Benefits of Iodine for Health

For years I have suspected that I was hypothyroid. Since my TSH was normal, my doctor saw no reason to do the T3/T4 test despite my having classic hypothyroid symptoms. It seemed like my symptoms were getting worse, so I decided take things into my own hands and started researching natural therapies for hypothyroidism. All my research led me to iodine and I started taking one 12.5 mg of iodine/iodide pill a day. I also started on a 200 mcg of selenium, as well. What I had read was that the two need each other to properly function.

The change in my life has been incredible. The first change was my energy. I felt completely recharged! I also felt motivated! Like I actually WANTED to get things done. Mentally I felt so much clearer. I have struggled on and off with depression since I was 13 years old and for the first time in my life I felt consistently stable. I researched this further because it was completely astounding to me. There is a known link between low thyroid function and bipolar disorder! In fact, if anti-depressants stop working or aren't as effective in some people, doctors prescribe them a medication that enhances their T3 and- viola! -their medication starts working again!

The next thing I noticed was that my knees were no longer hurting. They had been fairly sore for at least a month and the just stopped hurting completely.

The list goes on and on. The hypothyroid night sweats are gone (I would wake up at least 4-5 times each week with my pajamas, hair and sheets drenched), I am sleeping decently, my acne cleared up, the puffiness in my eyelids is gone, and on and on....

One thing that still just blows me away is that my feet are smooth. For as long as I can remember, my feet have been dry and cracked and the skin was so thick. To get my feet in shape for sandals in warm weather took a ton of effort. I just figured that's how my feet were. Within just a couple of days, I started noticing my feet were not as rough. After a week, they were like I had received an incredibly expensive pedicure minus the nail polish. To get results like this, normally I would have to soak, scrub, moisturize repeatedly and maybe after a week they would look half this good.

The whole thing is shocking and amazing to me. It has helped me beyond anything I could have imagined. I figured so many of my issues were things I had to live with and never dreamed they could even be treated. I wonder how many people are walking around with low functioning thyroids and don't even know it?

Don't take my word for it. Do the research for yourself, there are tons of well-documented studies online. Do a patch test. If you are deficient, try it for yourself and get your life back!

I am Bulgarian, living in China at present. As a child, whenever I had diarrhoea, my grandma would give me a few drops of iodine in half a glass of water to drink. It would halt the problem within hours. When my son was 10 months old, he had a severe diarrhoea and after trying a few medicines, the elderly doctor suggested the same remedy for him - 2 drops in some water. The next day he was healthy again. As a school administrator in Beijing I got almost sued by a Finnish mother for administering the remedy to her 8 year old daughter on a trip. There was a bus, full of kids, going to another city 5 hours away and, even though I knew in many countries it was forbidden to take iodine orally, I didn't have a choice. The bus didn't have to stop anywhere on the road and the girl was fine. I have talked with doctors about it and they said that if taken rarely, it's not doing harm. In Bulgaria generations have been treated in this way and I never travel (especially to another country) without my little black bottle. For chool children the dose is 4-5 drops in water and for adults - 5 to 8. Sometimes adults need to repeat on the next day, if the problem persists.

Hi, you mention that you drink protein shakes...

does the protein powder contain any soy/soya protein or products in it. If it does this could be a reason for your thyroid problem. Unfermented soy products contain high levels of goitrogenic products, which prevent the thyroid from taking up iodine from the blood. Taking extra iodine in your diet will also not help. The best thing to do is eliminate all unfermented soy froducts from your diet eg. : soy milk, soy protein, tofu, bean curd and etc. There are also other goitrogenic foods out there that are normally very safe for most people eg: the vegetables from the bracicacea family (cabbage, mustard, broccli, cannola (rape seed), etc) and also peanuts. These foods need to be all eliminated from the diet if you want your thyroid to regenerate and repair itself. Hope this helps. Regards.

Please delete my previous email from January and put this one in its place. This is the most successful remedy combination I have experimented with for dermatitis!

I have had an itchy dermatitis on and off around my nose for about 10 years. It was triggered after working in an office in Los Angeles for a man who smoked all day long (illegally of course, but he was a top entertainment executive so no one complained at that point in time). After years of smoking, the cigarette smoke was embedded in his furniture-- that's a horrendous smell to someone whose never smoked. Plus, think of all those microbes! At any rate, it took about 3 years to clear and then came back every time I would get around old, furniture embedded cigarette smoke. Psychological response? Maybe! At any rate, it came back again this summer after a few month respite.

But this time, I am happy to report that after years of playing around with every prescription and supplement under the sun, I think I have finally hit upon a dermatitis cure! It will only cost about $5... $.79 for the decolorized iodine, and $4 for a bottle of vitamin E oil. Here is my cure:

Using decolorized iodine for the face, take a q-tip and dab the dermatitis with iodine. If this is not on your face, you can use regular iodine. But it will stain you orange for a few hours.

If your dermatitis is on sensitive skin around your nose, like me, it will burn like crazy when you apply the iodine. Don't inhale the fumes while it is drying (takes about 10 seconds to dry). After it dries, apply some natural vitamin e oil. I open a large capsule and use that for several days before it runs out. Your skin will redden from the iodine and dry out, but the vitamin e will heal it and keep it from flaking. Keep this area moist with vitamin e oil all day and night if possible.

Do the topical iodine for 2 days, 3x a day. After the 2nd day, cut the iodine back to 1x a day. However, you will still want to keep the vitamin e oil on all day. After 3 days of 1x daily application of iodine, cut the iodine back to every other day. Continue every other day for 10 days (or less). Keep up the vitamin e oil every day until the dermatitis has disappear completely.

Let me tell you, the iodine and vitamin 3 oil starts to work on clearing up the dermatitis in about 24 hours! Initially the skin will look red and inflamed, but don't worry... the vitamin e speeds up the healing process.

I hope everyone with dermatitis (even perioral dermatitis) will try this cure. My particular form of dermatitis is one of the trickiest to heal so I am thrilled to maybe have a cure! I will let you know in the future how long this holds before I have to do the iodine again. Hopefully, never! Thanks, Sharon.

I have treated a number of sore and streph throats and loss of voice; painting iodine on the outside of the throat clears all within 24 hours. Iodine absorbs into the skin in about 6 hours. Also works for ear problems and swollen glands.

I just love earthclinic and all you guys!

This iodine detox really takes it out of ya! I suppose, it's the dislodging of bromides which are used as a sedative and even to induce coma. Some days I feel super good but most are "blah" and all I want to do is sleep. I suppose that will be for another month of two...crikeys! But it's to be expected since I've never taken iodine before and have probably been soaking up and storing bromides since the advent of their commercial uses...

I have Hashimotos and take iodine tincture everyday. It caused a flare up when I first started but as soon as I added companion nutrients it completely stopped.

Hi Lin...Regarding mixing lugol's iodine with vitamin c or ascorbic acid, I do this quite often because it's quite beneficial. Ted from Bangkok also recommends taking it this way(there's no iodine taste).

Without getting too technical, when you mix together lugols iodine and ascorbic acid with water in a glass and then add sodium bicarbonate until the fizzing stops, the molecular iodine component of lugols is converted to sodium iodide and the ascorbic acid is converted to dehydro-ascorbic acid(DHAA). Put simply, the ascorbic acid is oxidized to DHAA by molecular iodine and the molecular iodine is reduced to sodium iodide during the reaction. You can see this happening in the glass because the brown color of the molecular iodine in lugols slowly turns colorless(iodide is colorless).

Iodide is extremely useful to the body -- very beneficial to the thyroid and it is essential to the immune system.

The dehydro-ascorbic acid has exactly the same properties as ordinary ascorbic acid except for one difference -- DHAA is able to penetrate the blood/brain barrier whereas ordinary ascorbic acid cannot do this. Normally ascorbic acid is dependent upon and converted to DHAA by glutathione in your body. So taking ascorbic acid with lugols iodine like this also helps to save the glutathione stores in your body for more essential tasks.

So the short answer to your question is that taking lugol's iodine and ascorbic acid together will not harm your body -- and it does not cancel out all lugol iodine's beneficial effects -- you will actually benefit in different ways from taking both these nutrients together in this way.

Chad, you can use Lugols 5% solution 2 drops a day in half a glass of water. You can get lugol's iodine solution from Hoopers Pharmacy. Good Health.

I have breast implants and one of them had hardened. I was taking iodine drops for my thyroid, and it very quickly softened up the hardened implant.

Hi Bill, what a coincidence. I am just back from my country, Portugal, where I visited a doctor in a health shop who cured my bad knee years ago. Talking to him I mentioned the white spots on my legs and arms (he is now a natural dermatologist among other things). He gave me an iodine liquid to apply on the spots three times a day. I only started a week ago so it is hard to see whether it is working or not but interesting to read in your posting that this actually appears to cause regeneration of the skin from the bottom up. He told me that it will take maybe three months to see the results as I am not a very bad case. For years I have been to numerous dermatologist and no one ever seemed to have an answer for this problem which was slowly getting worse. They all had different explanations but the verdict was that there was nothing they could do! Thanks for all the good work and help!

Having been trying off and on to tolerate the lugols and keep getting these crushing headaches after 2-3 days of minimal dosages--did find out that maybe this was due to detoxifying--I do take water/sea salt and vit C etc as well here-I bought some iodoral and started very slowly with only half a tab/daily for a week, then half tab in the morning and half a tab in the afternoon and again these headaches returned but I will keep going as at least I feel better than what I did before when I was only taking synthroid and the iodine is clearing out my lungs as well--an incredible amount of gunk/appear to be mucus plugs ( I have been wheezing) are coming out effortlessly.

Now I have a multitude of what appears to be age spots, but they're from an episode of some kind of severe infection and fever and before these "spots" came out, many doctors told me there was nothing wrong when they examined me and it was psychosomatic etc as I really felt SICK from an inner ear infection/ruptured ear drum/days of drainage etc (and I have had this happen before.... But this time I FELT VERY ILL ) so when these blebs and literally they were like blisters with a brownish fluid popped out I was beyond going to anymore physicians and simply drank water/tea whatever I could handle--but when the swollen glands and everything calmed down I was left with these spots---so I read here the other day on the application of the iodine to the skin and after only 3 days---I see a difference on one big one already--it's flattened out and looks like it will soon peel off---THANKS TO ALL posting their experiences-- I will post again when they really start to resolve or simply the old skin drops off--

Hi Saoirse, As you're having what appears to be a cleansing reaction, it would be worth giving your liver some support. Taking lemon juice in a glass of warm water first thing in the morning is good for our liver. Also things like Milk thistle, dandelion and turmeric.

It may also be worth taking one or two days off a week (5 on 2 off), this way you give your body time to catch up. If you are still getting headaches it may be worth staying at the lower level for another week or two. I know we want to get better quick but over loading the liver may in the long run actually take us longer and be sicker in the process. It is encouraging that you did not take that Drs opinion and persisted in finding your answer/s. All the best and let us know how you go.

I have been taking iodine for over 5 years. Before I started taking iodine, I had very large saliva glands, I had very bad pimples on my face, back, arms, ect. I had bad problems with my reflux, pain in the stomach after meals. I would be out fishing on the river and all at once I would have a gush of saliva out of my mouth, like a huge release of water at once. I would run a high fever over 102 at least once or twice a every year for no reason. My gums would hurt and bleed all the time. But after 3 years of high doses of iodine every day, ALL of the things ive just told you have gone completly. I feel better every day. My saliva glands ARE NOT swollen anymore. My throat does not sting with pain. No more high fever at all. My gums nolonger bleed or hurt. All of this due to iodine only. I will now extract iodine from black walnut trees here at the house, as our wonderful government has taken most all iodine out of salt, bread, and when you buy iodine liqude at the store it too has been reduced to povidone. (worthless). But black walnut trees are the place for the best unaltered iodine naturaly .(dryed powder),(iodine liqude)ect. After seeing all of the good effects of iodine, I will stay on it forever. You must watch food that rob your body of iodine too. Also watch your MSG intake. MSG will also cause very bad problems also. A back door to bad health---->>>>MSG. Iodine will not see MSG and that MSG will kill the good iodine effects.

Atomidine is from Edgar Cayce. He was not a scam but one of the best documented Medium/ Psychic, named the sleeping prophet and diagnosing illness. Do Check out his group. ARE aka Association Research and Enlightenment. You can browse his circulating files with every known disease. He cured many people, and is worth studying by anyone who is into alternative medicine, He is known to be the father of alternative medicine.

Lugol's Iodine that I ordered has given me relief from all-over-tissue-pain after searching for 12 years. I'm an N.D. candidate; therefore, shunned all meds, but the Dr.'s said my rheumatoid factor was sky high and every time I ate Sugar, Bread or overate or had anything much to eat, I would get inflamed and achy and wake up the next morning barely able to move. I've got an active 13-year old and wanted my mobility back. Every time I take it with food or shortly thereafter, my pain totally vanishes. I thought something was up when it would vanish for a period of time if I ate lobster or had a seaweed body wrap on vacation. It's the iodine!!! I take about 4-6 drops 3X/day. Eureka!!! I just wonder now if I'll have to take this for the rest of my life.

excellent website information by the bucketfulls stuff we all can use. I had a itchy spot on my chin 6 months. Finally scratched it raw and applied two dime size spots of iodine, 2 nights before bed. Spot is fading and no more itch. Gone. If it ever comes back it will get three treatments. Thanks for this knowledge.

For almost 3 days my daughter was complained of her throat feeling like she was swallowing knives. Nothing would take it away. After having tried the egg whites for her fever and it working I came back to this site and sure enough - a remedy for a sore throat...IODINE! I put some on her wrists and on the sides of her throat. It took a little bit - like hours, but her sore throat went away and has not returned since! It has been almost a week now! Thanks again for the wonderful remedies!!

I love this website! Lots of wonderful home remedies. I read about Iodine and went on ebay- I bought Povidone- Iodine first to try, and painted myself with it over every problem area of my skin- the colors were disappearing in 15 minutes or so. The bottle says for external use only and do not apply it over large areas of the skin. Well, I have not tried take it internally yet, but as I understand it, Povidone is used for prep surgeries, which means it is in contact with blood and internal organs. After my first application on small areas, I noticed that the morning after I could see significant improvement on my skin where there used to be acne-like pumps that I had for several years- some shrank and some went away. I then started using it on all scars and it seems to make them more smooth and heal better. Upon seeing that, I asked my husband to paint me all over my back- dry, flaky skin with red irritable spots- and over night, they became more smooth. So I started to use it more and more, sometimes it stains my clothes, but my skin seemed to be healing. Don't know if that is also indication of my iodine deficiency. I wonder if it works any differently from Lugol's. I do have signs of low thyroid function, like cold intolerance, poor circulation. Can you tell me if I can take the Povidone internally? How is it different from Lugol's?

Just a note after reading send in other cures re iodine. When I was a teenager I developed warts; I never consulted anyone but started putting just a drop of iodine on the warts every day. After about 3 months (maybe less - that was 40 years ago) they turned black and fell off. I've never had another wart. (I've never had a boil either, and hope I never do, but my partner has been bothered by them for several weeks. We're trying several of the remedies on your website. Thanks! It's a great site.)

I'd seen all kind of Dr. s they said my thyroid was in reasonable limits. The natureopaths had me on tons of herbs saying my thyroid was low. One natureopath put me on thyroid medication which had me in horrible mood swings and no benifits. I found Lugol's when I read Dr. hulda clarks book "a cure for all diseases". I've been taking 4-6 drops a day and my weight gain stopped(I'd gained 65 pounds in 4 months) and I've actually started loosing weight, 10 pounds in the last 3 months. And my mood has returned to normal. I've also been doing the zapping and all the cleanses she reccommends in her book. Thanks.

After going to a dermatologist and explaining how a skin tag, which I thought was a mole, was constantly getting snatched with the seatbeat each time I buckled up.... The dermatologist told me that she would be right back, at that point her office assistant came in and explained that it would cost $75 dollars to remove that one skin tag, and that for $375 the doctor could remove all of them for me.... I gladly told them I would think about it. After some soul searching and remembering my Mom telling about the Iodine years ago.... I with the luck of fate, found this site and tried decided to give it a try. I applied the clear Iodine for a week, once in the morning and once in the evening.... I need to note that I noticed a tingle so I just keep at it and in one week my skin tag just fell off. Car rides are a dream, no more ouch.... Thanks for being here, what a wonderful resource, I will use this website and recommend it to all I know.