I got my 24-hour iodine test results back from Amy Tyler, the wonderful naturopath doctor I've been working with, and they revealed that it looks likely that I have an iodine deficiency.
Note: I have validated this test with my MD.
For those of you who don't know, this test involves you, approximately 50mgs of iodine and a lot of urinating. It goes thusly :
- Wake up and urinate into a cup.
- Pour some urine from cup into a vial.
- Label vial "Pre".
- Stick vial into fridge.
- Take 50 mgs of iodine.
- Collect urine for the next 24 hours in a nifty bucket provided for you.
- Refrigerate bucket.
- Endure sighs from boyfriend when he sees pee bucket in fridge.
- At end of 24 hours, shake bucket.
- Put more urine into another vial and label it...you guessed it: "Post".
- Mail to lab.
Nice way to spend 24 hours, right? Worth it though.
The logic of the test goes that if you have enough iodine, your body will excrete the majority of the iodine. The ideal secretion is 90%. If it holds on to more iodine, it means your body needs iodine. Lack of sufficient iodine could certainly be problematic for the thyroid (and the breasts).
I found a great website on iodine supplementation for both thyroid and breast health.
http://jeffreydach.com/2007/05/05/jeffreydachdrdachiodine.aspx
It recommends iodine supplementation of 12.5 mg/day, over 100 times the RDA amount. Apparently, toxicity levels for iodine are around 100,000 times the RDA.
You can get this in a supplement form called Iodoral, which is an unfortunate name, but which was created by Dr. Guy Abraham, a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA. I'm going to give that a try.
I'll keep you posted.
Think to your health,
Marie
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