the 12 miles....  US Navy ships have detected high levels of radiation and have moved the ships further away.  The catch is these ships were over 100 miles northeast of the plants!  There are reports that the radiation from Japan will be reaching the US. 

As you can probably tell I have been studying this pretty much non-stop since the earthquake hit.  Ever since my bad bad reaction to taking iodine in 2008, I have been completely against any form of supplemental iodine.  I warn people to do it as their own risk.  You do not know how your body will react to it!

You have alternative news medias telling people to take iodine to protect the thyroid against the radioactive iodine.  In a perfect body this makes sense and may be very helpful.  Most of those people on these sites or alternative news media consider taking iodine completely harmless.  I can attest that it is not completely harmless.  It will cause your thyroid to create more thyroid hormone.  In my case, A LOT more hormone.  Those people already with an autoimmune thyroid condition but undiagnosed could send themselves into a thyroid storm...If that happens, you better get yourself to the hospital immediately.

The amount of iodine in the potassium iodate supplements intended for nuclear fallout accidents is VERY high.  I found my supply of 200 capsules of KI03. 1 tablet is 85mg (35mg iodide, 50mg elemental iodine).  The dosage is 2 tablets a day for an adult.  That's 160 170mg of iodine...HOLY COW!  I have never taken that much iodine, ever.  When my hair fell out, I was only taking 1-2 Iodoral tabs a day.  1 Iodoral tab has 7.5 mg iodide / 5 mg of iodine.  Huge difference there.  Even at these low doses, I felt completely OUT OF MY MIND as if I had drank about 10 espressos one after another.  Some people will say it's a bromide detox or some other bull, but I think it was simply the increase in T4 hormone production, which was then converted into the active thyroid hormone T3. 

Even though I vowed to never take iodine again, if this situation in Japan escalates and it is found the radiation has traveled to the US, even I might take some potassium iodide.  I cannot believe I just typed that...I am concerned it may trigger an autoimmune response in the body though like it did before in 2008.  Then what am I supposed to do.  I am very worried about all of this.  However, I suppose an autoimmune disease from iodine is better than having radioactive iodine in my thyroid.  The lesser of two evils is not very helpful in this situation.  Either way I'm going to suffer greatly. 

As it stands now my thyroid works pretty damn well, so I do not need to add any other health issues.

Iodine Use Is Shunned By Most Doctors (Update: And for Good Reason!)

No one is allowed to repost this image on any other website or media without my express permission.

Author's Edit: My views on iodine have changed drastically since I wrote this back in 2008. Now I have determined iodine was the CAUSE of the alopecia areata hair loss. I do not know why it happened, but it did. This post gets a lot of hits in google, so I'm telling you now I was naive when I wrote this post. I was just regurgitating what I heard others say on another website. Some info has been removed from this page because I don't want to be furthering someone's bad information. I apologize to everyone who commented and I gave stupid advice. Please forgive me!

Do your own research and use at your own risk...

My experimentation with iodine began when I first started to see a naturopathic MD.

On my first visit he put me on 1 tab of Iodoral every day. He explained to me that the thyroid and breasts need iodine and we are all deficient especially in this part of the world. He told me that it helps to break apart cysts and has been seen as a preventative for breast cancer. My thyroid always tested good. I did have some hypothyroid symptoms, but told him they really weren't that bothersome. I do have to watch my weight though.

Like a good patient, I started to take 1 Iodoral tablet a day. Now at this time in my life, I was eating REALLY good. I juiced 1 cucumber and 1 lemon 3Xs a day. I  ate lightly cooked egg whites in the morning and salads with white chicken breasts for lunch and dinner. As far as clean eating and dieting goes, I was doing it.

About a month into taking iodine, I started to get acne. I've never had acne before and didn't know what the heck was going on. One thing I noticed were that my morning temperatures finally broke the mid 96's, which was interesting. I use the LadyComp as my birth control method, so I took my temperature daily. The LadyComp was relearning my temperatures so the iodine was doing something.

At this point I wasn't sure it was a good something though. Some not so good things started to happen. I had my first patch of baldness come over night and I had numbness in my left leg from the top of my knee to the hip. It was very bothersome. The bald spot broke-the-camel's-back as they say and I called my doctor to tell him I was stopping everything for a few days to see what happens. Nothing good changed. My hair continued to fall out. My legs continued to get numb.

I started reading more about iodine and I was told that I was going through severe bromide detoxification. I was told that this is normal and you have to push through this...I now believe that is a bunch of lies and would never ever tell anyone to do this at all. If you are suffering after starting a supplement, then have enough sense to stop it. Don't let someone talk you into taking it by saying it's a "detox". I've heard this so many times over the years now, it's become a cliche. :(

Is there some truth to a detox? I have no idea. Whenever you take iodine, it pushes the fluoride, chlorine and bromide out of the thyroid and other tissues. The halogens compete in the body and unfortunately iodine is easily pushed out by bromide. Since drinking water has chlorine and fluoride in it, your thyroid gets hit. I have well water, so I knew that I did not have issues with these things. With the iodine supplementation, these toxins supposedly get dumped into your bloodstream and you feel very sick. Again I'm pretty skeptical of this nowadays and I just think my thyroid levels were through the roof. I think I was experiencing hyperthyroid symptoms and an autoimmune attack within my body. My TSH was NON DETECTABLE during this time, but my doctor did not make the connection.

So against my better judgement and because I was sucked in with these iodine websites, I started to take 3 Iodoral tabs. 2 in the morning and 1 mid day to begin the "bromide detox". It was a full 3 weeks of hell and back, but I did it because I thought I was doing the right thing. I read the research presented on the sites and thought it made sense.  This showed that even after 1 month at 3 Iodoral tabs, your body excretes large amounts of bromide and fluoride. Well I wanted that out of my body (if it was in there), so I followed this detox without question.

After this "detox", I went back to 1 tablet. My hair would continue to fall out until it looked like that picture above. How in the world was this an improvement of my health? I now was jittery, shakey, felt out of my mind, had terrible terrible headaches constantly, was half bald and now in worse shape than when I started... I was told that I was over-exaggerating and that I must have "done it wrong" on forums. Nobody ever wants to admit that the supplement they recommend could possibly hurt someone.

Mainstream medicine claims that too much iodine causes hyperthyroidism, but that is widely debated with holistic doctors. However these holistic doctors have ulterior motives because they sell iodine and iodine test kits on their websites. There is evidence that a deficiency in iodine can cause BOTH hyper and/or hypo! Goiters can be from too much iodine or too little, so really we just don't know at all. Some studies show countries with higher amounts of iodine have higher levels of autoimmune thyroid conditions. This doesn't sound like a positive thing at all.

The iodine websites say to get this Iodine Loading Test done and that it would tell me whether or not I have enough iodine in my body. I even question the science in this test and have no idea if it's even true or not, so test at your own risk. It may say you need it when you don't. How would we know?

Nowadays I could never ever recommend iodine to anybody. One size does not fit all.

Pictures of Alopecia Areata Hair Loss (What Supplemental Iodine Did to Me)

Here is a timeline of the hair loss I experienced in late 2007-2009. I had almost no hair on the left side of my head for a good year.  I thought it would be a good idea to document this in case someone else with alopecia areata finds their way to this site.

How Did It Start?
Supplemental iodine (Iodoral) is what triggered this autoimmune attack. I have no idea why, but that's the only thing I had changed during this time. I don't think natural doctors take iodine seriously enough at all. It's also important to note, I do NOT have Hashimoto's and there is NO family history.

None of these pictures are to be reposted on any other websites without my express permission.

I woke up one morning and had this spot. This is from Nov 21, 2007

Then it started to get a lot worse. This is from December 28, 2007

Continues to progress. It wasn't growing back. This is from February 3, 2008.

It got so bad in these next few months, I was afraid to take a picture. This next picture is from July 11, 2008. This is my hair at its worst. My doctor told me that I may never have hair here again or if I did it would be white. I was devastated. 

I started to get my amalgams out and things were looking better. In this picture I was amalgam free for 7 days and was on day 3 of my detox. This picture is from Sept 16, 2008.

 
Round 4, Day 3 of detoxing. This is from October 19, 2008. There was a new small spot of hair loss just above my ear, but also some more fuzzy hair growth. Approx. Round 7 of detoxing. 

This is from November 15, 2008. Look at all the growth!!

This is from January 14, 2009. Look at the growth. All of the loss that used to extend much higher up and back behind my ear has filled in. The only spot that remains is what I originally lost at the end of '07. I haven't been chelating due to severe reactions, but it is nice to see the other spots growing in.

This is from June 29, 2009! My hair is almost completely grown back. The new growth was about 4-5 inches long and was close to blending in with the rest of my hair.

By 2010, all of my hair had grown back and my hair is extremely full and there are no signs of alopecia areata. This post is a nice warning that even "natural" supplements may give one severe side effects. Just because you can buy it online or at a store doesn't mean it comes without potential consequences.