Re: radioactive iodine injection for hyperthyroid

No, radioactive Iodine is the worst solution for solving hyperthyroidism. It is just that your doctor doesn't understand the mecanism behind hyperthyroidism that he advises such a course of action. Also, he works from a fixed script: a one size fits all. So far, I've heard only one possible reaction of the conventional doctor to hyperthyroidism and that is: kill the thyroid.

Strange thing is: knowledge about the mecanism behind hyperthyroidism has been available to the conventional doctor a long time already. It just isn't in the curriculum of the education.
You can buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Thyroid-its-Diseases-6e/dp/0443088950

You can read it for free here: http://www.thyroidmanager.org/

It is pretty technical, so hard to read and understand. Maybe that's the reason that this is not common knowledge among our doctors?

Dr Tenpenny gave a presentation using the knowledge of this book. She explains why one gets hypo- or hyperthyroidism and she also explains how to fix it. I made a transcript of her presentation. I also re-made one of her sheets that's not very visible on the video.
Video, transcript and sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_q9ixGwZFon9yidvmZ0IFbp3Vj5jXDmOp0HwpdBS6...


Short explanation is this:
When the thyroid has enough of every nutrient it needs, it will work optimally and produce T4 and a little T3 and even less T2 and T1. It will mainly produce T4, that can be converted in the cells of your body to T3, as needed. The beauty of this is, that the thyroid can make an ample supply of T4, enough for about two weeks, for the body to use. So even when your thyroid isn't able to produce for a day or two, the body will still have enough T4 to make all the T3 it needs. You wouldn't even notice that there has been a lull in production.

T4 is made of tyrosine (an amino acid) with four Iodine atoms attached to it. Lack of either Iodine or tyrosine will cause the production of T4 to falter.

That you would experience such a shortage of tyrosine is unlikely: it is available via a lot of food sources that contain proteins. But even though it is unlikely, you should still check whether you get enough tyrosine from your food.

If your thyroid experiences a shortage in iodine, it can do one of two things:
1. If there is enough selenium, it will go on the lookout for more iodine. It will do this by enlarging the thyroid (goiter). The thyroid will go through hoops to keep production of T4 going. If it succeeds in finding enough iodine this way, then the production of T4 resumes. If not, then T3 will be produced in favour of T4, see point 2.
2. If there's not enough selenium, then asking for more iodine is dangerous. In the production of T4 (and T3, T2 and T1) hydrogen peroxide is released. That is the same hydrogen peroxide you bleach your hair with, this causes Hashimoto's to develop. A part of the hydrogen peroxide is used, but the remainder is rendered harmless by the selenium atom in glutathione. So now, the thyroid doesn't enlarge. So what does it do now? It can not make enough T4 anymore, the body is hypothyroid, because of the lack in iodine, and it can't go looking for more iodine, because of the lack in selenium. In this scenario, the thyroid turns to making T3 in stead of T4. T3 "only" requires 3 iodine atoms. The production T3 releases less hydrogen peroxide then the production of T4 does, so it is safer. The problem is though, that any cell in your body will immediately react to any T3 that has been produced. No more lovely buffered effect, but a roller coaster of alternating hypo and hyper.

When people are so deficient in iodine that the production of T3 is favoured over T4, they will first become hyper. The thyroid will make sure that your body has enough T3. The body will use up the remaining iodine. When the iodine store gets depleted even further, less and less T3 is produced and you get hypothyroid. Then, when iodine deficiency reaches level zero, you will die. You can not live without thyroid hormone.

Your doctor is acknowledging the fact that thyroid hormone is vital. He wants to get rid of the roller coaster effect of the T3 being produced and replace this with T4 from outside. If he destroys your thyroid and replaces all its hormones with synthetic T4, he robs you from your health. The reason why the thyroid is producing such a myriad of hormones is not known, but I find it pretty arrogant of human kind to assume that it does so unnecessarily. And the thyroid produces more that just hormones. For instance, it also produces calcitonin, which helps with bloating.

Two years ago I was hypothyroid. So my body had a problem producing enough T4. I hadn't reached the stage where it had moved into producing T3 instead yet. OR it could be that I was already past that stage, and even T3 production was faltering. I don't exactly know, and it really doesn't matter.

What I did was: get enough selenium (and all co-cupplements) into me so that it would be safe for my body to receive iodine. Then add in iodine. Your thyroid will start up again.

Note: There might be an initial reaction of your body to the iodine and that is to shut down the thyroid (Wolff–Chaikoff effect). The thyroid will shut down for 40 hours or so. It will then reset itself and start producing T4 (and others) again. Your doctor will claim that the Wolff–Chaikoff effect may be indefinite, but Wolff and Chaikoff themselves have show that this effect only lasts about 40 hours. They did this too late though, because by then the Wolff–Chaikoff effect was firmly rooted in the medical textbooks. And every conventional doctor is convinced that iodine is dangerous when you are hyperthyroid.

Read Grizz's iodine references: http://tinyurl.com/iodine-references

Take all the co-supplements. Make sure your diet is healthy and contains everything your body needs. Read, read, read, educate yourself.

Good luck!