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Chlorine, fluoride, and bromine are all in the same family as iodine, and can displace
iodine in your thyroid gland.
Secondly, many people simply aren't getting enough iodine in their diet to begin with.
The amount you get from iodized salt is just barely enough to prevent you from
getting a goiter.
"It's very well-known that lead and cadmium interfere with testosterone
production," Dr. Wright says. "What's not so well-known is that reverse T3 is
stimulated by toxic metals, so up it goes.
In effect, we can have levels that are so high, they way outnumber the regular T3.
You're functionally hypothyroid even if your TSHs and free T3s happen to be
normal."
Some argue for even higher amounts than that, such as Dr. Brownstein, who
recommends 12.5 milligrams (mg) on a regular basis. Another proponent of higher
iodine amounts is Guy Abraham, an ob-gyn and endocrinologist at the University of
Southern California.
"Oddly enough, he didn't publicize [his publications] much until he retired from the
University of Southern California. But after that, he came out with a wonderful
website, optimox.com, where you can read a lot of stuff for free," Dr. Wright says.
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"There's a fairly careful study showing that the thyroid gland does not start to
downregulate until we get to 14 or 14.5 milligrams of total iodine and iodide. This is
probably why Dr. Abraham first, and then others, have designed both liquids and
tablets that come out with 12 or 12.5 mg.
Oddly enough, in 1829, Dr. Lugol put together a combination of iodine and iodide.
Two drops of that stuff equals exactly to 12.5 milligrams. How did Dr. Lugol know?
We don't know. But it works so well for people ever since 1829 that it's still available
(with a prescription) as Lugol's iodine...
Usually, in my practice, I'll say, 'One drop of Lugol's, which is six milligrams; six and a
quarter.' Or for the guys, who don't have as much massive breast tissue, let's stay
with three milligrams. [To] prevent cancer, I want more than three milligrams for the
ladies."
"Breasts are big sponges for iodine," Dr. Wright notes. "Not iodide so much; that's the
thyroid gland. But if you have enough iodine, why, those molecules are just sitting
there ready waiting to kill new breast cancer cells!"
According to Dr. Wright, iodine is also crucial for other breast-related problems, such
as fibrocystic breast disease, for which iodine works nearly every time. Interestingly,
for severe cases, it's recommended to swab the entire cervix with iodine.
"For bad cases, you got to work with your doctor. Get the iodine swab done," Dr.
Wright says. "The worse the fibrocystic breast disease is, the more treatment it takes.
But that one, I can almost give a money-back guarantee... because I never would
have to give you your money back."
That said, it would seem prudent for most to avoid taking such high doses unless
they were using it therapeutically, for a short period of time. I personally feel that
supplementation at a dose 10 times lower, or a few mg, might be best for most.
Japan as you can get. While manufacturers have not started labeling their products
as "radiation-free," you could simply check the bottle with a Geiger counter before
taking it.
This test stems from the work of Dr. Broda Barnes back in the '30s and '40s. Dr.
Barnes found that if the temperature was low, it was a reliable indication of an
underactive thyroid (hypothyroid). "These days, with all the other things going on, I
find that sign useful in some people but not in others," Dr. Wright says. "But I do want
it for everybody."
As for laboratory tests, the complete thyroid panel includes thyroid-stimulating
hormone (TSH), total T4, free T4, total T3, free T3, and the reverse T3. He cautions
against trusting the TSH test as a primary diagnostic tool, despite that being the
conventional norm. He bases his recommendation on research by Dr. St. John
O'Reilly, an expert on thyroid health at the University of Scotland, who has shown
that the TSH test virtually never correlates with the clinical condition of the patient.
According to Dr. Wright, the TSH level doesn't really become a valuable indicator of
hypothyroidism unless it's high, say around 5 or 10. Thyroid therapy has been around
since the 1890s, and until the TSH test became the norm, the average dose of
thyroid given was almost exactly twice what the average dose became when
everybody started paying attention to the lab test rather than the clinical signs. Dr. St.
John O'Reilly recommends basing the diagnosis on the physical exam and the Free
T3 level instead, which is the protocol Dr. Wright follows in his clinic.
"The Free T3 is, of course, the free hormone, not the one bound up on the thyroid
globulin, where it's temporarily inactive," Dr. Wright explains. "The Free T3 is the one
that helps us to burn energy; it's the active hormone. The Free T4 is waiting to
become active, but it's not active yet. It signals back to the TSH. But the Free T3
doesn't signal back to the TSH as much as the Free T4 does."
Meanwhile, the T4 is the type of thyroid replacement that is typically and traditionally
given by almost every conventional physician. In my experience, it's one of the
primary ways you can differentiate between a natural medicine physician and a
traditional conventional physician: the type of thyroid replacement they prescribe.
this, and anyone who doesn't prescribe it is oftentimes severely criticized, and may
even be called before their state medical board.
That actually happened to me, and I wasn't even prescribing it. I have stopped seeing
patients, but have written about it in this newsletter. I was called before the medical
board to defend my position on prescribing bioidentical whole thyroid hormone rather
than Synthroid or Levothroideven though my article was supported by a study
reference from the New England Journal of Medicine, a very prestigious journal. Dr.
Wright also prefers bioidentical thyroid replacement, and typically starts patients out
on whole thyroid derived from animals (typically cow, sheep, or pig).
"In the whole thyroid are all the things that nature and creation put into whole thyroid.
That's what we should be using unless you happen to have an autoimmune problem.
Many people with... Hashimoto's disease... make antibodies to thyroid. If you're
making antibodies to thyroid, I'm not sure that we should be putting in whole thyroid
right away... because there is a small chance it's not a large chance that we're
going to stimulate more antibody formation," he says.
In those with Hashimoto's disease, where your body is making antibodies against
your thyroid hormones, Dr. Wright will typically start you out on T4 and T3, which are
only two of the 12 iodinated substances your thyroid gland makes, and which are all
found in whole thyroid.
"Some people get these efficiently out of their bodies within 10 to 15 chelation
treatments. There are other people, particularly those who lived in major metropolitan
areas all their lives, where it takes 30 or 40 chelation treatments to pull out all the
toxic metals," he notes. "When doing that, you have to make sure you're seeing a
doctor who follows the procedure put out by the American Board of Chelation
Therapy (ABCT).
Chelation pulls out toxic minerals. But no one has yet discovered a chelation material
that pulls out toxic metals without pulling out normal metals, too calcium,
magnesium, zinc, and copper, the whole works. The doctors doing the chelation must
be reinfusing normal minerals periodically according to his or her reading of the initial
chelation test. The initial chelation test on page one shows all the toxic metals that
are or not coming out. Page two, which should never be omitted, should always be
done. It shows the normal minerals."
In the meantime, while you're trying to clear these toxic metal stores to bring the
reverse T3 down, opinions are mixed on whether you should be treated with thyroid
medication or not. Some believe it's beneficial to add in regular T3, but if the
chelation rectifies your reverse T3 level, then by adding regular T3, you may simply
end up with too much free T3. Others recommend waiting until the chelation is done
to reevaluate, and if needed, put you on whole thyroid later on, provided you don't
have a family history of autoimmune disease or have Hashimoto's.
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"It simply takes the doctor's judgment and skill in deciding which way to go," Dr.
Wright says.
Armour thyroid
Nature-Throid
Westhroid
The Armour Thyroid has one disadvantage: despite it being practically a generic now,
it costs twice as much as the other two. But unless cost is a major factor, there are
several types of tests to check for compatibility, to determine which one is likely to
work the best for you.
"We've all heard of muscle testing. We don't have to employ that, but some doctors
are very skilled at it," Dr. Wright says. "We use other sorts of compatibility testing to
check for energy flow in the acupuncture meridians and how it's impaired or not
impaired by certain types of thyroid. We'll go with the one that's compatible with that
individual. But we do respect if people say, 'Look, I've heard that Westhroid and
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Nature-Throid are half the price of Armour Thyroid. Let's stick with those if we can.'
We do respect that."
As for fine-tuning the dose, there are a wide variety of symptoms that can help you
gauge whether you're getting enough of a doseor help you determine whether you
might have a thyroid problem to begin with. To learn more, Dr. Wright suggests
picking up Dr. David Brownstein's book Overcoming Thyroid, Dr. Mark Starr's
book Hypothyroidism Type 2: The Epidemic, or Dr. Ridha Arem's book The Thyroid
Solution. All of these books contain checklists of symptoms to look out for.
If you're on thyroid hormone replacement, two key signals that you're taking too much
are excessive sweating and rapid heartbeat or heart palpitations. If you get either of
those symptoms, you're getting too much thyroid, and you need to cut back on the
dose.
It's also worth noting that in some cases, if you're borderline hypothyroid, you may
only need an iodine supplement rather than a thyroid hormone replacement. "Some
people ask that very question. They're close enough to normal and they say, 'I could
feel a little better. My test could be a little better. But can I just try some iodine?' They
try and sometimes it succeeds. That's another option. Sometimes you could
normalize with nothing more."
When the statistical dust settled, what they found was that the group that started with
Lugols iodine and finished with lithium did significantly better than all of the other
groups in getting the hyperthyroidism under rapid control. More than two decades
ago, The Mayo Clinic also published an article on the treatment of hyperthyroidism
using lithium. Here, they used lithium alone, and were also able to bring abnormally
high T3 and T4 numbers down to normal within a week to 10 days. It didnt work on
everybody though.
According to Dr. Wright, Walter Reeds system is profoundly effective. Of all the
people treated for hyperthyroidism in Dr. Wrights clinic, amounting to about 40, there
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have only been two cases where the protocol failed. Normal levels can often be
achieved in less than two weeks. In summary, the treatment is as follows:
Patient starts out on five drops of Lugols iodine, three times per day
After four or five days, patient starts receiving 300 mg of lithium carbonate,
one to three times per day
Iodine is the key to a healthy thyroid, and if you're not getting enough from your diet
(in the form of seafood), you'd be well advised to consider taking a supplement,
ideally a high-quality seaweed supplement (be sure to check its source to avoid
potential radioactive contamination), or other iodine-containing whole food
supplement.