Lugol's Iodine: Treatment and Side Effects

Hello Bill, I recently started taking Lugol's Iodine and am taking 50 mg /day...I have Peripheral Neuropathy caused by Cipro...I have terrible neuropathy throughout my body. I was recently tested 160/100 for blood pressure...Never really had HBP before and I'm over 50...Is this because of the neuropathy or the Lugols? I refuse to take any drugs for my BP...I'll take ACV, and the other natural protocols...

I really don't have any symptoms of detoxing so I stop Lugol's every so often for a day and don't really adhere to the 5 on and 2 off...I want to get rid of the fluorine...I recently started taking green tea-decaffeinated as well. Read it gets rid of heavy metals...I do feel better taking green tea.. I got blown away with sodium thiosulfate and borax doesn't work well with me at 1/4 teaspoon per liter of water...I do alkalize with 1/4 teaspoon baking soda with vit c powder (2 grams), 1 teaspoon ACV, a squeeze of lemon in a glass of water...If I do more my feet and ankles swell from the baking soda...Thank you very much in advance...and happy holidays to you and your family..

To Gertie who has taken iodine for 40 yrs, I am wondering if you are less hypothyroid than 40 yrs ago.

I thought long term use of iodine ( iodoral) gradually lessening the amount of armour would cause my thyroid to produce more hormone So that eventually I would need only iodine.

Hi Bill,

I have been using the Iodine Protocol now for approximately 4 weeks and all has been well until I started using the salt loading (I have been using the vitamins too).

I don't feel I have water retention but I have put on a large amount of weight in the last week and a half. So now I have stopped as I am already having trouble losing weight with Hashimotos.

Also extreme Hot Flushes which are so unbearble especially in Australia's in summer.

Again this is not water retention it is extra fat weight gain has this happened to others. Regards Linda

Hi Alice...In answer to your question: DMSO is Dimethylsulfoxide -- and its only the purity that varies according to the grade of the product. You can buy DMSO in UK from the following sources. See links:

DMSO 99 Website

Ebay DMSO(selling DMSO UK)

Both DMSO products from these website sources are pharma grade(99.98% pure).

@ Bill,

Are all DMSO the same? Where can I get some in the UK? I would like to combine it with Iodine and other minerals in a bottle, to spray on my skin everyday...in order to bypass the digestive process because I have gut issues. Thanks!

Hi Om...If you are unable to locate the lugols iodine at pet shops or at a vets then then the only option left is the internet vendors that sell the 5% Lugols Iodine.

Here are some online lugols iodine vendors:

Ebay.com Lugols Iodine Vendors

J Crow's Lugols Iodine

If you prefer, you can take Iodoral instead of Lugol's Iodine. This is just 5% lugol's iodine in pill form as described in this link. These are easily obtainable at this link.

Pure Formulas

There is also another product called IodoRx which is virtually the same as Iodoral:

Complimentary Medicine

Amazon

And this iodine website vendor definitely ships to Canada:

Breast Cancer Choices

Hello, Bill --- thank you for your instructions which I will utilize soon when I am ready.

For now I am unable to obtain Iodine 5% (Lugol's) as the Canadian people have had their freedom of obtaining health products taken away or made so expensive. In the past I have read that one can make one's own iodine from other sources. I do not remember the details. Would you be able to enlighten me on that?

I have been to two acquarium shops but they had nothing. Can you help? It would be serious not to be without it under the present circumstances on this planet.

Thank you. Namaste, Om

@ Naturallykera - be careful with turpentine - I had never heard of any use other than as a solvent for paints... (art supplies shops carry it)!

Hi, I am on Armour thyroid and I take Lugols. I am feeling better and better, not sure what it is, probably all. Lugols, coconut oil, exercise, yoga, gi gong, So it hasn't hurt me to take it. I have been doing it transdermal and not everyday, reading other comments think I will switch to drinking. I had read just the opposite, that you get more transdermally, so what the heck.

There is a test to see if you need iodine and that is by putting iodine on the skin and if it absorbs within a certain time Google "skin test for deficiency" if you are interested in checking this out.

It took a while for the Armour to work after switching from the synthetic. Probably 6 months. Feel almost normal, though I cant work like I use to (overdo it)

ThyroidChange.org and StopTheThyroidMadness.com are fantastic sources of information for hypothyroid condition

You can easily buy online. One place I shop for alot of supplements, great pricing and shipping is cheap or free, is SwansonVitamins.com Probably Lucky Vitamin or Iherb.com has it also and its Lugols.

I am able to get it from the pharmacy without a prescription. I have been using Lugol's iodine for years, about 40 years. I notice a difference when I stop taking it for a while. My Doctor an old Dutch Doctor put me on it at 15 for sore breasts, they were cystic. It works wonders for my breasts when they get tender, good for my hair and skin and also help with going to the bathroom. Help with constipation. I have an underactive thyroid and take this, it will affect your blood readings. My present Doctor is not in agreement with me taking it, but I insist.

Thank you Bill,

I can't wait to try the turpentine, where should I purchase is? There are a lot to choose from and I am not sure which one to get, thanks!

Hi Naturallykera...I had a bad and painful wobbly tooth early last year with exposed and visible roots. For completely unrelated reasons, I started taking turpentine by mouth regularly because I wanted to test it. Within a month, all the tooth pain disappeared and the tooth firmed up completely. I later learned through research that turps is easily absorbed by the skin and gums. So it was the disinfection action of the the turps which cured my tooth/root problem.

Because of this beneficial experience with oral turps, I now take three drops of turps on my tongue and just hold it in my mouth as long as I can. If you swallow the turps, it wont hurt you. Do not wash your mouth out afterwards -- because the turps is still working in your mouth. With your tooth problem, I would take this simple protocol three times a day every day. Within a month or so you may well have a cured tooth or root canal. Turps is easily absorbed by the skin or gums which allows it to penetrate deeper to disinfect the roots of the teeth. I use turps on a regularly basis like this now.

Another protocol you could also use is one by Hulda Clark. Take a teaspoon of 50% DMSO on its own and just hold it in your mouth for about a minute or so to allow the DMSO to sufficiently penetrate the gums/roots and then spit it out. Do not wash out your mouth afterwards (DMSO will have a warming effect in your mouth), DMSO kills bacteria, parasites and viruses. I use this one too, but I also prefer to add 4 drops of lugols iodine to the 50% DMSO for the extra anti-pathogen action of the iodine.

If you do have to get a root canal, then you should do all you can to find a proper Biological Dentist as opposed to a normal everyday dentist. A proper Biological Dentist will take great pains to clean out and properly disinfect your root canal area. A regular dentist will just fill your root canal with some muck and goo that wont kill all the pathogens properly.

Here are some more good reasons why you should see a Bio Dentist:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/16/why-you-should-avoid-root-canals-like-the-plague.aspx

For years, I've been taking between 6 to 8 drops of Lugol's Iodine a day (37.5 mgs to 50 mgs) in split dosages as maintenance and I have never had any side-effects or problems. You can simply take LI with a glass of water or you can add the LI dose to a solution of Ascorbic acid or Ascorbate (Vitamin C). I also take LI drops mixed with Humic Acid granules in water (add a small amount of Humic Acid to the water until it turns golden brown and not black) and then add a tablespoon of ACV - this makes it a strong anti-viral. There are many ways to supplement Lugol's Iodine."

I have a tooth that could need a root canal, I do not have pain yet but my lymph node is swollen. Could this method clean out the infection? Thanks!

On EC, there have been several people asking about how to supplement Lugol's Iodine.

So here is a link to a pdf written by Stephanie Buist from the Iodine Yahoo Group. This pdf is a detailed description on how to supplement Iodine, with companion nutrients, for babies, children and adults. This detailed explanation on how to supplement iodine resulted from her own experiences with Dr Brownstein successfully helping her with her own thyroid problems.

The Guide to Supplementing with Iodine

Thyroid - been reading on this site about coconut oil and apple cider vinegar for thyroid. Yesterday I started adding 1 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil to my green smoothie in the morning - will let you know how it works out. Have a look at what others are saying about getting off thyroid meds!

My question is about Lugol's Iodine. I am taking 60 mg. of Thyroid (Armour type) a day. Will the Iodine interfere in any way w/this daily intake of thyroid?

I know some doctors are against adding Iodine saying it will cause havoc w/my body and thyroid. I don't know of a doctor (endocrinologist) who wants to bother w/anything but dealing w/just thyroid. I am not doing well. Am tired all the time and gaining weight. My hair is falling out. It was no different when on synthetic thyroid.

Thank you so much for this wonderful article, Bill. Think of all the people this will help. After reading Lynne Farrow's book, The Iodine Crisis: What You Don't Know About Iodine Can Wreck Your Life, I purchased a small bottle of Iodex ointment which contains iodine and other ingredients due to Lynne's mention of the ointment in her book. After noticing a mole I wanted to remove I decided to try the ointment on the mole.

1. Placed a small amount of the ointment along with Decolorized Iodine on the mole every day for about a week

2. Covered with medical paper tape or band-aids placed in a criss-cross fashion.

3. Changed paper tape and band-aids as needed.

And voila, little by little the mole came off. First it peeled up from the bottom, then came off in bits and pieces as the band-aids and paper tape needed to be replaced. The band-aids and paper tape were helpful in pulling the mole off completely.

Question: Are moles a fungus that iodine can effectively remove both inside and outside the body?

Hello Bill,

Again, you had a wonderful newsletter on Iodine in the latest Earth Clinic email edition.

You site Dr. David Derry's post in "Ask About" and that too was an illuminating article. In light of your advocacy of Iodine consumed orally as more efficient than topical to achieve a "whole body sufficiency" condition as you call it, I missed how much you recommend daily. Forgive me if you said it but is 5 drops daily of iodine too much?

Back to Derry's article, he does highly recommend Iodine on the skin to rid the skin of skin infections so as an anti-viral the topical method should not be overlooked. In fact, his accounts of topical applications was an endorsement of topical usage although as you rightly observe, his observation for body wide absorption is not well achieved by topical painting.

I'm always searching for any anti-viral, anti-fungal that can be found and had overlooked the old iodine stand-by that I grew up with. Derry had an interesting observation in saying that in days of old many people would carry around a little bottle of iodine to apply topically if a problem arose.

Again, thank you for your good research.

Hi Martin...Much thanks for your kind words. Regarding transdermal iodine, this method can certainly be used to deliver small amounts of iodine to the thyroid (by painting the throat with iodine) or breasts (by painting the breasts). However I think using this method wastes alot of lugol's iodine.

I actually researched transdermal iodine use some years ago and could find hardly any information on the amounts of iodine actually delivered to the blood as a percentage of actual iodine used.

However, I did stumble across an article by Dr Derry, a well-known pro-iodine doctor. In that article he described the effectiveness of using transdermal iodine and mentions some meticulous research by Nyiri and Jannitti in 1932. Apparently, when Iodine is applied to the skin, 50% evaporates within 2 hours and between 75% and 80% of the iodine evaporates within 24 hours with a total delivery of iodine into the blood stream of between only 8% to 11%.

So, assuming that you transdermally use 4 drops of 5% lugols iodine (equivalent to 25 mgs elemental iodine) and if we also assume from the research that only 10% is actually delivered into the blood, then this means that only 2.5 mgs the iodine actually gets into the blood via the transdermal method. The other 22.5 mgs simply evaporates and is wasted.

Since the transdermal iodine method is so inefficient and wasteful, I would therefore not recommend it to achieve proper whole body iodine sufficiency. Even with supplementing oral lugols iodine dosages of 50 mgs per day, it will still take the body about 3 months to come up to whole body iodine sufficiency -- it's not quick!!

A much better method of delivery(in greater amounts) via the transdermal route would be to simply use 4 drops of lugols iodine together with a teaspoonful of DMSO (70% DMSO and 30% water). This will assure at least 80% approx delivery of the transdermal iodine into the blood, which would equate to about 20 mgs -- much more efficient.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still prefer the oral method of taking lugols iodine with a glass of water as by far the easiest and most effective way to supplement lugols iodine.

If you can't get your doctor to prescribe Lugol's solution, just get a little devious and go the route like going to an aquarium supply (pet shop) and ask for Lugol's solution for your aquarium. Please note that dosages in Bill's article is written for 5%, but it also comes in strengths up to 15% which is essentially the same as SSKI (saturated solution of potassium iodide). It may still be legal to buy it in 1 ounce bottles at the l5% dosages. If you are lucky enough to get it in 15% solution, divide Bill's dosages by 3 to determine how many drops to take daily.

Another route you can take is going on line and looking for potassium crystals and mixing your own SSKI. Instructions are to use either beer bottle brown or green bottles for mixing and storage. Fill bottle to about 60% full with potassium iodide crystals, then fill to 90% full with distilled water. Cap and shake vigorously for a few minutes. You will know your solution is saturated if a few crystals are left undissolved. Please remember that SSKI is a l5% solution of potassium iodide and adjust dosage as mentioned above.

Suzanne: Amazon

To Bill,

Excellent newsletter on Iodine.

Can the Iodine be "painted" on the skin? This is the preferred means of application I'd read many years ago.

Where can I find lugol's iodine please? Thank you

Bill, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your article today on Lugol's iodine supplementation. Thank you. Do you have an opinion on the Lugol's Iodine Transdermal Method? I have been using the method for about 2 months and find it gives very good results. I use up to 4 drops per day rubbed into my forearms. Best Regards.