Iodine

I've been reading a lot about iodine supplementation lately and it's fascinating. Apparently, most of the population is iodine deficient. There is less iodine in salt and over 50% of people don't use iodized salt. Junk food that is loaded with salt, is loaded with plain salt, not iodized. People in trying to be healthy, cut out salt, which, by the way, is a macronutrient and important to our health.

Recent studies show that perhaps a much higher than RDA amount of iodine is needed. This is big in cancer prevention, specifically breast and prostate cancers.

It's also big in fighting everything from fungus, candida, bacteria, parasites, heavy metals, etc. It's needed for health.

So, I did the test, that has debatable accuracy, but I did it anyway. I painted a patch of my skin with iodine. It dissappeared in less than an hour. I bought Lugol's, the iodine used for many years by doctors.

Do you know anything about bromine? Yes, the stuff used in hot tubs instead of chlorine, that's what I'm talking about. Well, do you know you eat A LOT of bromine? Bread makers used to use iodine in bread. At some point they decided to switch to bromine. it's also in brominated vegetable oil. You say you don't eat brominated vegetable oil? Well, it's in Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Fresca, and other soft drinks. Yuck.

What's the big deal about bromine? It's in the same family of elements as iodine. Your body will use it as iodine, but it can't do all the things for you that iodine does, it just takes up iodine's place in your body. Could this be why we have an epidemic of low thyroid (and even obesity?)? Could this be my answer in getting off thryoid meds once and for all?

I started supplementing a few weeks ago. In the beginning, I did salt loading (I'll provide links so you can read more about the details of this). The salt provides chloride for the kidneys so the bromide doesn't get stuck there. You guessed it. Chloride is also in the iodine family of elements. So is flouride. How can flouridation and chlorination of our water be a good idea?

Many people have bromide detoxification reactions. My husband did. He felt like he had a bad cold and fatigue for the first couple weeks. I had a worse reaction, with over half of the symptoms they say you can have. My hips ached soooo bad. I also had the "cold" and fatigue. Now my left kidney is aching, so I started back with the salt. I'm taking a couple days off the iodine to give my kidneys a rest. I've also bought supplements that are supposed to give kidney support.

Here are some links -

Bromide and salt loading

Bromide dominance

Iodine deficiency

Update and shameless advertising

Well, since I'm doing so well, I really have no HEALTH updates for you at this point. YAY!!! Nice to have nothing to say about my health, right? :)

But, I finished my first 100 hours of pilates training with my new certification program (I'm already "certified", just adding to it). It was 25 hours per week, as I told you in my last post. I took the test, both written and teaching a client, and passed!! Onto the next stage!! The next stage starts this weekend with 18 hours of training over 3 days .... over half that will be doing pilates, so I'll be exhausted by Monday when I have a 90 minute massage scheduled!

I also wanted to tell you that my daughter started blogging. It's a more fun read than this one because it's all about fun topics and has pictures. Please check it out and let me know what you think! Her Halloween post has pictures of me with the goofy husband and goofy kids.

http://luvvleighb.wordpress.com/

Update- new bloodwork

I hadn't been to a gyno since my previous one ridiculed me right out of his office. That *could* be the subject of this post, but if you have Lyme, you can imagine the story and you'd be right ... and it included saying anyone who specializes in Lyme is probably a scam ... and he was speechless when I said I had all the symptoms, a positive test, and was doing better with treatment.

Anyway, this time I went to a female gyno for the first time. It wasn't weird, LOL. She specializes in women my age (not having babies). She did a lot of blood tests and I was impressed. She actually tested for vitamin D! I asked her for a ferritin test since mine was only 24 last spring, and she did one for me. Five vials of blood.

Seems I'm NORMAL!!! Not a big accomplishment for most people, but you know what I've been through.

My ferritin is up to 66. She mentioned it was still on the low side, but that low was pretty normal for someone with periods like mine. No wonder I have more energy!!! That's a BIG jump!!! I am still taking double Blood Builder. I muscle test every day, and around my period I can test for two or three twice per day, but normal days, two only once per day.

My vitamin D is up to 64 from 35 last spring. She mentioned that I must supplement because no one is ever in range. I told her I did. She asked how much .... it's 4000-8000 IU daily.

Since I'm taking so much vitamin D and so much iron, both of which "they" say you can take too much of, I was glad to get the confirmation that my body is doing well on it. And I like this new doc. The only thing I don't like is the AIR FRESHENER!!! I could hardly breath in the waiting room. I found it odd a doctor who knows this much about health would have such toxic poison in the waiting room. I would think maybe essential oils .... but not this toxic stuff. I was wheezing at night when I lied down to go to sleep. I couldn't figure out why because that is not normal for me .... then I remembered ... had to be the air freshener. I haven't had that problem since.

I'm feeling great! I'm in a pilates training program that is 25 hours per week. I'm having to memorize tons of stuff and doing fine with it. My brain has come a long way. I'm also on average doing about two hours of pilates a day five days a week, and that's going well, too.

I am photoning monthly again for about the last four months or so. I like to use blood this time of year because so many bugs are going around. I had taken a few months off and did fine.

So, there's your update. Right now I'm taking very little:

Vitamin D
Vitamin C
Iron
Armour Thyroid (one grain)
5HTP at night
Turmeric (with all this pilates, LOL)

TWO YEARS!!!

August marked two years of being free of Lyme and coinfections!!!!

As I look back, I see how many health issues I had and how many I overcame. When I was bedridden a few years back, on an all liquid diet and in a lot of pain, I never dreamt I would be living normally in the future. I never dreamt I'd be off all medications except thyroid. I never dreamt I'd feel this good. I thought I would be on a maintenance program for the rest of my life.

Even though the Lyme and coinfections were gone two years ago, my body had a lot of other healing to do. I still had the mold toxicity because I wasn't strong enough to take the medications my doctor had prescribed. I still had muscular imbalances. My skeleton was twisted. I was toxic from the infections, mold, and treatment. My digestion was still bad.

For two years I have had chiropractic work and massages along with working out on the pilates reformer. This has rebalanced my musculature. Pilates was such a huge help for me, I got certified to teach it and now share my passion for it with others. I've been teaching for over a year and a half and am getting ready to start another rigorous certification program that will take 9 months.

I believe Pilates also helped me to reach toxins and infection that were stored deeply in muscle.

I've done many detoxification programs, and recently one for mold.

I have done things to heal my gut.

I realize that my blog sounds crazy at times with the muscle testing and working by intuition, but if you knew me when I was sick, knew me two years ago when I was infection-free, and knew me today, you'd know that though it might sound crazy, what I did worked.

Two health issues that still bother me are 1) that I still rely on thyroid supplementation, and 2) that I am deathly allergic to shellfish.

So recently I started eating grain-free. I am interested in the various so-called caveman diets, but going into teacher training again, I can't start such a strict diet at this point. I'll see how things go and maybe fully go into one of them after the first of the year. These diets are supposed to heal the gut, which helps allergies. I've also read how it can help with hormones and even iron, which I still have to supplement. I'm willing to give it a try. Maybe by this time next year my gut will be even healthier and my allergies will be lessened. The shellfish allergy will likely always be here, but maybe I can eat in a restaurant without worrying that one of the cooks *touched* a shrimp that day. I believe I should be able to get rid of food intolerances, like to peaches.

The grain-free diet has been interesting. I'm glad I didn't start out with the strict introductory phase. It's lower carb than I'm used to, so it's a challenge. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. At some point I'll have to get back into the fermented foods, but right now I'm taking it one step at a time.

I think I'll always sound a little bit crazy, but at this point, I'm working to keep getting healthier ..... I've already reached good health. And I'll always be doing some kind of detox program .... right now, I'm on my yearly Dr. Natura but added Toxinout this time. So far, so good.