Hey Sarah,

What happens is that Iodine will send bromine out of the body, and it's the bromine that causes acne. (My mom remembers hearing the same thing when she was a girl.)

Until 1980, a slice of bread would provide the RDA of Iodine (150 mcg). After that, commercial bakeries stopped using Iodine as a dough conditioner and started using its close relative bromine. So all of a sudden instead of getting iodine (good) we began to get bromine, which hardens in fat cells and is very difficult for the body to remove.

When I started iodine therapy a few months ago I had a little belly which I thought was just part and parcel of having had the twins and which would never go away. My stomach is pretty flat now, and I have neither eaten any less nor exercised any more than I normally do. I think the iodine pushed the bromine out. To that end, I did get some "detox breakouts."

Iodine is actually great for the skin. Applied topically, of course, it's a wonderful disinfectant and repairer. One of the doctors who uses iodine said that he has seen it "rebuild the skin from the inside out." I've had the disappearance of what I think was a precancerous frecklish-molish thing. People apply iodine for skin tags and moles to make them go away. 20% of iodine is stored in the skin, and of course it prevents uptake of radioactive materials (it's what you would take in the event of the bomb dropping!) and my theory is that it can prevent or lessen sunburn.

Anyway, as you can tell I could go on, but at least know that it's great that you'll take it during your pregnancy, and that it's pretty impossible to get too much.

Have a great weekend!

Laura

Hey --

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply. Our Internet was down for several days and for some reason my Curezone mail has been going into spam....

Iodine will stain the skin for a while. It goes away pretty quickly, though. (i.e. if you get surgery and they use Betadine to disinfect, it usually doesn't last for more than a day or so!) I use the Lugol's solution for supplementation, but I would not use it on broken skin unless I had added it to an oil, for instance. I do keep a bottle of coconut oil, into which I have added some iodine, in the bathroom for face cleaning -- maybe because it's in oil, maybe because I only use a couple of drops per tablespoon, but at any rate, that has not stained my skin -- it just wipes off.

I would definitely check the Iodine concentration in oil on a non-facial body part before using it on my face, though. You could end up looking like an Ooompah-Loompah!

For supplementing, I will sometimes "paint" my daughters' feet or legs with a couple of drops of Lugol's. The skin will absorb it, although some will oxidize into the air, and some will just rub off. If you look on the Iodine forum, you will find that many people prefer to paint Iodine on rather than ingest it.

Hope this is helpful....and that you all are well!
Laura

Hi Sarah,

Just saw this.

Carlsson's Fish Oil or Icelandic is supposed to be really good, as is krill oil. I tend to buy middle-of-the-line stuff just because of cost. And I do get the capsules as the taste is not pleasant to me, to make an understatement.

I think there are different levels of importance regarding iodine. One is to make sure you are getting enough of it, period, as it does not get in to most peoples' diets these days. (It used to be that a slice of bread would contain the 160-mcg RDA, but then they took Iodine out of bread, and it used to be that people bought iodized salt and consumed more salt in general, but that's no longer the case -- so unless one is a really big consumer of seaweed, one is probably operating at a deficiency level.)

With the kelp + your prenatal, you are above the RDA for pregnant women, but keep in mind that your baby will take the bulk of any nutrients (or, your body will direct them to the baby), so pregnant women can get nutrient-starved (hence the effort to increase RDA for pregnant and nursing women). The thing I have learned about RDA is that they are low in general. Iodine is a good case in point -- that 160 mcg/day will prevent "cretinism" in children and goiter, or thyroid cysts in adults. But you still get people with breast cysts, like in your first pregnancy where my guess is that your baby "got" the Iodine and your breasts paid the price with cysts. And you get the higher IQ and real benefits at supplementation levels.

I take as much supplemental iodine on average as I have read that the Japanese woman gets in her daily diet from seaweed (12-14 mg.) I figure they are pretty healthy women, so why not? I have toyed with the idea of replenishing my iodine reserves by going up to 35 or so mg/day for a few months, then going back down to the 12-14 mg range. I have just been migraining and traveling for the past couple of weeks so as soon as I am settled, I'll get back on that.

Do listen to the Flechas interview for a really comprehensive overview of what iodine does for different parts of the body, why we need it, etc. I became a believer after I heard that and read articles that supported his assertions. And I only wish I had begun supplementing during pregnancy and earlier in breastfeeding.

Regarding the Laura Shanley site -- those stories are really empowering, aren't they? I remember feeling 100% convinced that I'd be fine delivering at home with my husband after going through some of them. (We chose the hospital option after learning that we had twins, and part of me still regrets that.) I do feel the need to make myself clear about one thing, though -- which is that no birth experience is going to be less than one's spiritual fitness going into it, so to speak. I am sure there are women who had the baby at home alone and who nonetheless have had an unhappy time of mothering, just as I am sure that there are those who had the scheduled C-Section and who have a terrific time at being a mom -- as always, our attitude emerges not from the experiences we have, but from what we bring to those experiences and more important, what we make of them -- our perceptions of what happened, how something seemingly undesireable could be a good thing and what worked despite a challenge or two involved, and ultimately, the knowledge and power involved when we take the darkest and most trying experience and tell someone facing the same thing, "That's exactly what happened to me -- here's how I handled it, and you are not alone!"

When I got to the hospital after my water broke I told the nurse, "I didn't bring a birth plan!" I had gotten very uncomfortable when I was writing one, and then I realized why -- I was trying to control an uncontrollable situation. Not that doctors were in control, but in the sense that those babies had a relationship with a loving God who was going to bring them into this world despite my little plans and designs! I really felt that I had done my work during pregnancy and that I had to trust God, the babies, and the doctor and just be cooperative for the process (I have been known to shout a few obscenities at ER staff and to have to be tied down when semi-conscious because I always want to escape a hospital!). I don't mean that I was unclear at all about things like not getting the postnatal Vitamin K and Hep B and eye drops, etc. But just about stuff that I could not control. It was a real maturing process for me to accept and not challenge some of the policies my doctor and the hospital had around twin birth and to trust the process, for instance -- I got hooked up to IV Antibiotics at 6 in the morning with two fetal monitors on my belly so I couldn't move around all day, plus a Pitocin drip. I had to have an epidural (ended up being glad about that). And to deliver of course in the sterile operating room. With 3 doctors, a handful of nurses and techs and my husband there -- it was like a movie set! (If I did it again, I would not have gone to the hospital so early and gotten the Pitocin and Antibiotics as I believe, in retrospect, they were totally unnecessary.) BUT, it went OK though it was not my idea orginally of OK, and I attribute my success and not being a total a**hole to the nurses all day, etc. to just asking God that I be shown the next right thing to do, and that we all were going to be taken care of.

The nurse, when I told her about my lack of a plan, said an interesting thing. She told me that it is the women who arrive at the hospital with a birth plan and a fixed idea they won't set aside of how things are supposed to go -- those are the people who have the most miserable birth experience because if things progress differently and don't go their way, they are let down.

I'm not advocating a hospital birth. In fact, I'd get in touch with Laura Shanley if I were you and see if any of those women who wrote UAB stories are in your neck of the woods and talk to them. You do need to be clear on the difference between your resentment around the first terrible experience vs. your desire to have an experience outside of the hospital, and you need to get ultimately OK with the idea that even if it's an emergency section at 32 weeks you'd still be OK! I do believe that the closer I get to the ideal of "No matter what, I am taken care of by a loving God," the more serenity I will have no matter in what form duress might arrive. YOu have the most important qualities to have a home birth -- faith in God and the desire to actually do it. Those more than make up for a scar along your uterus. (I mean, do they tell people who get knee replacements they can never walk again??? Bodies heal! Iodine particulary good for scars, come to think of it!)

Will look forward to cross-posting again! And hope you are still feeling great!

Laura