Treating The Thyroid And Graves Disease
I am a 50 year old woman just diagnoised with graves disease. Removing my thyroid or radioactive iodine treatments are my options for treatment. My question is do you have to remove or destroy the thyroid to treat it? Can you take supplements and leave in the thyroid?
Hello Diane from Newtown,
Sorry you are having thyroid problems, but there is another option besides removing the thyroid or nuking your thyroid - it's called suppressing the thyroid.
Fortunately, one side effect of Lugol's solution or SSKI (both are potassium iodide solution) is suppression of the thyroid. In the states you now need a prescription for either of them, but I found one source of it at an aquarium shop when I typed in Lugol's solution. There is a possibility that some infection triggered this (any prolonged sore throats
recently??) and it just might regain it's normal function if just suppressed for awhile. One source I read on line suggested to take your temperature to know when suppression occurred (apparently it drops your body temp when suppressed). From personal experience, suppression occurs after a month or two of 6 drops per day in unchlorinated water. Since yours in overactive, you would probably be safe with 6 drops 2 x a day until you can tell a difference and then decrease it to 4 to 6 drops per day. After suppressing it for awhile, you omit the potassium iodide solution for a week or so and have your thyroid function retested.
Joyce
P.S. Nuking the thyroid destroys it. Suppressing the thyroid leaves the thyroid active and it can bounce back when the Lugol's or SSKI is discontinued.
