Thyroid Labs worse after iodine...why?
After years of struggling with hypothyroid symptoms and subclinical labs, I learned about
Iodine deficiency and thought this must be the missing piece. For some background, I have never been on thyroid medication or had thyroid labs until I became pregnant with my son who was born in 2020. My TSH is usually high and free T3/freeT4 in range. I have been experiencing secondary infertility for the past two years and also experienced a miscarriage a year ago, which led me to dig into the thyroid/iodine issue.
In January 2023, I had some thyroid labs done and these were the results:
TSH: 4.34 (0.27 - 4.20 mU/L)
Free T3: 2.74 (2.30 - 4.40 pg/mL)
Total T3: 0.97 (0.8 - 2.0 ng/mL)
Free T4: 1.07 (0.86 - 1.76 ng/dL)
These results were some of the best I had ever seen for myself, so I didn't think it was necessary to get on thyroid meds. I have previously had TSH levels from 7 - 16 while free T3/T4 in range. During this time, I had many hypothyroid symptoms but did not yet know to disregard labs and go by symptoms. I would also say I was under a lot of stress at the time and had adrenal fatigue.
I started taking iodoral in May 2023. I was on 12.5 - 25mg at first and within a few weeks, quickly jumped to 50 mg and then 75mg. I continued on 75mg and in late July, I got some general health labs done which included some thyroid markers. For the first time, I was out of range by a lot. That led me to run a full thyroid panel a few weeks later with these results:
TSH: 118 (up from 93.3 on July lab)
Reverse T3: 5.3 (9.2 - 24.1)
Free T3: 2.2 (down from 2.4, ref 2.0-4.4)
Free T4: 0.31 (down from 0.36, ref 0.82 - 1.77)
TPO: 9 (ref 0-34)
These labs were run days shy of 3 months on iodoral. 10 days before these labs, I started the exact co-supplement protocol laid out in Dr. Brownstein's book. I had been taking a multivitamin the entire time that contained selenium. I would get the 200 mcg dose, but 100 mcg in the morning and 100 in the afternoon/evening. I also had some Vitamin C in the multivitamin and was taking magnesium. So I did not have exactly what was laid out in the book, but I was close.
A few days after this draw, I took an
Iodine loading test. It showed a 73% excretion over 24 hours along with a bromide excretion of 2.88mg (the national average is 1-2mg).
Since then, I have experimented with backing off my dose and found that I have extreme fatigue when I do so. Currently I take 62.5mg. I am still having trouble losing weight, my hair is falling out, I have dry skin, and I am still fatigued but functioning.
I understand the "other side" of
Iodine research says high doses send you into hypothyroidism and my labs would support this narrative. But my loading test and the way I feel when I back way off the dose says otherwise. I am just wondering how to make sense of this and if anyone else has experienced their labs looking worse and then better. What could I be missing???
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