Posted By Eri (Fuji, Japan) on 07/03/2022

Several years ago, while living in my home country of the USA, I was diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroid. I did not go on any treatment. A few years later, I read supplemental iodine can heal the thyroid. I took an iodine supplement called Iodoral 12.5 and within the week I became unusually intolerant of heat, I stopped the Iodoral supplement and the symptoms cleared.

A year later, I took a weaker iodine supplement called Lugol's Iodine drops. In the middle of the night, my heart wouldn't stop beating so fast and I felt high anxiety. My throat area felt irritated and my eyes felt bulging so I went to the hospital. At the hospital, I was told to stop the iodine supplements and I soon got better.

In the past couple of years, I got into cooking Japanese foods. When I came to Japan in August 2021 I had trouble tolerating the heat. Now, in June 2022, the Summer weather makes me easily feel nausea and like I'm going to faint. Sometimes my eyes feel a pressure and my throat area feels irritated.

I talked with a doctor friend and he said I might have gotten too much iodine from the Japanese diet and because I had an underlying subclinical hypothyroid condition, maybe I got "Jod-Basedow Syndrome." Maybe I have a vitamin deficiency that makes me prone to it. Half-a-decade ago, I did have a diagnosis for a severe vitamin D deficiency and was prescribed vitamin D and my vitamin D returned to normal levels in a future blood test.

My husband is a bit reluctant to take me to the doctors in the Japanese countryside and I don't speak much Japanese. I've tried to quiet down the overactive thyroid by not eating foods too high in iodine and also by eating more cruciferous foods and soy. I tried to take some vitamin D3 (2000 IU) and 1 Brazil nut (for the selenium) but my neck area gets irritated after for a few hours, not sure if it's related but happened twice. It might be the D3 because when I took a Brazil nut alone the night before I felt fine.

I have done a lot of research and seems a lot of people get helped my going gluten, sugar and soy free. But it seems I need to watch iodine which is in so many foods in Japan, at least they don't seem to iodize their salt. What can I do? Am I going the right way? Am I missing something? I know at a Japanese hospital I need blood tests and if they diagnose hyperthyroid they would probably put me on a medicine to slow down the thyroid, at least temporarily put me on such. I don't want to be on a med for life or have worse procedures. Thanks for any help.

I have iodine induced hyperthyroid and I must have had a thyroid condition before

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