You were hoping for a 5 point bullet list with dosage amounts, but now you have another wall of text.
If this is still a bit too much, look into kelp for now and come back to this page when you have a few minutes to read. If starting kelp is still too much after reading my page about it, find someone that can help you run an Organic Acids and/or DNA test.
Iodine is complex because it’s part of so many aspects of our health. There is also a lot of drama surrounding it and it even has “conspiracy” connections depending on how well we are able to decern marketing from reality. whyiodine.com/confusing
Dr. Brownstein has shared a protocol that he has used to help his patients. This is commonly referred to as The Iodine Protocol. A lot of books, doctors, group admins, and members refer to this protocol as essentially the gold standard. But the issue is that Dr. Brownstein has since seemed to have changed his stance on how much iodine to start with, and he also works directly with his patients to address outstanding issues before jumping into large amounts of iodine. His protocol may work well when he is in control of guiding a person, but that does not necessarily mean it works if we just dive into natural detox while potentially still consuming toxic food etc.
When I started researching iodine, the idea of jumping into these large doses of iodine itself as well as the other nutrients was a little frightening or at least confusing. Over the years, I have studied nutrition and biochemistry extensively. I was lucky enough to be able to build and use this understanding to reverse some serious health issues. What I share with you is just my success story and the information that allowed me to get here.
We are essentially bags of dirt and water suspended by sunlight. This is a pretty odd situation as we study how this works, but for now, let’s just use it to highlight the fact that we are nutrients.
Instead of an engine that is made of various proper metals, rubbers, and plastics etc, we are made of nutrients. When we use the wrong ingredients or use an engine incorrectly, we can expect the core parts of the engine to degrade over time, but for some reason, we assume our body is armored against time and the environment by carrying out some sort of destiny set into place as we or our family bloodline were gifted into existence.
Iodine is very important, but it’s only one of many nutrients. All of its potent abilities that allow so many people to regain their health highlight its deeply intertwined connection with our nutritional engine called metabolism.
Some people are not able to digest or metabolize fats well which means no matter what they eat they do not gain weight. We know pretty well that some people handle weight completely differently. A metabolism that can handle fat is completely different than a metabolism that cannot. This means some of us are running in completely different mode which means some of us have different repairs to make to our bag of dirt before we’re able to make repairs we see others performing.
This aspect is a huge part of the reason starting a protocol becomes confusing. Instead of “start here” it’s a parade of words that dance around our question due to liability on top of the fact that we’re all completely different and have completely different ideas of how the world and our health work. https://whyiodine.com/how-much-iodine/
It adds a layer of complexity at first, but it’s important to understand this aspect. Whether we are just diving into natural health or have known about it for generations, it can be helpful to realize we are doing one of the most amazing things ever. We’re using a machine to diagnose and repair itself. A bag of dirt suspended by sunlight, twitching just right to filter its exposure to diet and environment in an attempt to maximize the number of twitches.
But, imagine a society of dirtbags(too soon?) focused on anything but extending the number of twitches they are able to make? Now imagine being one of only a few people that are somewhere on this path to max-twitch? That’s pretty awesome, we finally realize we were living in a fog, now we just need to figure out how to support and rebuild our cells at whatever ability we currently have. No matter how discouraged we may have been in the past or at any time, it’s important to remember how lucky we are that we’re even pondering this situation.
It doesn’t matter how well this type of information is organized or explained, there is a lot to take in. We have to go back to our old ways and devote part of our lives to learning this information. Otherwise, we lose our ability to maintain the most important machine ever which weakens our ability to understand the world we are a part of.
Luckily we are able to start slow and make positive changes over time. As we make progress, we will have more energy to understand more of this. This takes time and it’s a lifestyle change. I’d say the biggest hurdle in understanding how to get started for most people is the idea of accepting an overhaul to our life and our world. Most of us don’t like change because it opens the door to potential failures. But over time as we devote our time to learning this new world, we will eventually build confidence through knowledge which makes it much easier to begin making change. Making small changes over time allows us to move forward without overwhelming ourselves.
I’m going to share with you what I have learned and what has allowed me to understand my body in an incredible way. We’re all different and have different abilities and understandings. Everything I share with anyone is just information that has worked well for me as I’ve worked my way through most of the symptoms I see so many people struggle with.
If we are looking for a quick answer to this, just skim(not skip) over all of this, for now, to begin building a general idea of what you may need to learn eventually. Start with whatever sounds easiest so you can slowly make some type of progress.
Now we’ve covered very common nutrients which may or may not be enough for our system to handle things being knocked loose by iodine. Some people start with high-dose iodine in an attempt to bypass detox symptoms. This situation is most likely possible due to iodine allowing the generation of iodolipids which wrap toxins and hormones in fat. This method may sound great, but it has several flaws with the main one being a random point at which the toxins are no longer suspended in fat and people end up with some kind of detox symptoms out of nowhere and are unable to figure out what is happening.
This is why I originally started with low and slow, and continue to do so after trying various amounts of high dose iodine. By going slow, I can feel what my body is trying to clean and repair. This has allowed me to slowly reverse engineer my nutritional deficiencies and balance my system. By listening to my body and trying small amounts of more and more nutrients I was able to do this without testing.
Some of us are so deficient in certain nutrients while being overwhelmed by various toxins that we can have a very difficult time getting started or continuing to move forward at certain points. This most likely means we have constant exposure to some type of toxicity which may include stress, trauma, lack of sleep, mold, or so many other aspects of life. If our gut is not able to digest nutrients or we have pathogens or other infections, we may have to focus our attention on resolving certain situations before we’re able to get our system flowing again with just nutrition and time.
