38 replies to this topic

[SGKen]

Trying to get a new thread started on taking Iodine safely. The "Iodine is magical miracle" thread is getting quite long and shifting towards how to take it so I thought a new thread would be more appropriate.

There are many resources on the web for iodine. Why we need it, why we don't have enough, how to take it safely etc. There is controversy about this subject. Is it safe? How much is safe? How much do we need? Some of it has some studies, some of it is word of mouth. There are some doctors who have used it safely with a large number of patients and over a period of perhaps a decade or more. But, if you don't understand the various aspects, damage can be done. It's not harmless if you don't follow the information and instructions.

I'll start by saying it is a protocol meaning you have to have some other supplements to go along with the iodine. You have to be aware of things like detox reactions and damaging your thyroid if you aren't careful. There are preferred forms of iodine (and other supplements) for the best success and a few you should stay away from. Of course, a pretty good resource is the iodine group on yahoo. I was on there for almost 6 months and learned a lot!

http://groups.yahoo....o/groups/iodine

Here are a couple on the iodine protocol. There are more:

http://www.breastcan.../iprotocol.html
http://iodinehealth....odine-protocol/

Ken

[timar]

My iodine protocol: daily multivitamin (75mcg), iodised table talt and some sushi now and then.

No magical miracle cure but pretty safe, I suppose

Edited by timar, 20 December 2013 - 06:05 PM.

[Sharkman]

I've been supplementing roughly 8mg of Lugol's iodine for 4 days, and on day 2 I developed a cold and a sore throat.

Could this be related to a bromide detox? or is it just a coincidence? There are a few bugs and viruses going around, and I have been going to the gym quite a lot recently, so it's possible I picked something up there.

[BioFreak]

I've been supplementing roughly 8mg of Lugol's iodine for 4 days, and on day 2 I developed a cold and a sore throat.

Could this be related to a bromide detox? or is it just a coincidence? There are a few bugs and viruses going around, and I have been going to the gym quite a lot recently, so it's possible I picked something up there.

do you supplement with selenium also?

[Sharkman]

I've been supplementing roughly 8mg of Lugol's iodine for 4 days, and on day 2 I developed a cold and a sore throat.

Could this be related to a bromide detox? or is it just a coincidence? There are a few bugs and viruses going around, and I have been going to the gym quite a lot recently, so it's possible I picked something up there.

do you supplement with selenium also?

I get 100mcg from a multi-vitamin, and I get a further 100+mcg from my diet.

Edited by Sharkman, 20 December 2013 - 08:21 PM.

[SGKen]

Just checked, the protocol links I put in address using iodine in the form of Iodoral. I'll dig one up that also talks about Lugol's. Make sure you are taking all the other nutrients as well. Also to make sure... put the drops in a glass of water. Don't take it straight from the dropper as that could case a sore throat. If you are taking it in a glass of water, then it is more likely you picked something up like a cold or some such.

Vitamin C - 3,000 mg per day (more may be necessary to detox bromide).

300-600 mg magnesium - prefer magnesium glycinate or magnesium citrate.)

200 mcg selenium. The selenomethionine version is preferred by many.

100 mg Vitamin B2 three times a day. *See update in left margin on the ATP
Cofactor as an alternative.

Celtic, Himalayan or other good sea salt.

A comprehensive vitamin and nutrition program.

How is it you are taking 8mg? That's an odd number from the dosages that Lugol's usually comes in.

Ken

My iodine protocol: daily multivitamin (75mcg), iodised table talt and some sushi now and then.

No magical miracle cure but pretty safe, I suppose

You are taking what the mainstream considers to be very safe but not likely to do much to improve your iodine status.

Ken

[BioFreak]

I've been supplementing roughly 8mg of Lugol's iodine for 4 days, and on day 2 I developed a cold and a sore throat.

Could this be related to a bromide detox? or is it just a coincidence? There are a few bugs and viruses going around, and I have been going to the gym quite a lot recently, so it's possible I picked something up there.

do you supplement with selenium also?

I get 100mcg from a multi-vitamin, and I get a further 100+mcg from my diet.

Getting a cold is probably unrelated. check out bromide symptoms:
http://www.breastcan...strategies.html

[Barfly]

Hi, as I have mentioned in the first iodine thread I started getting some solid benefits when I have upped my dose to 25 mg and I am just wondering where to take it from here and I am hoping for some advice.

So, should I just stick with the minimal dose I found effective or go higher for even greater benefits?

And if going higher is the way, how far should I go? And in what intervals should I up the dosage?

Thanks

[BioFreak]

If you feel fine with 25mg, there is no need to go higher. You could go higher for more accelerated detoxification, or if you have cancer, but other then that, I don't see a benefit. Just don't forget the selenium.

[Barfly]

Ok, thank you very much for the feedback, I will stick with 25 mg ! (and yes I take the selenium and other stuff recommended : )

Also, are there some signs I should watch for and lower my dose, or is such a dose acceptable longterm (even indefinitely)?

[Neal Cullum]

do you take the iodine and the salt at the same time or different time?

[SGKen]

Neal,

It's always a good idea to mention which type of iodine you are referring to, Lugol's or Potassium Iodide alone (could be in the form of SSKI) or one of the other forms.

I take it separately. Partly because I want them to do their own thing and not have a chance of chemically combining in the same solution (though I don't have a particularly good reason to suspect they would or if they did, would it be a problem?). Partly because I think the iodine of either form, needs some time to knock loose the bromine so it can then be helped by the salt to get it out of the system. If taken at the same time, I don't think there would be that much bromine to flush out. Those are just wild guesses on my part and perhaps have no basis in reality, but I still take them separate.

Ken

[username]

High does lugols caused dizziness and tinnitus for me two years ago. I'va had it since then. It significantly contributed to all my health problems.
Don't believe in the detox stuff. Detox is a typical "alternative health argument". It's not that it doesn't exist. It's just that whenever something goes wrong, it's detox. And yes, I did take selenium and vitamins during my disastrous iodine experiment.
It also caused restless legs for several weeks.
Be careful. Don't risk ruining your health.

[SGKen]

Longschi,

Agreed, be careful. How high a dose were you on? How fast did you raise it? How long were you on it? Not a lot of information.

Ken

[username]

I was registered in the quack forum curezone and used dosages of 100-200mg (not mcg) - very high. I started with 25mg or something and raised it more believing it's all bromide detox.
I HATE curezone. I should have never read all those posts from these idiot people. Avoid that forum wherever possible. It will be your doom lol
Another very dangerous website is earthclinic.

[username]

by the way: The reason why I was so optimistic and started with high dosages was because when I took a couple of normal iodine pills (150mcg per pill), I felt really good and hyper and believed I found my miracle cure.
My diet was not low in iodine. I was eating eggs and fish on a regular basis.
I think that dosages of up to 1mg of iodine can be reasonable. But I think that the risk of causing serious damage (see my case) outweigh possible benefits.
It makes me really angry that the iodine prophets (and doctors) pretend that side effects don't exist and actually ATTACK you when you claim you had side effects.
The guru Dr. Abraham believes the earth is 6,000 years old as does Dr. Flechas. I'm not sure about Brownstein.
Be VERY careful with everything they say!

[SGKen]

I'm very sorry that you have suffered tinnitus and other symptoms. There are many causes of tinnitus and dizziness. One major one is low thyroid hormones. Most folks who were using thyroid medication and then started iodine (usually Lugol's or Iodoral) still needed their thyroid medication but were often able to reduce their dosage of the thyroid medication. Most docs aren't very good at determining the status of the thyroid. The tests (Free T3, Free T4, TSH, Reverse T3) can be helpful (if interpreted correctly) but body temperature (taken at 3,6,9 hours after waking) and pulse are also very important indicators.

Over in the states, doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death.

http://www.health-ca.../causedeath.htm

I can't tell you how many people I know that have had poor outcomes in dealing with doctors. They are supposed to be the experts! That being said, we still need to see them. We also need iodine.

1mg/day would be helpful for a lot of folks since most don't event get the recommended daily allowance. Higher levels do need to be approached cautiously. I can easily take 100mg a day (50mgX2 in 12oz water) of Lugol's but I did have to pass through some mild detox and being somewhat afraid of higher doses, I stayed at 12.5mg/day (mostly Iodoral) for better than a year or two. It was only after that that I tried raising to higher levels. I have gone as high as 300mg/day (150X2) of Lugol's. It was only for a couple of days and it did feel like it was a bit high of a dose but I didn't suffer any real problems. I will usually do 50-100mg a day depending on my mood. Has it cured everything? Nope. But it has been helpful for several things including my prostate and dental plaque.

Take care,
Ken

[username]

I'd like to 'believe' in what it does, but I won't try it again.
It's great that you see good results with it, though.
However, it seems to be contraindicated in some people like me for whatever reason. My TSH is normal btw when I checked last. Unfortunately , I still have the problems caused by the iodine.
It was my own fault, though. But that's how you learn.

[SGKen]

Unfortunately, TSH alone is not much of an indicator of thyroid function especially when it is the only measurement. It is an indicator of how the pituitary is functioning. The pituitary measures the amount of thyroid hormone in a different way than the rest of the body uses it and so is prone to errors. That's why you need all the measurements I listed including temps and pulse.

Ken

[niner]

Over in the states, doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death.

http://www.health-ca.../causedeath.htm

I can't tell you how many people I know that have had poor outcomes in dealing with doctors. They are supposed to be the experts! That being said, we still need to see them. We also need iodine.

Much hay has been made of these statistics, but they are kind of misleading. The incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions (in Hospitals) is 0.19%, about two out of 1000 patients. However, these tend to be very sick people. I don't want to minimize the importance of ADRs, but an awful lot of those patients would have died of whatever they were being treated for, if not for the ADR. You need to compare them to a population of equally sick people who get no medical treatment. Then who is more likely to die?

[SGKen]

The web page talked about more than ADR.


Even more significantly, the medical system has played a large role in undermining the health of Americans. According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments: • 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
• 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals
• 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
• 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
• 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.

[niner]

The vast majority of deaths are due to things that happen to very sick, hospitalized people. Many of them would have died anyway, which would have simply raised the death tolls for cancer, CVD, pulmonary disease and the like. Again, not to minimize the importance of iatrogenic mortality, but you're missing the point. If you compare the death rate of people treated by doctors to the death rate of people with the same conditions who avoid the medical system and self-treat with Internet Cures, what do you think it would look like?

[SGKen]

The vast majority of deaths are due to things that happen to very sick, hospitalized people. Many of them would have died anyway, which would have simply raised the death tolls for cancer, CVD, pulmonary disease and the like. Again, not to minimize the importance of iatrogenic mortality, but you're missing the point. If you compare the death rate of people treated by doctors to the death rate of people with the same conditions who avoid the medical system and self-treat with Internet Cures, what do you think it would look like?

I agree that for some, it may be the case. Most or all, I would disagree with but I have no evidence. Do you have any?

Getting prescribed the wrong drug can be very dangerous for a person who needed a different drug to live. Getting the wrong part operated on can be very dangerous by not operating on the part that needed it. Or by having an unnecessary operation since all operations carry a risk up to and including death. The totality of what those studies took into account, I am not aware of but to be included, they had to be an error that resulted in death. They didn't add the caveat that the patient was going to die anyway.

I think those who self treat some conditions have had some success where doctors have not. Others have not. But I'm not aware of any study that shows 225,000 people who self treat died from it.

My point in bringing it up was to show that one doesn't have to be a quack to have bad outcomes. Not sure about Europe, but the commercials over here have become fairly insane since they started marketing directly to patients on the television . "This new drug will stop you peeing your pants, live a happy free life! (side effects may include impotence and possibly death. XYZ drug may not be for everyone, check with your doctor). They are just letting you know that this approved drug may not work so well for you.

Enough nit picking?

[niner]

It's not nit picking if you are implying that self-directed consumption of supraphysiological doses of iodine is safer than Western Medicine in general. What about all those iodine users who wind up requiring thyroid meds? Yes, there are problems with health care delivery. DTC ads are a concern. Drugs involve risk reward tradeoffs. They don't always work the way we want them to. But that doesn't mean that anything you can buy on the Internet without a prescription is automatically safe.

[genereader]

I've read about iodine for many years, but was put off by the Curezone "miracle" claims and, conversely, warning against high dosages. This dichotomy is unfortunate; neither group reflects my experiences with iodine so far.    I wish I would have started iodine earlier.

 

I'm two weeks in.  I have experienced aches/pains/headaches, but overall my experience has been very positive. I feel that it has fixed something that was chronically broken in my systems.  The effect was like a key in a lock.

[niner]

The effect was like a key in a lock.

 

That seems to be the case for a lot of people, at first.  My concern regards what it does to your long term health.

[genereader]

 

My concern regards what it does to your long term health.

 

 

 

Your concern is thyroid tissue damage? 

[Duchykins]

I use Lugol's iodine solution with topical application only, and not every day, just on a few toenails and around the nail beds with Q-tip. Topical is the ONLY *relatively* safe way to use liquid iodine solutions. Please don't drink iodiNe. Lugol's was never meant to be ingested.

[motorcitykid]

In Okinawa, iodine-rich seaweed is consumed on a regular basis. I wonder if that's part of what contributes to the Okinawan people's extreme longevity(it sure as hell doesn't seem to be interfering with it)? If there is some dietary connection here, I would think it reasonable to stay in the the best guesstimate zone of iodine consumed by the Okinawan folk - I consume a moderate amount of kelp(from coastal Maine) each day.

 

 

 

 

Edited by motorcitykid, 09 May 2014 - 02:07 PM.

[Duchykins]

The 1960's study was done poorly, they used dry seaweed when they should have used fresh seaweed that the people actually ate. That is the study that is referenced by quacks when advocating 12-18 even up to 50mg of iodine a day. A study in 2008 found that the average Japanese intake of iodine was 1.2mg from seaweed (upper tolerable limit for iodine is established around 1.1mg, sounds about right) Pointing to Japanese intake of iodine and arbitrarily saying that's probably why they love longer is no more conclusive than saying they probably live longer because they eat soy or sweet potatoes.

We eat dried seaweed all the time because it just tastes good (we live in Monterey). Get some calrose rice in the cooker, get your little strips of dried seaweed, make little rice rolls. This is my daughter's favorite snack, and often she just wants the seaweed to crunch on

Edited by Duchykins, 09 May 2014 - 03:16 PM.