Video Transcript:
Today, we have a specific question about hypothyroidism and iodine. Today’s question is, “Everywhere I have read about how great iodine is for the thyroid. And every time I eat iodine-based foods like kelp, chlorella, and dulse, I cannot sleep afterwards. Can you please comment on that?”
Hypothyroidism, Autoimmunity & Iodine
Well, that is a fantastic question, and it is something that I really want to dig into because we here at Organixx, we have iodine, liquid iodine, and it’s a very powerful way of introducing key nutrition to support your iodine receptivity and to ultimately power up your thyroid.
But in certain cases, individuals that have existing, diagnosed hypothyroidism and/or a combination of hypothyroidism and autoimmunity – and we know that as Hashimoto’s, being a common one, these instances can plague individuals when they consume iodine-rich foods or consume an iodine supplementation.
Iodine Supplementation Should be Calibrated
So, what happens is iodine has to be a hundred percent dialed in and calibrated in a way, especially with any type of hypothyroidism, any type of diagnosis. Also, there are influences of medication here, too, so that may be an underlying component.
But essentially, we need to calibrate the right amount of iodine to get into your body, because we only have a certain amount of iodine receptivity, and sometimes a microdose versus a full-fledged dose one time a day, and kind of spacing out your dosing twice a day or three times a day may be just the incremental change to help your body assimilate and absorb iodine and utilize it in an appropriate fashion.
Thyroid Gland: Failure to Adapt
Now, there is something that we have labeled in the kind of medical world as “failure to adapt,” where the actual thyroid gland is just not capable of adapting to or receiving the iodine that your body is consuming via diet or nutritional supplementation like a liquid iodine.
Pay Attention to Side Effects
In that type of case, you might have acute effects, acute side effects, meaning you might have a lack of sleep, or you might notice kind of flushing, you might have a speedup of your heart rate, you might feel more fatigued, you can even have diarrhea.
And so, that is really critical to pay attention to the symptoms. I call it the language. Symptoms are the language of your body, because if you are consuming those foods and you are having a side effect like an imbalance in sleep patterns, then what I recommend is contacting your physician, getting retested. Let’s calibrate and see where your values are now so that if we need to make adjustments either to some medication you’re consuming or certain foods, then we can do that.
Influencers That Can Offset Iodine Receptivity
Now, the other thing that I want to highlight is not only are there medication influences, so if an individual’s taking blood pressure medicine or blood sugar or balancing medication, those can affect iodine receptivity. Your diet can affect that. If you’re eating a lot of foods that are rich in bromine, it’s an additive that we find in flours, so if you’re not going gluten-free, you might be getting too much bromine, or you might be consuming too much fluoride or fluorine in your daily lives, or chloride.
So, there’s an assortment of influencers that can offset iodine receptivity, so fine-tuning your diet, your lifestyle, even your water sources, cleaning up your water, is really critical because glandular dysfunction can lead to this “failure to adapt,” where you are trying to consume a good, healthy nutrient that we know is important for thyroid function, but your thyroid gland for whatever reason is not receiving it, and it’s not adapting to that functionality of iodine.
Magnesium Supplementation Can Enhance Iodine Receptivity
So, I hope that is helpful. The only other thing that I would recommend is to add in a magnesium blend, like a Magnesium 7. I have found that when we have a broader array of minerals, particularly in a sort of magnesium, it can help that receptivity enhance.
Thyroid Testing Can Help Ensure a Tailored Iodine Protocol
So, I hope that’s helpful. Let us know. Definitely do get into your clinician and get your thyroid tested, because the symptoms of reactivity to iodine-rich foods is definitely a sign, and if you haven’t had your TPOab (it’s a big T, big P, big O, and then a little ab) – that’s a thyroid peroxidase antibody test – that will identify if you have Hashimoto’s. In which case, iodine is not recommended unless we do certain things, and that is often where individuals like myself work one-on-one with patients to sort out, “Okay, if we’re going to have iodine, we need X, Y, and Z with it based on your specific tailored needs, based on your labs.”
So, I hope that’s helpful. Let us know how it goes, and I hope that you get to feeling better when you eat wonderful, rich iodine foods.
When your organs are working hard to detoxify, you want the purest form of iodine possible to help them work more efficiently. It only makes sense to use an organic form that’s totally natural and free of chemicals. Organixx Iodine is one of the only formulas that is USDA Certified Organic. It’s a pure, nascent form of iodine which your thyroid can use immediately.
Video Transcript:
Our next question comes from Rosemary. Rosemary asks, “I need to ask you about thyroid issues. I have had radioactive iodine done, and that affected my thyroid. And now I have to take thyroid medication for life. Is taking iodine, like from Organixx, recommended?
Thanks, Rosemary.”
Okay. Rosemary, this is a really great question because it depends, and I hate to be noncommittal, but this is really where, individually, we need to address your body, your thyroid health, and the overall balance of minerals and key nutrients necessary for your body, and your iodine receptors to be open to absorbing, assimilating, and using iodine in the most effective way. And this is really, really critical.
It’s not so much about whether the iodine from Organixx will work or not in terms of its potency. It’s a highly powerful, potent product. But what we need to do is we need to make sure that your thyroid gland will not be overwhelmed or charged up in a way that we have a situation that we call the thyroid storm.
And basically, that means we over-activate the thyroid function. And if you are dealing with hypothyroidism, it could further exacerbate it. Particularly, when you go off of the iodine or within three to four weeks of taking it, you kind of have an increase, you’re feeling great and then we have a crash. We want to avoid that. So, there are a few things that I recommend with my patients.
First: Test Your Iodine Levels
The first, most critical thing is to actually do a test. So, I recommend for my patients that we test their iodine levels. This is a blood-spot-based test that you can easily do at home or call your clinician and have your iodine levels assessed. Similarly, we want to get essential elements like selenium and chromium. We want to identify the kind of friends, best friends, if you will, in the body of iodine that help iodine be absorbed the best. And what we find is chromium and selenium both equally need to be in an optimal state for iodine receptivity to be optimized, but also to be articulated in the most healthy way.
Consult with Your Healthcare Professional
So I will tell you this, I do have patients who have had thyroid removal, they’ve had their thyroids radiated, they’ve even had nodules or partial removal of the thyroid gland, and are able to take iodine, but it is a case-by-case basis. It’s not something you want to do alone.
Regularly Monitor Your Iodine Levels
And you definitely want to monitor very closely, when you increase your iodine levels, that you have labs drawn at minimum every three months. And that is a recommendation for anybody who is going to be taking iodine that maybe has a challenged or an imbalanced thyroid, that state of that imbalance you can invigorate your thyroid in a healthy way with iodine, but we need to monitor that. We need to closely monitor it so that we don’t get in a situation where your iodine might trigger a thyroid storm or even exacerbate your situation.
I hope that helps. Let us know how that goes.
When your organs are working hard to detoxify, you want the purest form of iodine possible to help them work more efficiently. It only makes sense to use an organic form that’s totally natural and free of chemicals. Organixx Iodine is one of the only formulas that is USDA Certified Organic. It’s a pure, nascent form of iodine which your thyroid can use immediately.
