274 replies to this topic

[BioFreak]

Okay then, I just wanted to make sure that we understand each other 100%. Mission accomplished.
I must say it was kinda fun to calculate that though, and see the actual numbers play out.

I guess I am using European(or German) notation.

No matter if . or , it would always indicate rational numbers below 1.

For example,

0,1 = 0.1 (meaning 1/10th or 10%)

So my 3,896mg would be your 3.896mg or 3mg and 8/10th, 9/100th and 6/1000th mg I suppose. Or rounded up 4mg.

But I would never write whole numbers with . or , to make it more easy to view, so:

your 10,000 would be my 10000. But actually, I could also write 10.000 or 10.000,00 if I wanted to be 100% correct, the exact opposite to your notation.

I realize this can be mindknotting . I'd love to have one worldwide standard... We Germans have "," on the numpad to the right of zero, and every time I have to type in decimals in US format, I always have to make my hand go the long way to the middle of the keyboard where "." is... sooo inefficient.

[Barfly]

Intrigued by this thread I started to experiment a bit with higher dose iodine but little luck so far (10 days in), my general energy level and feeling of well being is still quite low.

I am currently taking 12.5 mg potassium-iodide from "Relentless improvement", 250 micrograms of some generic selenium from local vitamin shop, 500 mg C, 30 mg zinc and 400mg Magnesium before bed.

Does this mean that I am a nonresponder and I am barking at the wrong tree with the iodine supplementation or is there some way that I can make it work for me as I would really like the benefits mentioned itt

Thank you for all the help

Edited by Barfly, 20 December 2013 - 11:08 AM.

[BioFreak]

You can try different dosages. For me, enhanced energy does not happen with 12,5, 30 or 50mg... but with 100mg it's there, very noticeable.

Also, if you notice skin problems, you might want to consider salt loading to help the kidney get rid of bromide. Bromide can lower energy levels, so even with iodine in your system, if there is enough bromide, you will feel tired until its gone.

Also, you might consider trying lugols instead, to get the added benefit elemental iodine provides.

In my eyes you would be a non responder if dosages up to 100mg don't do you any good, and the combination with salt loading does not help either. You might want to slowly increase dosage though, to see how your thyroid reacts, and if there are detox symptoms.

[Barfly]

Cheers for the help, could you please be more specific how to approach increasing dosages, like double the dosage to 25 mg, even more? And should I do it slowly or can I just gauge 50mg and see what happens?

Thanks

[8bitmore]

Cheers for the help, could you please be more specific how to approach increasing dosages, like double the dosage to 25 mg, even more? And should I do it slowly or can I just gauge 50mg and see what happens?

Thanks

Personally I would ALWAYS titrate up slowly when it comes to Iodine, know of one person personally who have had their thyroid severely damaged by overdose of Iodine (that was in a hospital though, and intravenous, so YMMV but why not be safe and do it slowly, that can seldom do harm!)

[Barfly]

Cheers, but how slowly to be precise?

I am taking 1 tablet of 12.5 mg daily for 10 days now, when should I move to 25 mg, in a week, a month? And where to go from there?

Also, damaging the thyroid sounds pretty scary, if you are risk averse how far would you go with the dosage, up to 50 mg, a bit more?

Thanks

[8bitmore]

Cheers, but how slowly to be precise?

I am taking 1 tablet of 12.5 mg daily for 10 days now, when should I move to 25 mg, in a week, a month? And where to go from there?

Also, damaging the thyroid sounds pretty scary, if you are risk averse how far would you go with the dosage, up to 50 mg, a bit more?

Thanks

You can't use external information to guide your own intake beyond initial gauging - sense how your body is doing on the 12.5mg; if good then try upping with half a tablet for another 10 days and so forth. I wouldn't personally go very high with iodine intake, at the moment I feel 9mg daily (Lugols) is plenty for me (judging from better skin, better erections and overall "sense of wellbeing" BUT also sensations around thyroid area that I am wary of) at the moment and I may well taper further down - again that's from checking my own body feedback.

[SGKen]

I suggest we start a new thread folks.

This one is getting very long and ungainly. We have started to shift from how one person and a few others reported how much it helped them.

Now we are starting to talk more about how to take it. I think a thread of with a title something like that would be good.

Just like good etiquette in email to change the subject line when what's being discussed has changed.

Ken

[SGKen]

Ok, I have started a new thread over at:

http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/67655-iodine-supplementation/

Can we pick it up over there?

Thanks,
Ken

[BioFreak]

Cheers for the help, could you please be more specific how to approach increasing dosages, like double the dosage to 25 mg, even more? And should I do it slowly or can I just gauge 50mg and see what happens?

Thanks

If you didn't have a strong reaction to iodine at up to 12,5mg, it is relatively unlikely that you will have a strong reaction from the thyroid at higher dosages. What can happen though, is increased halogen / heavy metal load in the blood stream, and side effects for that reason.

So I would increase in 12,5mg steps, wait 3-4 days, and if nothing happens, increase again. I would not go above 100mg though. First thing if you experience problems is to salt load, and stop increasing dosage for a while.

Some however experience better detoxing effects at 100mg vs lower dosages. But I would approach it slowly.

Personally I would ALWAYS titrate up slowly when it comes to Iodine, know of one person personally who have had their thyroid severely damaged by overdose of Iodine (that was in a hospital though, and intravenous, so YMMV but why not be safe and do it slowly, that can seldom do harm!)

That was most likely radioactive iodine. Its a completely different animal!!
There is no evidence that there is irreversible damage expected from iodine, as long as there is sufficient selenium.
Some people can overreact to iodine if they have thyroid nodules, but that should not result in permanent changes.
In fact iodine should be protective in higher dosages, combined with selenium.

[BioFreak]

Ok, I have started a new thread over at:

http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/67655-iodine-supplementation/

Can we pick it up over there?

Thanks,
Ken

I don't see a problem with continuing in this thread. For one, other important stacks have one main thread that is mixed with research and questions(Uridine, Ciltep...).

In fact mods have sometimes merged threads in the past to avoid fragmentation of a topic.

And putting a new thread in a sub forum is likely to be overlooked my many (I've never looked in that subforum for example). And that would be a shame.

[BioFreak]

Ashwagandha could be a very good addition to the iodine protocol:

It seems to have a positive influence on thyroid hormones by itself,
it reduces cortisol and by that affects thyroid function(this would be bad though if one has low cortisol to begin with, good for people with high cortisol),

and it is...

"able to reduce immunosuppression while bolstering immunotherapy of tumors, and by various means Withaferin A can reduce the resistance of tumor cells towards cell death (without necessarily causing toxicity to the tumor cells) which would augment the efficacy of other cytotoxic agents."

Sounds like it could boost iodine's anti cancer properties and help balancing the thyroid.

Sources:
http://examine.com/s...ts/Ashwagandha/

[Barfly]

I am officially a believer !

After doubling my dose up to 25 mg I started experiencing some pretty discernible benefits, most notably an increased general energy level, less need for afternoon sleep and less sluggishness in the morning which lasts for 10 days now.

Now, lets just hope I can maintain those effects, thank you for this thread and all the help !

[BioFreak]

As long as you take selenium too... I know I keep saying it, just like a nun should probably always be praying.
25mg lugols in the morning, without an antioxidant(selenium is no direct antioxidant)?

[Barfly]

Don't worry, I take all the cofactors (selenium, C vitamin, zinc, magnesium, B complex)

[Sharkman]

As long as you take selenium too... I know I keep saying it, just like a nun should probably always be praying.
25mg lugols in the morning, without an antioxidant(selenium is no direct antioxidant)?

Does taking it with green tea affect its absorbtion in any way? (given that green tea is an antioxidant)

[BioFreak]

Depends on how strong the antioxidant is and how much you consume.

You can test it by putting your iodine dosage into the amount of green tea you consume within the next maybe 1 hour after iodine supplementation. So i.e. if you drink 1L of green tea, and normally use 2 drops of lugols, simply mix both and observe if lugols does still make the liquid darker. If it does not, then you have converted all elemental iodine to iodide ion.

It still has it's uses and should not affect absorption in the intestine. But some cell types can use elemental iodine, but not the iodide ion, so in those it would be less effective, i.e. for inducing apoptosis in some malignant cell types (breast if not lactating for example)

[Absent]

Just to update everyone on my situation:

I haven't been taking Iodine daily, but rather 8-10 drops every 5-7 days. Seems to be much better this way, as the effects carry over through the week, and I don't get acne in these dosages. I'm also taking many other energy supporting supplements but that's besides the point. I can definitely 'feel' more or less if I forget to take an Iodine dosage one week, though, could be my imagination. The immediate effects on the other hand are undeniable.

[Spherical Cow]

Come on Sanjay, no one claimed that this is a conspiracy, and asking for evidence isn't closed minded. Claims aren't evidence, they are just one person saying that they felt something. When that feeling gets described as a "magical miracle" involving "mini fractal universes", you're going to have to expect that people will question it. Descriptions like that sound like hypomania. I've looked at some of the natural health blogs and listened to a long video from one of the "Iodine Doctors". The natural health places like curezone, while there are grains of truth in some of what they say, are also rife with quackery. The "Iodine Doctors" are true believers, not scientists. I think there is something to iodine, and that it's a very important mineral. At the moment, it's mixed up with a bunch of quackery, or is being described like quackery, which is making the truth harder to determine.

Really good post.

[SGKen]

Come on Sanjay, no one claimed that this is a conspiracy, and asking for evidence isn't closed minded. Claims aren't evidence, they are just one person saying that they felt something. When that feeling gets described as a "magical miracle" involving "mini fractal universes", you're going to have to expect that people will question it. Descriptions like that sound like hypomania. I've looked at some of the natural health blogs and listened to a long video from one of the "Iodine Doctors". The natural health places like curezone, while there are grains of truth in some of what they say, are also rife with quackery. The "Iodine Doctors" are true believers, not scientists. I think there is something to iodine, and that it's a very important mineral. At the moment, it's mixed up with a bunch of quackery, or is being described like quackery, which is making the truth harder to determine.

Really good post.

That last post reminds me of something I heard from somewhere else. I've adjusted it a bit.

It's like a professor writing a 400 page book on the taste of oranges and yet he had never eaten any oranges himself. How much can he really know about the taste of an orange? One bite, and he knows a lot more....

I'm sure you have heard the British sailors are sometimes called Limeys. That comes from when they would go out to sea for long periods and the sailors would get very sick and some of them died. It was not a pleasant way to go. It was called scurvy. A ship's surgeon in the British Royal Navy, James Lind, gave some sailors some limes and they didn't get sick. After some politics, it was mandated that all ships would carry fruits and no one got scurvy anymore. At the time, it was a miracle!

http://www.healthali...y-vitamin-C.php

Basically, any deficiency we have that causes sickness and we don't know the cause, when we replace that deficient something and it heals the problem(s), it seems very miraculous. For some folks, correcting the deficiency of iodine can be that way. For others, correcting a Vitamin C deficiency can be (especially for those sailors).

If you care to look, there are many minerals we are becoming deficient in due to "modern" farming methods that deplete the soils and don't allow the soil to replenish them.

Ken

[niner]

Come on Sanjay, no one claimed that this is a conspiracy, and asking for evidence isn't closed minded. Claims aren't evidence, they are just one person saying that they felt something. When that feeling gets described as a "magical miracle" involving "mini fractal universes", you're going to have to expect that people will question it. Descriptions like that sound like hypomania. I've looked at some of the natural health blogs and listened to a long video from one of the "Iodine Doctors". The natural health places like curezone, while there are grains of truth in some of what they say, are also rife with quackery. The "Iodine Doctors" are true believers, not scientists. I think there is something to iodine, and that it's a very important mineral. At the moment, it's mixed up with a bunch of quackery, or is being described like quackery, which is making the truth harder to determine.

Really good post.

That last post reminds me of something I heard from somewhere else. I've adjusted it a bit.

It's like a professor writing a 400 page book on the taste of oranges and yet he had never eaten any oranges himself. How much can he really know about the taste of an orange? One bite, and he knows a lot more....

I'm sure you have heard the British sailors are sometimes called Limeys. That comes from when they would go out to sea for long periods and the sailors would get very sick and some of them died. It was not a pleasant way to go. It was called scurvy. A ship's surgeon in the British Royal Navy, James Lind, gave some sailors some limes and they didn't get sick. After some politics, it was mandated that all ships would carry fruits and no one got scurvy anymore. At the time, it was a miracle!

http://www.healthali...y-vitamin-C.php

Basically, any deficiency we have that causes sickness and we don't know the cause, when we replace that deficient something and it heals the problem(s), it seems very miraculous. For some folks, correcting the deficiency of iodine can be that way. For others, correcting a Vitamin C deficiency can be (especially for those sailors).

If you care to look, there are many minerals we are becoming deficient in due to "modern" farming methods that deplete the soils and don't allow the soil to replenish them.

Are you responding to "Really good post", or to what I wrote? either way would make about the same amount of sense. I said that I thought there was something to iodine, and that it was an important mineral. I supplement iodine, FWIW, though not at megadose levels. A better analogy would be a professor who eats a couple oranges a day, posts on a forum and says "oranges are good, but you might want to think twice about eating 500 of them a day. Or something.

[SGKen]

I was responding to both. How much iodine do you take Niner?

[niner]

I take 225 mcg/day, as potassium iodide. I used to get depressed in the winter when the days got short, but that stopped when I started supplementing iodide. I don't know that iodide is what made me better, but it was a pretty long-standing problem, and I don't have any better candidates for a cause.

[SGKen]

At what level do you consider it a megadose?

[niner]

Iodine doses of tens or hundreds of mg would qualify as megadoses to me. These are amounts that are beyond either dietary exposures or RDA.

[SGKen]

Iodine doses of tens or hundreds of mg would qualify as megadoses to me. These are amounts that are beyond either dietary exposures or RDA.

Understood. Here is some studies on the Japanese levels that was completed back in 2011. They aren't nearly as high as the iodine doctors (and below your 10's of mg) but still high compared to the US Adequate Intake (150ug) and Tolerable Upper Limit (1100ug).

http://www.thyroidre.../content/4/1/14

Quoted from the above link:

Mean and median iodine levels in the Japanese urine collections typically do not exceed 3,000 μg/L (3 mg/L). When using 1.5 L as an expected 24-hour urine output, urine iodine excretion should rarely exceed an estimated 4,500 μg/24 hr (4.5 mg/24 hr).

If they are excreting 3mg-4.5mg a day, then their intake is at least that amount. According to the iodine doctors, they expect someone who is whole body sufficient would excrete 90% of intake so you could in theory add 10% to those numbers to get the the amounts actually ingested. To me, that is another key part. These folks have been getting their iodine all their life and I would expect most to have whole body sufficiency and therefore be excreting most of it. Most of us on the other hand, don't get enough and wouldn't be whole body sufficient so the body would soak most of it up.

On the other hand, there are still several current medical uses where they use quite high doses of potassium iodide that go into the gram range. I'd be curious if those levels are also advocated in Europe. Could one of you look that up for me please?

From a medical type website:

http://www.drugs.com...ium-iodide.html


Usual Adult Dose for Cough

300 to 650 mg orally 3 to 4 times a day.
Usual Adult Dose for Hyperthyroidism

Oral solution: 250 mg orally 3 times a day. Give for 10 to 14 days prior to thyroid surgery.
May be given as 0.25 mL of a 1 g/mL potassium iodine solution (SSKI) or as 4 mL of 325 mg/5 mL solution. Alternatively, 2 to 6 drops of a 10% potassium iodide/5% iodine solution may be given orally 3 times a day with food.
Usual Adult Dose for Cutaneous Sporotrichosis

250 to 500 mg orally 3 times a day. Increase gradually to a maximum of 2 to 2.5 grams 3 times a day. Continue at maximum tolerated dose until the cutaneous lesions have resolved, usually 6 to 12 weeks.
Usual Adult Dose for Radiation Emergency

Pregnant or lactating women with exposure >= 5 centigrays (cGy): 130 mg orally per day.
>18 and <=40 years with exposure >= 10 centigrays (cGy): 130 mg orally per day.
>40 years with exposure >= 500 centigrays (cGy): 130 mg orally per day.
Usual Pediatric Dose for Cough

60 to 250 mg orally every 4 to 6 times a day. Maximum single dose 500 mg.
Usual Pediatric Dose for Hyperthyroidism

Oral solution: 250 mg orally 3 times a day. Give for 10 to 14 days prior to thyroid surgery.



Anyway, you get the idea. Since the thyroid prefers potassium iodide (as opposed to elemental iodine that is to be found in Lugol's and Iodoral and some other products), these are very high doses though they aren't usually kept up for very long (I would imagine days to weeks) but would still have a pretty good impact on thyroid and yet are considered safe levels.

Ken

[hallucinogen]

Iodine is Very psychedelic, even at 600mcg dose from Kelp, I got whole body tingling/warmth sensation, shivers and a metallic/stingy taste all inside my mouth that stayed there for quite some time

I also felt super energized, and just overall AMAZING and even younger, lots of memories came rushing in, I highly recommend !

(don't go over 600mcg a day, Japanese might take in much higher amounts, but they have ADAPTED to it gradually, even genetically, and do it on continuous basis )

Edited by hallucinogen, 13 January 2014 - 12:02 PM.

[timar]

*Sigh*

Did it ever occur to you that it is you who may be psychedelic, hallucinogen?

[Arjuna]

The initial effects Siro had have faded. This likely because homeostasis balanced the new increase in dopamine brought upon by the raised thyroid hormones, and by now his receptors have downregulated to normal dopamine function.

"
Hypothyroidism leads to increased dopamine receptor sensitivity and concentration"

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/3090565

Perhaps he just overcame dopamine homeostasis for a short period due to his lack of iodine in his body, and now his body is normalized. Perhaps iodine is just another healthy mineral we need for optimal function, and not the elusive short cut to sustainable hypomania.

If this is correct, after a few weeks since beginning dosing he will have kept the energy and body temperature and such from correcting his thyroid, but the initial effects of bursting mental energy will have subsided.

Edited by Arjuna, 15 January 2014 - 08:17 PM.

[Arjuna]

Ok now I'm just confused. Some sources say increasing thyroid hormones increase dopamine levels, others say they drop them. One correlates Restless leg syndrome with hyperthyroid even. Schizophrenics with high dopamine have hypothyroid. Does anyone understand the relationship between thyroid levels and dopamine?