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Iodine for Hypothyroidism: Crucial Nutrient or Harmful Toxin?

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This article is part of a special report on Thyroid Disorders. To see the other articles in this series, click here.

In a previous article I showed why, when used alone, thyroid hormone replacement often fails. In this post I’ll explain why optimizing your iodine intake is so crucial, and why both too little and too much iodine can be harmful.

Iodine deficiency is the most common cause of hypothyroidism worldwide. Once researchers realized this, health authorities around the world began adding iodine to table salt.

This strategy was effective in correcting iodine deficiency. But it had an unanticipated—and undesired—effect. In countries where iodine has been added to table salt, the rates of autoimmune thyroid disease have risen. The following is just a sample of studies around the world demonstrating this effect:

Why does this happen? Because increased iodine intake, especially in supplement form, can increase the autoimmune attack on the thyroid. Iodine reduces the activity of an enzyme called thyroid peroxidase (TPO). TPO is required for proper thyroid hormone production.

On the other hand, restricting intake of iodine can reverse hypothyroidism. In one study, 78% of patients with Hashimoto’s regained normal thyroid function with iodine restriction alone.

However—and this is a big “however”— it appears that iodine may only pose a problem for people with Hashimoto’s and other autoimmune thyroid diseases in the presence of concurrent selenium deficiency.

In the study above where rats developed goiter while receiving excess iodine, when they were given adequate selenium they did not develop the goiter.

Other studies have shown that selenium protects against the effects of iodine toxicity and prevents the triggering and flaring of autoimmune disease that excess iodine without selenium can cause.

In my practice I always test for both iodine deficiency and Hashimoto’s when a patient presents with hypothyroid symptoms. If they are iodine deficient, I will start them on a trial of iodine and selenium together. In most cases, patients see a significant improvement. In a minority of cases, they cannot tolerate supplemental iodine even with adequate selenium intake.

Unfortunately, the blood test for iodine that your doctor might run is not very accurate. The best way to determine iodine status is with a 24-hour urine loading test. This involves taking a large dose of iodine and collecting your urine for 24 hours afterward. If you are iodine deficient, you’ll retain more of the ingested iodine than you should and the level of iodine excreted in the urine will be lower than expected. The two labs I recommend for this test are Doctor’s Data and Hakala.

That said, if your doctor or health care practitioner won’t order these tests, you can simply begin an iodine protocol. This involves starting with a low dose of iodine (I start my patients with kelp tablets that contain 325 mcg of iodine per tablet) and increasing very slowly over time. As I’ve described in this article, it’s crucial that you also take 200 mcg of selenium per day during this protocol to protect against the potentially adverse effects of iodine supplementation, especially if you have autoimmune thyroid disease.

Physicians that specialize in treating hypothyroidism with iodine (such as Dr. Abraham and Dr. Brownstein) suggest doses as high as 50 mg per day may be necessary to restore iodine levels in those that are deficient. I have used doses this high in my practice, but it’s imperative that patients build up to such high doses very slowly, and I don’t recommend doing it without the supervision of a clinician experienced with iodine treatment. Be aware that high doses of iodine can lead to a transient increase in TSH levels, which can be mistakenly interpreted as a sign of hypothyroidism.

Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that a minority of patients with Hashimoto’s confirmed by biopsy (the gold standard) never test positive for thyroid antibodies. This is probably because their immune systems are so depressed they can no longer produce antibodies. If you have a combination of hyper- and hypothyroid symptoms, I would still suspect Hashimoto’s even if your thyroid antibody tests are normal. It’s wise to be cautious with iodine if you have any signs of autoimmune thyroid disease, even without a confirmed diagnosis.

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558 Comments

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  1. I finally got my blood work. My endo tested TSH and T4 only. She said testing for T3 was a waste of money because it fluctuates too much throughout the day, and that the TSH and T4 would give her a good indication if there’s anything wrong with my thyroid. Is this true?
    She also did an ultrasound and everything was fine besides a small shadow on the left side but she said it was probably still nothing.
    My TSH is 2.27 and my T4 is 1.04. Both within the normal ranges specified in the papers, even if my T4 is on the low range (0.80 – 1.80). So, if everything is normal, why do I have persistent body temp around 36 degrees (I’ve measured 35.7 a couple of times) all day long, feel cold all the time, constipation and hair loss, all in the last 3+ months?
    I didn’t have these symptoms 3 months ago and my temp has always been around 37. Something is not right!

      • Hi Lauren, my iron is normal, but I did not check my ferritin. I’ll include it in my next blood work, thanks.
        My endo ended up telling me I was fine and there was nothing more she could do for me. When I insisted about my low body temp (36 degrees for 4 months now) and all the other symptoms, she told me to exercise more!
        I have an appointment with another endo on March 6th, but I think I’ll get the same result.

        • Ugh! I have also been turned away by an MD after my blood work turned up nothing wrong (according to traditional standards). I was having extreme fatigue and hair loss… probably low body temp as well. I happened to end up with a really great hematologist just by chance because my white cells were just a little low and I thought I might as well see a specialist for it because my MD thought I was nuts. She told me to try a sleep study?!?! I questioned the hematologist about my ferritin because I had been combing through my own blood work and read something about it online causing fatigue and hair loss. It was 13. She said oh yes increasing your ferritin might be life changing! And she put me on supplements right away. Sure enough… hair stopped falling out and fatigue is much better. Might be worth checking out. Good luck!!

    • After doing tons and tons of research, seeing numerous doctors. I have found it is only T3 that is a good factor in whether you have hypothyroid disease. If I were you I would find the most recent research and testing on hypothyroid disease. These people that use TSH and T4 only especially are using research that is very limited and very old-fashioned.

    • EuroinSF … I have been having same symptoms except for 30 years!! Still searching for answers… most doctors are not much help. One thing I would recommend though is to have your calcium and parathyroid hormone checked together… especially since something showed up on the ultrasound. it could just be a thyroid nodule or it could be an enlarged parathyroid which can cause many of the same symptoms as low thyroid. Check out parathyroid.com and it will give you more information than you ever wanted to know!! But for many people it has been a life changer. Even though I had hyperparathyroidism and had 3 of the 4 glands removed i unfortunately did not have the miraculous recovery that many have experienced. It’s just another avenue to explore. The endocrine system is so complex and so many things can go wrong but most doctors, even endocrinologists, just don’t seem to have the knowledge to or even the interest in finding the answers. 🙁 I wish you luck. If you find something that helps please repost and let us know what worked for you. It could turn out to be the answer for someone else as well.

  2. Can one take selenium along with synthroïd synthetic pils ? Or would that be useless to improve thyroid function , I would appreciate suggestions on how to begin improving thyroid function slowly replacing the synthetic synthroïd medication , is that even a possibility ?

  3. Hello ! I feel lucky finding this conversation about thyroid function and hypothyroidism , I’ve been looking for a way out of my long term sentence of taking synthetic synthroïd , I’ve been on it for 10 years , I also been researching many ways to find someone willing to help , my doctor does not believe in another way , she says the gland does not heal just maintained , how can I get real help in curing my thyroid gland and not just take temporary fix with synthroïd pills , can this be done ?

    • Doctors never believe it can be cured, but supposedly some patients have succeeded. I was told it could be done with the proper diet, but might take 5 years. So for 3.5 years, my diet has consisted mainly of fresh pressed veggie juice, fruit smoothies, and giant salads. I also water fasted twice for more than 3 weeks. I was originally taking 265mg natural desiccated thyroid, and gradually eliminated it after 2 years. However I started taking it occasionally recently since my T3 was a little low on my last test. Also I still test positive for Hashimoto’s, but my blood test went way down from 3000 –> 500. Hopefully it’ll hit zero in the next couple of years, but I’m not overly concerned because I’ve had no physical symptoms since I started juicing.
      You really should find a doctor that prescribes naturally desiccated thyroid.

      • I have a daughter that they believe has Hashimotos and sounds so similar to your situation. Can you share more with me about what you are doing nutritionally to help manage the Hashimotos?

  4. hello I have been taking liquid iodine for the past 3 years since I gave birth to my Caleb..i was not producing enough iodine so my thyroid was low on hormone.. it was very dangerous while pregnant, so I went ahead and took medication while pregnant..
    now i want to get of the iodine because i have been feeling like its not working!! my hair falls of in chunks.. mainly from the sides, i also take selenium..
    my question is kelp better in regards of what I’m going thru?

    • You don’t produce iodine, you consume it and your thyroid uses it to produce hormones.

      You’re right, iodine deficiency and hypothyroidism is risky during pregnancy.

      Is a doctor monitoring your iodine and thyroid? You should see an endocrinologist for a full evaluation, and tell them all your symptoms.

      Simply changing from drops to kelp isn’t necessarily the answer, that’s just a different sort of iodine supplement.

    • Hi Claudia, I’m not a doctor, but I will tell you my experiences of hair falling out, the first one could be your reason. The majority of women don’t know this, but excess estrogen or estrogen dominance causes hair loss. Alcohol (even two drinks a week will do this for me) increases estrogen in the body, it overloads the liver which can’t always keep up, results in excess estrogen then hair loss. I don’t drink even minimally any more because I hate losing my hair plus low mood caused by alcohol. There are many other estrogens in our environment that can cause dominance – including in plastics, hormones in dairy or beef, caffeine promotes estrogen. Pesticides/herbicides are endocrine disruptors also. After years of chronic breast pain/soreness I now take iodine AND progesterone or Agnus Castus tablets- does a great job of balancing out that estrogen & ending the pain. Secondly, wearing a hat in very hot weather (traps heat around the scalp) causes hair loss (I can testify!) and lastly, some medicines or heavy metal toxicity could cause hair loss. Best wishes

  5. I am hashimoto hypothyroidic. I currently take Nature-throid at 97.5 mg. I want to start a iodine regimen (along with selenium) because my clinic will not provide the required blood tests and I cannot afford to go to a physician outside of the Cherokee nation. I did a home test where I rubbed regular iodine on my inner thigh and waited for it to disappear. It completely disappeared in 1 1/2 hours which is supposed to mean that I’m deficient in iodine, but I’m not sure if that is completely accurate. My question is, do I continue to take my thyroid medicine or do I need to gradually ween myself off of it as I increase my dosage of iodine?

    • You should not begin taking iodine or selenium unless you have blood tests to determine your current levels, and if you actually have a need. Not everyone with low iodine levels need supplementation. I am one of them, and I have Hashimoto’s. Look on this site to see my experience with iodine. You can go online to various websites to get lab orders for these two minerals and pay for it yourself. It may not be cheap, but cheaper than ruining your health by experimenting. If you decide to take a small amount of iodine and selenium based upon your lab results, be very careful to begin slowly by taking the minimum of each. Some doctors will suggest that you begin supplementing with selenium first. Based on my experience, I have no more interest in supplementing with iodine (I ate high-iodine sea veggies and aggravated my Hashimoto’s). For now, supplementing with selenium seems the logical choice for me until my level is high-normal. I had a mineral hair test and it compared equally to the blood tests I took for iodine and selenium – mineral hair tests give more results and may be cheaper overall. You can find them for as low as $149 online. You get the hair sample, send it to the lab yourself, and results are sent to you via email.

  6. The article cited regarding iodine restriction (Yoon, &al. “The Effect of Iodine Restriction in Patients with Hypothyroidism due to Hashimto’s Thyroiditis.” Yonsei Medical Journal, 2003) is a complete red herring.

    Just to start:
    1-The authors used a very small sample size: 23 patients in one group and 22 in the other.
    2- Group 1 (restriction group) had an initial avg TSH of 37.95, and Group 2 (unrestricted group) had an initial avg TSH of 11.25. The authors did not consider this 26-point difference “significant.”
    3- There was no measurement of the iodine intake of the “unrestricted group.”
    4- They did not use a loading test to measure urinary iodine levels.
    5- They did not measure Free T3 or reverse T3, which I and other functional medicine docs have found to have the most correlation with patient symptoms. They also did not measure basal body temperature.
    6- After the 3 months, in the restricted group, the total T3 and total T4 levels were unchanged; the free T4 had increased from 0.80 to 0.98, and the TSH decreased from 37.95 to 25.66. Based on these numbers, the authors declared, “they had recovered.”
    7- Most annoyingly, as unconvincing as these numbers are, the authors based their entire assessment of thyroid status on the lab tests and gave no report of the patient’s symptoms. This is maddening to me, every time I hear/read/see it (which is a lot). As a physician, you ALWAYS TREAT THE PATIENT NOT THE LAB TEST!

    [I could go on about how doctors today make more eye contact with the computer screen than with their patients, but I’ll refrain…]

    Likewise, there are other problems I could mention with the Yoon article, but I encourage you to read the article for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I am thankful to Chris Kesser for posting the link so I could do just that.

    After a lot of reading, I recently started taking iodine myself (I’ve had Hash for at least 20 years). And -wow- what a difference! Better than synthroid and cytomel. I’ve actually had to cut back on coffee, and I never thought that would happen! I don’t think you should be convinced by any one anecdotal testimonial, but there you go.

    – DK, MD –

    • Problem with mainstream endocrine doctors is they worship the TSH. That is why they do not order the free T3 level or give 2 hoots about the patient’s clinical condition. I am a conventionally trained family physician who has to re-educate himself on thyroid diseases.

    • hi.. i was diagnosed with hypo-t 2 years ago and took synth.levothroid; had md switch me to armour thyroid after 1 year of no improvement from synth levo and without telling md i was doing my own research, i began to take lugol’s iodine a little at a time along with the recommended vitamin/supplement must haves and worked up to 50mg is it (20 drops of 2%) iodine. after 6 &1/2 months on armour thyroid, i began to get a few symptoms of low thyroid again and back to the lab i went; we upped my thyroid dosage just a tad 30mg and in a few weeks i began getting headaches and muscle aches in my neck… i stopped the thyroid for one day …headache went away..called md and we stopped it for now and sent me to the lab 2 weeks later…my TSH level is very very high…like 225 and t4 is a tad low and t3 is within range. for now and the next 3 months…unless i get low thyroid symptoms…not to take the thyroid at all. if i do..go to lab and then md will determine what thyroid to put me on. my question is…. well, 1st i still haven’t told the md about my taking lugol’s, but do i continue to take the current 20 drops each day and the supplements (which one is selenium).. and if so, is having a high TSH a very bad thing???? it’s been 5 weeks now and i am feeling wonderful…not run down or having any of those hypo-thyroid symptoms yet. thanks!

  7. can someone provide the citation for a scientific journal or other source for the study that supports Dr Brownstien’s claim that 95% of 5,000 patients tested had deficient Iodine levels. This is a very important claim and yet I can not find any published studies to back it up.. Umh puts a cloud on all related claims..

    • I have read quite a bit of Iodine related articles and have been taking Iodine 25-50mg daily for the last 2 years. It has brought my hormone levels back to normal after being diagnosed with hypothyroidism. So whoever (Chris) posted this, then didn’t cite any actual studies is putting false information out there.

    • It just depends on how you define iodine deficiency. Apparently some Iodine-Mongers want to scare people into visiting their clinic.

  8. I would download Chris Kressers e-book on thyroid but my browsers say the site is not safe…?

  9. I am a healthy and active female in my 60s with well-controlled Hashimotos for over seven years. It took many years of diet and lifestyle changes (without medication), but it worked. Until Nov. 2015, my TSH was around 2.0 and my TPO was about 52. I wanted my TSH to be closer to 1.0 and my TPO below 34 so that I could officially say my Hashimoto’s was in remission. I’d read on other sites how iodine supplementation might help me achieve my goals, so I had a serum blood test for iodine that showed I was very low. That’s when I started eating small amounts of seaweed every 3 days – just adding a few leaves of dulce in my salad. I didn’t know I should also increase my selenium. However, I dilligently monitored my lab test results every month. My TSH dropped to 1.0, but my TPO started to go up. At first it was a modest couple of points that didn’t seem to mean anything, but the second month my TPO jumped to over 200. My TSH stayed around 1.0. I got worried, so I immediately stopped eating the seaweed, but lab testing on the third month showed my TPO was now over 1,000. I’d never had a TPO lab test higher than 240, even when I had major symptoms of Hashimotos many years ago. I am now restricting my diet of iodine-rich foods and hope my TPO reduces. I don’t have any noticeable symptoms of a Hashimoto’s flareup, but I am very worried about this. I’m wondering if eating foods high in selenium might help, in addition to my restricted iodine diet. Any thoughts, advice, experience, or suggestions would be very welcome. Thank you!

    • My TPO was 200 i just strated taking 1 tbs of unrefined virgin coconut oil with breakfast, withing two months my Thyroid antibodies was reduced to 30.
      ?

      • Wow, that’s interesting. Did you do anything else, other than take coconut oil, that may have helped?

    • UPDATE to my May 18, 2016 post: simply restricting my diet of iodine-rich sea veggie foods did NOT reduce my TPO antibiodies. Instead, here is what I did: I avoided foods high in selenium (such as hazlenuts) since I couldn’t control the amount of selenium I was ingesting – which can vary widely based on soil conditions in which the hazlenuts are grown. Instead, everyday I took 200 mcg of selenium, either alone or as an ingredient in a multivitamin/mineral supplement (that contained NO iodine). I also returned to eating fish and seafood several times a week so that I knew I was getting some iodine, but I continued to avoid eating all high-iodine containing sea veggie foods. Within weeks I started to feel great and my blood test showed that my TPO antibodies were significantly reducing. I have monitored my blood test results for iodine and selenium and it always shows I am slightly deficient in iodine (below normal). My selenium has been low normal, but I expect that will change soon. For me it doesn’t seem to matter that I have low iodine levels because I have been very close to remission of my Hashimoto’s and my iodine is always slightly deficient. It is my opinion, based upon my circumstances in dealing with Hashimoto’s, that eating high-iodine containing sea veggie foods is dangerous. Maybe it’s less dangerous or not dangerous at all if a person is supplementing with selenium, but I’m not doing any more experiments with my health. Anyone with Hashimoto’s who decides to experiment in taking high amouns of iodine by eating sea veggies or through supplementation (with or without selenium supplementation) should get blood tests EVERY MONTH to monitor their TSH, antibody levels, and overall thyroid health. If you can’t afford to do so, or your doctor won’t order these tests for you, then you are definitely playing with fire and may get burned.

    • are you GF? GF lowered my hashis to nearly nothing. Many ppl are gluten intolerant and gluten is a real B to the thyroid and endocrine system.
      I would not say your hashis has ever been in remission or even close. Also having aTPO as high as yours , makes it hard for me to believe you’re feeling well. Your numbers are high and get very very high, are you feeling terrible with a tpo at 1000?

  10. What test/lab do you use to check for iodine deficiency? I would like to ask my Dr. to order this.

    • I just had the standard blood/plasma test for iodine. A few years earlier I had a hair sample for minerals, which included iodine. Both results were consistent with each other.

  11. When I was around 8 or 9 I had a contrast test on my thyroid and I remember seeing it look like a butterfly I thought, but all I remember is that my mom had to give me iodized salt on my food. I don’t know what the diagnosis was and I can’t ask my mom. Now I am having problems with health, such as I have lost my eye brows, they are almost completely gone, I can’t lose weight to save my soul. I just think something is going on, and I have thought about that test when I was a kid a hundred times.

  12. I have Hashimoto’s with PCOS and Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome. I am on 25 mcg of Levothyroxine, Microgestin Fe 28s, and taking 12.5mg of Zoloft a day. I believe I started having insulin resistance from PCOS in 2010 because that’s when I became really tachycardic, especially after eating. However, I wasn’t diagnosed with Hashimoto’s until months after my last pregnancy in 2014. I struggled even worse with tachycardia during pregnancy like I was hyperthyroid first and it changed to hypo later. My doctor thinks it’s permanent, but he hasn’t had to increase my dose because my lab was stable. He did say my weight and therefore my insulin resistance was increasing. Do you think my Hashimoto’s is permanent or what would be the best course of action for me to heal my thyroid?

    • Wendy, have you checked to be sure that you tachycardia isn’t caused by a magnesium deficiency? I was having serious problems with arrhythmia and tachycardia and it resolved immediately when I started taking 400mg supplements.

  13. hi Okay, I am on GAPS diet and am gluten free, dairy free, sugar free since Dec of 2008. I take bioidentical estrogren, progesterone and compounded thyroid meds because of my unique/strange digestion, including what seems to be an overzealous liver.

    Dr. Thomas Cowan of SF, a GAPS, doctor had me take all kinds of tests to find out if I am really hashimotos and to figure out my t3 uptake and my free t3 levels. I was not truly hashimotos with the antibodies and I had T# uptake that was not working.
    Dr. Cowan has now recently put me on iodine so that we can raise my T3. I will start using ashwaganda also to ease the immune system.

    The idea is that when the thyroid works and hypothyroidism lowers, I will ease off of thyroid medicine.

    Dr. Cowan comes highly recommended and he has a community payment plan that is amazing and he has high success with all sorts of things immune system, diet related.

    My goal/hope is really this: That my overzealous liver will relax once we get my thyroid producing what it needs for T3 and T4 levels to be in the normal range.

    When I say I have an overzealous liver, I mean that I cannot eat certain “cleansing” foods. I can eat onions, but not garlic, because it seems to cleanse my medications from my body and makes me sleep. Any cleansing teas or herbs cause the same thing. Too much fiber causes the same thing.

    One last thing I will share in case it is helpful. I was constipated for years, which was not helpful to my thyroid or body. When I started taking Betaine HCL in January of 2015, my constipation went away and my bloating went away. I had hoped that I could start eating more cleansing foods and trust that will happen with an optimized thyroid, which I am counting on once we give iodine to my body.

    The body cannot take iodine from food without proper stomach acid (BEtaine HCL is stomach acid). And what I understand from some of you is that the liver cannot do its job correctly until the thyroid system is working properly. so I am most likely caught in a cycle that hopefully the optimized cycle will get me out of.

    Dr. Thomas Cowan told me to wait and see if these things resolve themselves (overzealous liver and lack of ability to digest fiber or cleansing things & exhaustion that comes from ingesting these things) as we correct my T3 levels, which he has corrected in many patients with iodine and ashwaganda.

  14. Im trying to get my head around the Thyroid/Iodine connection for my 1yr old son. He has shown high free T3 (but normal free T4, TSH, TPO antibody and Thyroglobulin).
    With a different DR in both hair / urine test he is coming out with incredibly high off the chart Iodine but is getting nothing from diet or water.
    I can’t find anything online to explain this – anyone any ideas?

    • Baby milk powder… I remember reading somewhere that for example Nestlé was not allowed in China because of high iodine content

  15. Yo guys I wouldnt recommend this, but i take like 6 gummies of vitacraves with iodine in em, im getting like 10,000% of every single vitamin,, which is a lot, im getting like 700 units of iodine a day if not more. The effects of this have literally cleansed my entire soul, my heart doesnt hurt anymore, im not trapped in my mind, i feel as if i am reaching an intelligence of something surpassing a human. I dont mean 5d thinking, or being like “whoa guys i get it!” I literally mean im on some $&#! Because i can feel the lord in my entire being, i can feel these globs of external internal jelly stacks playing part of a giant purple root of electricity, sized infinity with super launch units and a land and world of sunshine and fun and its kind of like this reality we live in is of such magnificense but nobody will see it.

    I also take 8 fish oil pills a day, i dont microwave food, i dont drink or eat dairy, i eat very high quality protein. Ive come up with formulas and equations of man to superfy anyone into what ive become.

    I hike for muscle growth and hormone release to cause more strength, also to get away from electricity and radio waves.

    Breath the fresh air when you get here………….

    Theres more to it all,,, theres more to waking up everyday laying in the fun land made by the all happy and strong god.

    this is no recommendation just simply words on a website lost in time and self opiniated as a treasure to whom ever finds them.

    Opinions and facts welcome, please only speak from experience. ?

    • Glad you’re feeling better, but could you possibly have gone too far in the other direction into manic territory? I had a doctor give me some megadose vitamins and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. It’s also probably not sustainable.

      • Definitely agree with you A. It does sound manic. I don’t think it’s sustainable either. Could cause the body to crash.

      • Im pretty sure he’s in heaven right now, playing with his globs of jelly stacks..im on day 1 of iodine. after reading that, im off tomorrow

  16. I’am having hip replacement surgery and am woundering if I should stop iodoral before and after surgery until I heaL

  17. I’ve had hypothyroidism for about 12 years.I’m taking 150mcg of levothyroxin a day.At first I had hair loss.In the last couple of years I’m tired a lot,have dry skin and weight gain.How can I improve my quality of life?

    • Hi you can join a lot of groups on facebook and google all about your disese, 95% people with hypothyrodism have hashimoto wich is an autoimmune disese. There are lot of information on the internet that can be helpful for you to get better health.
      Good luck!

    • Hi John. I would suggest asking your doctor about Armour instead. It contains T3 and T4. Also, I would check to see what blood work is being done. If you TSH levels and T4 are only being tested, request T3 too. If your T4 isn’t properly converting to T3 then there is the issue. But Armour can work wonders, so something to look into, and best of luck!!!

    • I am wondering. I recently made my doctor put me on Armour after a year on Levo and about 7 years of just asking her whats wrong with me and her doing nothing. It was horrible except the first month I FELT AMAZING…But on Armour I am so so. I began alot of research and scared but also so very tired of being as bog as I am. I plan to start taking Thyroid Support along with my Armour and it has high doses of Iodine and other nutrients.

      What are your thoughts?

      • I had an auto-immune reaction to pig thyroid (in my case Naturethroid). I ended up at the cardiologists with POTS and heart palpitations I felt worse than before treatment. He pulled me off pig thyroid and put me on a combo of Levoxyl and Cytomel, and now my numbers are optimal I feel good, my hair and eyebrows grew back. Pig thyroid has the wrong T3/T4 ratio for humans, so be careful if you try it.

    • i was miserable on synthetic thyroid. i would never take it again. you might have to search for a doctor how will prescribe natural thyroid, but it is worth it.

      • Hi. Does anyone know a doctor in the UK that will prescribe natural thyroid. I used buy Erfa from an online pharmacy but cannot now without a prescription so I’ve been on levothyroxin now for over a year and feel so ill, I have put on in excess of 2 stone in weight etc etc. Julie

        • Julie, do a google search for “Raw Thyroid bigvits”. You can get it from there as natural bovine thyroid tissue. But be carefully to find out the amount that will fit you system. Good luck!

        • Hi Julie, try Procepts Metavive. I get the 30mg version and split the cap into 4 so i can dose correctly. Its strong so make sure you get regular labs done. Build up slow. I only need 3/4 cap per day. I also measure body temp and pulse. They’re available in the UK . Through careful use my antibodies have halved. I’m now working with a practitioner to get them down further…

          So I don’t know of a doctor but i can recommend Marek Doyle from blueprint fitness. He’s helping me get to the bottom of things. I was going it alone for a year with some good results – but having an expert is a great idea and speeding up my recovery. Joe

  18. I have been supplementing with iodine for about 6 months. I have no thyroid due to cancer and had rai. My TG levels have always been zero and now they are up to 1.2. Can the iodine cause this? Even though I had rai could there still be remnant thyroid being stimulated by the iodine?
    Thank you

  19. I am wondering if an iodine protocol is helpful for someone who has no thyroid left because of rai.

    • would love to hear from anyone who has an opinion on iodine, brazil nuts, diet, how to feel better naturally, other problems that stem from thyroid or vice versa, best medication to take etc. you can email me at r y c h h m o at a o l do t c o m without the spaces. As for the idea it is dangerous to take iodine. Think i t is very safe if you take natural organic. After all we are supposed to have a lot of it in our system anyway and most of us do not, we are merely replacing what is missing. but to take synthetic iodine or take too much then that is the danger. you also have to take brazil nuts for the selenium to balance it. so a lot of people think ooh this is getting complicated and avoid it instead of ooh i will get this reight and embrace it.

      • I had a huge desire for salt and was eating two tubs of salt and vinegar pringles daily for about 3 weeks plus taking lots of salt in my diet. Could this cause a false diagnoses of sub clinical hypothyroidism. I have experienced quite a number of the symptoms of hypothyroidism and wondered if my blood results could b reversed ny diet and exercise?

        • I would venture a guess that the MSG in the Pringles chips was adding to hypo thyroid type symptoms. MSG causes bloat, weight gain and many other issues.

    • think it depends on how much radioactive iodine they gave you. I believe usually you still have some thyroid left, some people need to take 2-3 doses of RAI. For the others they dont. But I think its because they got on their meds and basically supressed their thyroids, idk really.