Thyroid Problems & Iodine Deficiency
Thyroid issues, overactive and underactive, affect so many body functions that when the thyroid isn't working well, the whole body is just plain messed up and life can become messed up, too. Weight-gain makes most of us feel even more crappy than we want to be, but the tiredness, the emotional roller coaster, the brain just doesn't want to work the way we want it to...it's not fun!
It's a good idea to see your doctor and work with him or her to get your thyroid back on track. But it is also an excellent idea to make sure that your doctor is considering the possibility that your thyroid issues could be due to the iodine deficiency that about 90% of our population suffers from. The thyroid gland needs iodine!! so does every cell in your body! Iodized salt, IF you are using it, provides enough iodine to prevent goiter, but that quantity is a mere tip of the iceberg of iodine that your body requires for optimal functioning. If your thyroid is complaining because it is not getting enough iodine, it's going to start to act up (stress and age increase the thyroid's demand for iodine, so it may have been able to function on the teeny bits of iodine it could get last year, but you have been consuming its toxic halide cousins, bromine/bromide, chlorine, fluoride/fluorine, and perchlorates that move in in iodine's absence and poison your thyroid and body, your thyroid just can't keep up anymore and it gets out of whack!). Before you agree to let your doctor kill your malfunctioning thyroid gland with radioactive iodine (a TOXIC form of iodine) or cut it out, make sure that you aren't just eliminating it when a simple supply of inorganic, nonradioactive iodine, such as that found in Lugol's solution or the solid, standardized form of Lugol's, Iodoral, in amounts sufficient to bring your body's stores of iodine up to sufficient levels, could let your thyroid gland function as it was designed to function. You may even discover, after bringing your iodine levels up to where they should be, that the rest of your body begins to function better as well.
Your thyroid gland has the greatest demand for iodine and stores the most. but after the thyroid gland has its iodine, the breast tissue and the ovaries and prostate have their own demands for iodine. Actually, every cell in your body needs iodine for normal growth and development. Without iodine, cell growth can get messed up. Cells develop without their normal life cycle, they can keep growing and growing, it can become a regular mad house party without any rules or curfews. Normal cells all have a curfew or a preset life expectancy. When the cell has reached that limit, it dies, making room for other cells. Cells deficient in iodine can grow wild...that's what tumors and cancer are--cells gone wild without limits. Iodine in the form of Lugol's solution has been used by the medical community since the late 1800's as a cure for many, many ailments---that is until a couple of researchers after WWII erroneously reported false, unsupported results on a rat study that were then disastrously interpolated to humans, and iodine became an avoided treatment. Iodine had been successfully used to treat both hyper- and hypothyroidism prior to that bad study. Iodine was successfully treating asthma. Today, iodine is used to treat fibrocystic breast disease. Iodine is used to treat cardiac arrhythmia. But, there is a difference between the inorganic, nonradioactive iodine/iodide found in Lugol's solution and Iodoral and the synthetic iodine compounds sold by pharmaceutical companies. The inorganic, nonradioactive form is the purest form needed by your thyroid, breasts, ovaries, prostate, and whole body and is not toxic, even at levels several hundreds or even thousands times greater that the current RDA. The synthetic iodine containing compounds, patentable by pharmaceutical companies and prescribed by physicians, contain other substances that are TOXIC and may fix some problems, but not without creating others with their toxicity.
There are treatments for thyroid problems that do not always require the destruction of the thyroid gland which is only showing the symptoms of the underlying problem, but may not be the cause of the problem itself. Check out the possibility of an iodine deficiency before destroying your thyroid. There is an great deal of information growing out there on the benefits of orthoiodosupplementation and numerous supporting studies. A couple of good starting points are Dr. David Brownstein's website and the Optimox website.
Do your research before you let anyone destroy your ailing thyroid. Eliminating the symptom is not eliminating the problem. Get to the problem and your whole body will thank you!
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