It’s time for part 2 of our iodine series. If you haven’t listened to the previous episode on what iodine does in the body, why it’s so important, and how to test your levels, I recommend starting there. Today I will be covering who iodine may be a good fit for, considerations when supplementing, and long term use of iodine.
As always, this podcast episode is for educational purposes only. If anything resonates with you, I hope it encourages you to talk with your provider before you make any changes.
I cover:
Links/Resouces:
Thyroid antibodies:
Fertility
Iodine and breasts:
Iodine and prostate:
Iodine for Breast Pain, Ovarian Cycsts, and PMS:
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Amanda Montalvo [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Are you Menstrual? Podcast, where we dive deep into all things women’s health to support you on your healing journey. I’m Amanda Montalvo, functional and integrative dietitian, also known as the Hormone Healing rd. If you enjoyed this podcast and you want to keep learning, check out the podcast Patreon where I share a bonus episode with additional downloadable resources each week. You can go to patreon.com/forge/hormone healing RD or check out the link in the show notes. All right, it’s part two of our Iodine series. If you haven’t listened to the first episode, I recommend starting there. In that episode I cover what iodine does in the body, why it’s so important, how to test your levels or understand if you possibly have an iodine deficiency. So that is a very important starting point.
Amanda Montalvo [00:00:49]:
Today I’m going to be digging more into who iodine may be a good fit for and then some considerations you want to have when you are supplementing with it and then long term use of iodine. I got a lot of questions in my Patreon about what do I, how do you use iodine long term, you know, dosing, testing, all that kind of stuff. So I will get into all of that. As always, this podcast is for educational purposes only. I love iodine. I’m a huge proponent of it, but only if it’s a good fit for someone. And I think that’s the tricky thing is it’s a supplement, you can get it anywhere, right? But that doesn’t mean that we should always necessarily take it. I treat supplements very carefully no matter what they are.
Amanda Montalvo [00:01:29]:
And iodine should definitely be treated with caution because while it can be very helpful, if you’re not a good fit for it, it’s gonna make you feel worse. So if a lot of this resonates with you, I would talk with your provider, ideally more functional medicine based, regardless of their if they’re conventional or functional, they may have zero knowledge of iodine and they may say that no, it’s not a good fit. In that case, you could definitely do further research. I’m sharing, you know, in the first episode I shared the books by Dr. David Brownstein, all the different studies and everything. They’re all in this episode as well, in the show notes and specifically on the blog post on the website. But yeah, it’s Iodine is tricky and because when I tell people to talk with their provider, they’re like, they said it was really bad, then I shouldn’t do it. I’M going to link a blog post from Lara Bryden, who is a huge inspiration to me.
Amanda Montalvo [00:02:19]:
And she’s a big in the women’s health space of how she uses iodine and with her clients. So that could be something that you share with your doctor since she is a doctor. But yeah, it’s, it is tricky and it’s not easy to navigate. Just like a lot of things within functional health, trying to get a conventional doctor to understand what you want to do, sometimes we just have to do our own research. But regardless, know, just pay attention to everything I say. Don’t just jump ahead to supplementing with it. Listen to see if you are actually a good fit and then talk with your provider to see what they think. So who is a good fit for iodine? What am I looking for? When we are working with women, whether they’re in my master Minerals course or 101 or with our fertility group, we are looking at a few big things.
Amanda Montalvo [00:03:04]:
So one is, do they have a solid foundation, like, are they eating enough? Are they super stressed all the time? How is their light exposure? Mostly like energy intake, stress and light exposure, sleep, things like that. Are they in a really hard season of life right now where they’re very depleted? And then mineral status, we like to look at hair mineral testing to see, like, what are their mineral levels like? The main reason for this is because iodine is very metabolic. It helps support thyroid hormone production. Right. Our thyroid hormone is made from iodine. So if we increase that, then, I mean, hopefully we’re making more thyroid hormone. That’s the goal for a lot of people taking iodine. But that means that your metabolism is also going to increase.
Amanda Montalvo [00:03:48]:
So if you’re not eating enough, if your minerals are super depleted, if you’re super stressed, you would not be a good candidate for iodine because it’s just going to be revving up your system and using up resources that you don’t have. So that’s probably the biggest thing that we’re paying attention to when we are trying to decide, like if we’re going to recommend iodine for someone. Iodine’s not a first like approach. We are working on everything else first. It’s more of like, okay, so this person’s eating enough, they’re supporting their blood sugar. They may still have things like digestive issues, fertility concerns, like hormone concerns. But for their base, you know, they know how to fuel their bodies. They’re working on sleep.
Amanda Montalvo [00:04:27]:
Sometimes sleep is still tricky. If they have like histamine issues and in general they Understand that by taking this I’m going to rev up my system and so I have to be responsible and eat enough, work on my stress. It’s not a miracle supplement, nothing is. And I think iodine can be very helpful and make people feel really good. But it’s always interesting. Like I have a lot of people that come to me. I tried iodine, it didn’t work for me. And it’s because they weren’t a good candidate when they started it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:04:57]:
We work on some stuff, then they added in at a different dose, usually a lower dose and they feel better. So you know, those are like the big ones. We do look at hair mineral testing cuz we want to make sure minerals are not too low. And then we are also especially looking at things like calcium cuz iodine could potentially lower calcium on a hair test. So if you already have low calcium then doesn’t mean you can’t take it. But we’re definitely going to do a much lower dose for someone with low calcium versus high calcium. So that’s a lot of what we’re looking at. And just the hair test is also going to tell us a lot about a person’s stress response and how much they can handle right now.
Amanda Montalvo [00:05:33]:
So we basically compare the hair test and blood work. We are definitely gonna do like a full thyroid panel with all of our clients that use iodine. So TSH free T4, free T3, we like to see reverse T3 as well and then thyroid antibodies. And the top question I got from last week’s episode was okay, but I have like can you have it? If you, can you take iodine? If you have autoimmune conditions like specifically Hashimoto’s. And so we will, I promise we’re going to get into that. But even before getting there because everything I’m saying would be applicable for someone with Hashimoto’s. You would want to see the thyroid panel. Like TSH is not huge for whether or not you’re going to use iodine.
Amanda Montalvo [00:06:16]:
It’s more just helpful to understand that when you take iodine your TSH increases. I went through this in the first episode where TSH increases because it’s like the boats that transport iodine around. So if your TSH doesn’t increase when you take iodine, it’s probably not gonna work some. There’s probably like a breakdown somewhere. It could be that maybe you need more CO factors, it could be that your body’s too stressed. So that’s something to consider. But primarily we’re wanting to See do are you making enough T4 on your own? So that’s what we would be looking at free T4 with. And then if that is low then that would tell me that, okay, that they likely are deficient in iodine.
Amanda Montalvo [00:06:54]:
It’s not always as simple as that. I have a free thyroid mini course that I would suggest if you have thyroid health concerns, like please go through that. Cuz there’s a lot of different possible root causes of thyroid issues. But if you have a lot of the signs of hypothyroidism and iodine deficiency, it’s usually a piece of the puzzle. And then stress, inflammation in the body, nutrient deficiencies, those are also gonna play a role in issues with thyroid function as well. But basically we’re trying to see is free T4 low? Okay, that’s likely iodine deficiency. We know iodine can help with that. And then we want to see free T3.
Amanda Montalvo [00:07:27]:
How is your body converting iodine? And then we compare all of this to a hair test of course, because that’s going to give us more information on are certain minerals that are going to support that conversion depleted? Because that’s going to be a big part of it too. So like selenium is very important for iodine, it’s a CO factor. But it’s also really important for conversion of T4 to T3. Zinc’s important for that. Magnesium, copper, I mean a lot of minerals. It’s like insane how many minerals are essential in order for thyroid hormone to be produced, converted and used in the body. So we’d be covering those bases as well. And then reverse T3 we like to see because that gives us an idea of like is your body already super stressed right now? Like is it, has it recently experienced like a big stressor? It can be elevated from a big recent stress.
Amanda Montalvo [00:08:13]:
Usually we see it elevated from chronic stress. And, and that could be something like you’re actually dealing with like mental emotional stress. Maybe the way that you’re living is very stressful. Maybe you’ve gone through a very stressful experience recently. We have a lot of women that have just been on a really long health journey that come to see us and it’s like that’s stressful. Like not feeling well and having impact your day to day life for years on end is very stressful. And then reverse C3 can also give us insights into like, is your body like inflamed right now? Is there possibly some insulin, insulin or leptin resistance going on? I find it particularly helpful if we have someone that Also has Hashimoto’s because it’s not that we never use iodine with Hashimoto’s clients, but we typically try to get the antibodies down other ways first. And if we see that elevated reverse T3 that’s when we’re like okay, so we know that you’re definitely very stressed.
Amanda Montalvo [00:09:04]:
And so we need to make sure that we’re addressing this way before we even consider using iodine, even a low dose. I would want to address that first. And then finally the thyroid antibodies, we want to see antibodies. And now there’s a lot of controversy around this. A lot of it’s like okay, if I have Hashimoto’s, I’m told that I should not use iodine. Then there’s a lot of proponents of iodine for Hashimoto’s I honestly fall somewhere in the middle. I just think it depends on the person as usual. Like some research shows that iodine can link to elevated thyroid antibodies, but this is mostly in animals and I, I just think it’s.
Amanda Montalvo [00:09:39]:
And then there’s research that says that it doesn’t and it’s, it really depends on the dose. So this is where I always, I never just, I’m always cautious when I talk about iodine and I mention Hashimoto’s because unfortunately a lot of people will just take it blindly. And I never want someone to just do that and feel worse because of something that I shared. So I’m always trying to be responsible there. But it is, it’s one of those things where I would look at like how stressed is a person? Are they eating enough? What does their hair test look like? What’s their blood wear look like, how high are their antibodies? Cuz we have clients that they’re really not super elevated. Maybe they’re less than 200, less than 150. Where they have a solid foundation and we’ll choose to use them, use iodine anyway at a very low dose. But most often we’re going to do, we have strategies where if there’s autoimmune condition present, we’re going to do a stool test and we’re going to look at that person’s gut health.
Amanda Montalvo [00:10:32]:
There’s just no way around that. And so we man, we look at things like circadian rhythm support supporting their digestion, blood sugar, anything that can drive up inflammation in the body. We just want to make sure it’s in a good place for them. And then we would do a stool test to look at their gut. How do they have anything that’s in their gut that shouldn’t be there. How is their immune system functioning? Are they reacting to gluten? How’s their digestion, all those areas. And then from there typically that’s when we would start a gut protocol. And often for our Hashimoto’s clients it’s like gut protocol.
Amanda Montalvo [00:11:06]:
We retest antibodies, they’re typically decreased at that point. And then if you know, say they’re like a fertility client or they have endometriosis or something, like maybe they have estrogen dominance, maybe they still have thyroid concerns, then that’s when we would implement a low dose of iodine. So it’s not that we never do it, but like if someone’s like I have Hashimoto’s can I take iodine? I’m like you could. It’s just, it’s a much, it’s a much more nuanced answer than that. And which is basically everything that I share. And one thing that I’ll do when we are doing a gut protocol with them is if they’re not already utilizing selenium and inositol, we will have our Hashimoto’s clients use that to bring down th antibodies in the meantime as well. But really the most effective thing is addressing inflammation and stress within the gut and the immune system so that it’s not overreactive, calming that fire, putting that fire out in the body and then considering implementing iodine. But it’s definitely like a process and something that should be done in phases.
Amanda Montalvo [00:12:06]:
So it’s, you know, if you have elevated antibodies and you’re not working with a provider, I would not use iodine. But if you are and they’re like, you know, I think eventually we could use iodine at a low dose of you. I mean most likely, yes. As far as like what populations we think do really well with iodine, typically these, there is always nuance. Cuz if someone is super stressed, they maybe they have like, they’re super restrictive with food, they have like a not great history with food and things like that. We’re not going to implement iodine just cuz they have this diagnosis. So please keep that in mind. None of that ever gets washed away.
Amanda Montalvo [00:12:43]:
We, no matter what the health history is, we always do those things first. But populations that we’re like most likely we’re going to implement at least a low dose of iodine with is going to be women that are trying to conceive. And I went through in the last episode of how essential iodine is for our reproductive glands. I mean it’s we have, it’s in our follicular fluid. It helps the follicles developed, it helps us ovulate and make enough progesterone. Like it is incredibly important to our reproductive system. In most women that are of childbearing age are deficient. So that’s where we are pretty much always like the goal is to implement it for them even if it’s at a very low dose.
Amanda Montalvo [00:13:23]:
Pregnant women, we do get quite a few pregnant clients that they’re not feeling great, maybe their baby, they have like other children with health issues and they want to avoid that with their baby. So they’re trying to see us, to see what we can do. In the meantime, we typically implement it with them. Breastfeeding women always like a lot of women come to see us postpartum. Usually it’s like they postpartum anxiety, just fatigue, like thyroid. Sometimes there’s gallbladder issues and they’re like, man, I’m having all these things pop up postpartum, like what can I do? And a lot of the times we’ll implement a low dose of iodine with them. It’s very important for breastfeeding, for milk production, for your thyroid health, for baby’s thyroid health. And then hypo if they’re someone’s hypothyroid and like I already went through the Hashimoto’s spiel so you know, for them it’s more nuanced.
Amanda Montalvo [00:14:09]:
But if they do not have elevated antibodies, they’re always going to get iodine for sure. It’s just, you know, when would we start it? What’s the dose going to be? That’s going to vary and that will just be based on like their hair test, their blood work, their health history, that sort of thing. Hyperthyroid. This is one case where even if antibodies are present for hyperthyroid like Graves, we will pretty much always implement iodine. It is one of my favorite conditions to work with. It’s such a rewarding population and it’s. I don’t want to say easy cuz I feel like this population has some of the most debilitating symptoms. Hyperthyroid’s very scary.
Amanda Montalvo [00:14:46]:
The symptoms are just, especially if it gets very, if your thyroid hormone gets very elevated, it just kind of hits you and it can really impact your day to day. I’ve had a lot of clients that were like, I had to stop working. I had to get someone to help me with my kids. Like it’s very intense. A lot of them come to us taking medication, whether it’s anti thyroid medication or something like a beta blocker just to help manage their symptoms so they can, like, live and be a normal person. And that’s when we definitely implement iodine with those people. The dose depends on the person and what they can work up to, but oftentimes it’s like really working on food consistency. Often these people have a lot of blood sugar issues, insulin resistance happening, kind of depending how long they’ve been dealing with the hyperthyroidism.
Amanda Montalvo [00:15:29]:
And so there’s a lot to work with foundationally, but we typically get started pretty quickly with a low dose of iodine. And then we like, taper, increase it, taper off, see how everything goes based on lab work and how they’re feeling. Menopause is one of my favorite populations to use iodine with as well, especially if they’re using hrt. I find most women are deficient when it especially. It’s like, even if you’ve tried to take care of yourself your whole life, we get a lot of our menopausal clients. They’re like, I wish I knew the stuff when I was younger, right? And so they’re like, yeah, maybe the last, like five to 10 years. I have really optimized my nutrition. I’ve been super on top of, like, my minerals and stuff.
Amanda Montalvo [00:16:08]:
But they’re. A lot of people don’t even touch iodine because most people think it’s awful and they’re scared of it or that they don’t need it. And I’m like, man, this is one population where I’m like, I wish you have started this, this sooner because I think that the menopause, perimenopause and menopause experience would be so much smoother. And so typically we’ll just use a low dose with our menopause perimenopause clients. And then that’s just making sure they’re making enough thyroid hormone, which is essential for ovulation and progesterone production. It also really helps with estrogen detoxification. So if you. Even if you don’t have a lot of estrogen being produced, if you’re perimenopause or postmenopause, it can still be inflammatory and you can have detox issues and then you’re symptomatic.
Amanda Montalvo [00:16:49]:
So the iodine’s great for that. I like it because it supports estrogen detox, especially if someone’s using HRT just to be careful, especially depending on their health history. And it’s very protective if you have iodine deficiencies, it’s Very protective against things like breast cancer. So I love it for this population. A lot of them do really well with it too. So it’s just fun to kind of see them thrive. Fiber. If someone has fibrocystic breasts, of course I talked about this last time.
Amanda Montalvo [00:17:16]:
There’s a lot of research around iodine and fibrocystic breasts. Anyone that’s estrogen dominant, kind of depending on the rest of their health history. It’s definitely something that’s like on our mind of like okay, they could potentially be a good candidate for iodine endometriosis for sure. I need to make a whole podcast episode on endometriosis. I just did a Q and A on this like fertility group, like an ask me anything in that group and it was really fun. But I was like man, I need a lot more resources for women with endometriosis. Cuz I’m like you guys need help. So I need.
Amanda Montalvo [00:17:49]:
It’s on my list, I promise content specifically for endo. Cause I’m like there are definitely areas that we’re always looking at whether someone has had excision surgery or not. And that’s obviously something that a lot of our clients do. So yes, I promise I will make more content on endometriosis. But iodine is typically incredibly helpful. There’s a lot of research around endometriosis and iodine. It gets helpful for the estrogen, it’s helpful for supporting progesterone production sensitivity which is often an issue. And it’s very helpful for the thyroid gland.
Amanda Montalvo [00:18:21]:
And a lot of women with endo their thyroid is then affected because they have this excess estrogen which affects their available thyroid hormone and that leads to more deficient and deficiencies in iodine. So it is huge for them. They don’t typically they can get over stimulated quickly so you have to use a low dose and go slow and make sure they have a solid foundation. But that’s another population does really well. Same with adenomyosis clients. Fibroids, any like reproductive cysts, polyps, nodules, anything like that. Iodine can be very helpful for PMS and pmdd. We’ve also seen a lot of great client cases with that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:18:59]:
And then this is not women but mental with enlarged prostate. I talked about this in the first episode so I won’t rehash it all now. But it is very helpful for men that have an enlarged prostate too. And typically they have excess estrogen going on. So it’s not the only thing we utilize with them. We’re often utilizing boron as well. But it can be very helpful for that population. And then I link those research articles in the previous episode, if you guys want to listen to that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:19:26]:
So those are typically the people that we use it with. You know, if someone has all the signs of deficiency and we think it could help them, like, we will. But if I had to, like, narrow it down, I would say, like, this is probably mostly it. And that’s one of the first things, like, on our radar when we’re seeing that. So what about supplementing with iodine? How do we prepare? How do. What do we want to consider if we are thinking about it? And so I have four steps, like four things that I would be looking at if someone were a client of mine and we were trying to figure out what’s. What are we going to do? How are we going to use iodine? Number one is lab testing. I talked about how we utilize hair testing because we want to see what your mineral levels.
Amanda Montalvo [00:20:06]:
Are you super stressed? Can you even handle increasing and revving up your metabolism right now? How are your calcium levels? So hair testing is very important. And then thyroid blood panel, the TSH Free T4, Free T3, ideally reverse T3. It’s just good to have. Cause if you’re. You can have normal thyroid like TSH T4, T3, and then your reverse T3 could be really elevated if you’re super stressed. So it’s just something to consider. I know it’s not easy to get. It wouldn’t be like you couldn’t consider taking iodine if you couldn’t get a reverse C3.
Amanda Montalvo [00:20:40]:
But if you couldn’t get thyroid antibodies, I wouldn’t take it. I would make sure you get your antibodies tested. Just because you never know and you don’t want things to go backwards. So those are the things we look at first. Improving our thyroid health can be complex, right? It’s so much more than just knowing, am I making enough thyroid hormone? We really need to zoom out and look at the full process and picture and understand, okay, how is the signaling from my brain going? Is my thyroid getting the signal to make more thyroid hormone? And then you have to think about, is there anything my thyroid might need that it’s not getting to produce that thyroid hormone? Maybe there’s a nutrient deficiency. Maybe there’s too much inflammation or stress. Then we want to think about, can it convert it? Right? That’s the next big step. And that’s typically impacted by stress, inflammation, and nutrient deficiencies as well.
Amanda Montalvo [00:21:32]:
And then finally we have to realize, can it get inside the cells. And this is where minerals come in big time. So zooming out, understanding your full picture is so critical for thyroid health. This is why I created my free functional thyroid series. That is a six part video series. It’s a mini course. I’m really proud of it. It gives you a ton of information and it’s going to help you figure out what is the root cause of your thyroid issue.
Amanda Montalvo [00:21:57]:
Where in the process is it breaking down for you? I even go through lab tests and teach you how to understand what your lab tests mean and what you might want to optimize based on your results. So make sure you check it out. You can go to the description of this podcast and get the link to join for free. And then from there, if we’re like, I’m considering it and honestly, most people need more sodium anyway, the next step is, okay, so we have this client, we’ve seen their labs. Typically we’re working on other things first. If they don’t, if they’re not already coming to us, like eating enough, supporting circadian rhythm, things like that, then we’re going to be working on those things. But then we’re also going to layer in, increasing their sodium intake. And the main reason for this is because sodium helps to clean off iodine receptors.
Amanda Montalvo [00:22:46]:
So halogens, just like I went through this in the first episode, iodine is a halogen. So other halogens like fluoride, bromide and chloride can all have very similar chemical structures as iodine and they can attach onto iodine receptors. Bummer. Because then iodine cannot attach and then you get lots of dysfunction and they can actually deplete iodine levels. So we want to make sure that a lot of us, we all have halogen exposure to some extent. It’s very difficult to not have any. Well, especially like, you know, if you don’t have a good water filter, even if you have one now, it’s like, you probably didn’t for the rest of your life. So that’s like one other thing to keep in mind is a lot of times it’s like, well, I don’t have any halogen exposure now.
Amanda Montalvo [00:23:30]:
It’s like, well, you probably did previously growing up in your life. And that comes up a lot in the healing journey. Like, I’m doing everything perfectly. I’ve been doing everything perfect for the last like year or two years or three years or five years. And I’m like, but what was your life like before that? We don’t just like erase it all, unfortunately. And same thing with halogens. They can like build up in the body. So we like to do sodium to slowly clean off those halogens.
Amanda Montalvo [00:23:52]:
Now there, there’s two ways you can go about it. You can do it slowly by increasing your sodium intake. And usually we’ll do this by having a client use Soleil water. They just make their own. It’s very easy. You just fill up a big mason jar, like a quarter of the way with sea salt and the rest of the way with filtered water. You shake it up, you let it sit on your counter overnight, and boom, you have Soleil water. The water gets completely saturated with the salt and it’s very salty, but easy to consume.
Amanda Montalvo [00:24:20]:
And so you just ha. We typically will have them start with like a teaspoon of that once a day and then see how they do or just do like a pinch of sea salt in their water or like a pinch of sea salt under their tongue. Just depends on like what they prefer and what they’ll be able to be consistent with. So we increase sodium. That’s a big one. To work on the halogens. Sometimes if someone, if it’s like brand new, maybe they haven’t, they’ve like avoided salt or their sodium is very low in their hair test, then we will often have them salt load, which is this is like pretty standard for iodine. Using iodine, again, you’re trying to get the salt in to clean off the halogen receptors.
Amanda Montalvo [00:25:01]:
Why? And the why behind this, I feel like is helpful to know when you take iodine, it will clean off those halogen receptors, but it. You probably won’t feel great. So the goal with the sodium is that you’re slowly clearing off some of these halogens from the iodine receptors. And then you will minimize symptoms when you start taking iodine. You can also minimize symptoms of iodine by just going really slowly. But it really depends on the person, like, how they’re going to react to iodine, even at a low dose. So typically we’ll have them start slow with sodium anyway. Most people need it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:25:37]:
Most people are deficient. And then depending on the person, like, we may have them salt load, which is a quarter to a half teaspoon of sea salt and half a cup of warm water. Mix it up, drink it. It is about as gross as it sounds. It’s not great. I salt loaded the first few times I used iodine because I knew I was going to get symptoms. I just, I was like, I’ve had so much halogen exposure growing up. Like, we had a pool, I love to swim.
Amanda Montalvo [00:26:02]:
I mean, there’s no. I’m like, there’s no way. I never had a water filter until I was, like, way older. So I’m like, I’m pretty positive. I have, like. And I mean, I think of, like, fluoride. We used to get fluoride, like, all the time. It was in the water.
Amanda Montalvo [00:26:15]:
It was in our toothpaste. It was we. I in school growing up. They do, like, the fluoride treatments. I still remember how bad that tastes. Like the bubblegum fluoride. So let me know if you’re a bubblegum fluoride kid. Send me an Instagram message.
Amanda Montalvo [00:26:26]:
But I definitely had a ton of exposure, and I was very deficient in iodine. Not shockingly. And so because I’ve had thyroid issues for a long time. And so I did salt load, and I actually had to do it again because I got, like, a little rash from taking iodine. And it’s just a detox rash. It’s just my body trying to get rid of these excess halogens. And so instead of stopping the iodine, I just salt loaded more. But typically, you want to do that quarter to half a teaspoon of sea salt and half a cup of water, wait 30 minutes, repeat that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:26:57]:
I don’t think you have to be perfect with salt loading. To be perfectly honest. I find that most people, if they do that once or twice a day, doesn’t have to be timed. 30 minutes apart are fine. And a lot of the times our clients can’t even do that much salt because they don’t tolerate it. Like, they may have loose stools. And it’s something where I don’t want people to get super bloated and retaining a bunch of water. So it’s usually like an eighth or a quarter of a teaspoon with salt or with water.
Amanda Montalvo [00:27:21]:
And they’ll have that like, once or twice a day. But usually it’s like we’re slowly increasing them towards that. If someone comes to us already using adrenal cocktails, we’ll just have them add sea salt like, once or twice a day to that, and that’s often enough. And then if they start their iodine protocol and they start to get symptoms and reactions, then we’re like, okay, now we can do some salt flushing if we need to, but when you’ve already been slowly incorporating that salt, it usually means that you don’t have to do like, a ton of salt loading, but it just kind of depends. It doesn’t hurt to do it, but it sometimes it’s like, this is a lot for Prepping for a, like, especially if someone’s only gonna do a really low dose of iodine, we’re typically not gonna have them do all that. So that’s step two. So you get your labs done, you make sure your hair test makes sense, you make sure your blood work is applicable, like that you are a good candidate. And then you slowly increase sodium.
Amanda Montalvo [00:28:09]:
And then we have people add in the cofactors. So this is when we need to add in selenium, magnesium, vitamin C, and sometimes B vitamins. And I’ll talk about more about that in a second. But we need co factors. And Dr. David Brownstein talks about this a lot. I talked about him a ton in the first episode and I linked his books there, his books on iodine and thyroid health. So this is all, like, from.
Amanda Montalvo [00:28:34]:
He has worked with, like, probably hundreds of thousands of clients at this point and utilized iodine with them. And this is everything that I’ve learned from him. And, you know, you adjust it. You become. You work with a ton of people. I mean, I’ve had hundreds of people use iodine. I’ve used it myself personally for, like, I don’t know, like four years at this point. Four or five.
Amanda Montalvo [00:28:54]:
Four years probably. So, you know, it’s. You’re going to make adjustments as you learn things. But primarily everyone needs to start with cofactors. Otherwise it’s hard for the iodine to work properly. I also think it’s helpful just to know your mineral status and do the hair testing for those other things, like zinc, like copper, like sodium to understand, like potassium. Do you have other minerals that could also make it difficult for your body to use thyroid hormone properly? So are there other mineral deficiencies or imbalances that we want to have on our radar so that while you’re using this iodine, it will be used properly? So I do think that is also important. But selenium’s incredibly important.
Amanda Montalvo [00:29:32]:
You typically want a hundred to 200 micrograms. Just depend. I mean, I. I do it based off someone’s selenium levels on their hair test. So if their selenium looks pretty good, then I’m going to go closer to a hundred milligrams. If their selenium is low, then I’ll do closer to 200 micrograms. I would not do more than that. For someone for magnesium, typically 3-400mg works great.
Amanda Montalvo [00:29:54]:
I have some people that are already utilizing more than that, and that’s fine. But for someone, say they’re not using any magnesium, maybe they’ve taken it really slow with supplementation, then I would just add in a smaller amount, 3 to 400. And then vitamin C is a big one as well. So this is one where a lot of people recommend like 1-2000mg. I personally don’t think people necessarily need that much to use iodine. If you’re using a higher dose. Maybe I don’t use that much with people. I typically have them if, especially if they’re doing whole food vitamin C and they get a lot of vitamin C in their diet, I’m going to Recommend Closer to 500mg of vitamin C from like a whole food based supplement and then like increasing vitamin C rich foods in their diet.
Amanda Montalvo [00:30:39]:
I’m very, I just, a lot of people don’t need that much vitamin C. They may not do well with it. But again like you have to figure out with your provider like what makes the most sense for you. But vitamin C is another important co factor and then the optional one, the B vitamins, this is one where it’s called ATP cofactors is the one that Dr. Brownstein recommends. It has riboflavin and niacin in it and I think that like I do use it for some people but most of my client population doesn’t do amazing with B vitamins. I think they’re just more sensitive. B vitamins can be very stimulating.
Amanda Montalvo [00:31:13]:
Especially if I have like histamine people. I’m like, no, usually with my histamine clients they need a really low dose of everything anyway. So I’m not going to be using a lot of iodine and it’s the lower dose of the iodine the more, less strict and flexible I am with the CO factors. So typically I don’t always recommend the ATP cofactors. It just depends on the person and their health history if s and like are they eating enough things like that. So if you’re using a low dose of iodine, I’d really try to get people to prioritize selenium the most. And you know, maybe they’re not like I’m just going to do a low amount. I don’t, I’m.
Amanda Montalvo [00:31:47]:
Maybe you’re even going to try to focus on getting it mostly from food then. Typically it’s easy to get increase your selenium intake through food as well. Like I’ve had a couple people reach out and ask like okay, I’m going to increase it through seaweed. And I’m like cool, you’re also. I would try to also get some Brazil nuts in for selenium. So just to make sure you have the CO factor there. If you are, if that’s like a significant increase in iodine for you. Plus you don’t know if you’re deficient so doesn’t hurt.
Amanda Montalvo [00:32:13]:
So selenium is the one I’m the most strict about. If someone has like a history of deficiencies or they’re like newer to supporting their minerals and nutrition, then I wouldn’t recommend the ATP co factors. Sometimes I have people take them just for the first like two months and then like taper off. It just depends on the person. And then like sodium, obviously you do, you increase your sodium leading up but you want to stick with that cuz sodium’s a really important transporter for iodine. So that’s, it’s not really listed as a CO factor but it’s one that I do definitely talk about with clients. And we’re like okay, we still need to make sure you’re getting up sodium in. So that is step three.
Amanda Montalvo [00:32:48]:
You do your labs, you increase your sodium, you work on the CO factors, you add those in. I typically have people take those for at least two to four weeks and then especially if they’re deficient on their hair test and then you can do low and slow iodine dosing. So we’ll, it depends on the client like what we’re going to have them start with. Most people start with one drop of Lugal’s 2% iodine. It’s potassium iodide and that is 2 1/2 milligrams of iodine. That’s usually where most people start. Sometimes we use Mary Ruth’s potassium iodide supplement because it’s lower dose. So two drops is 250micrograms.
Amanda Montalvo [00:33:29]:
So it’s a much smaller amount. So if we’re, if someone has like histamine intolerance or that sort of history, they’re very sensitive to things. Then we’ll do a really low dose like our MCOs, clients, things like that, pots, you know, all that stuff. Very low dose. But a lot of times we start with the one, one drop of Lugols, two and a half milligrams. It’s a lot. It sounds like not a lot, but it’s a lot for iodine and it is a lot more than you would get from food. So we start there, we start very slow and conservatively and the amount that someone takes is just going to depend how deficient are they.
Amanda Montalvo [00:34:02]:
Did we. So you’ll hear I didn’t say Iodine loading tests. So we used to do iodine loading tests with all of our clients. And I talked about this a little bit in the previous episode. But we don’t do it with everyone now because we use much lower doses of iodine typically. So because of that, we’re often not gonna do an iodine loading test. It just kind of depends on the person that we’re working with. Some people we might wanna see it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:34:23]:
How deficient are they? What are their goals? What are they seeing us for? What’s their health history? Do we have like a shorter timeline that we’re working with them? So maybe we wanna see it so we can up their dose quicker. But usually we just go low and slow and that most people do amazing. So that is one thing where we’re pretty strict with that and pretty conservative with the dosing. Some people do need a lot more and they feel absolutely amazing when they increase their dose. Those are the people that we will do iodine loading testing with and say it’s just a urine sample that you’re collecting all day and you take an iodine tablet beforehand and you see how much iodine leaves in the urine. If you are not seeing a lot of iodine leaving in the urine, then that shows that you’re deficient. I listened to the last episode. If you.
Amanda Montalvo [00:35:07]:
If that’s like brand new to you, because I go through it there. Um, but regardless, we always do low and slow to start because you never know if someone’s going to react. If you go too fast, you can just not feel great. You can get rashes. Some women get bad acne. It. It depends on, like, what is your health like, what’s your symptom that you often get? Like, that’s what I’ll see pop up for people. A lot of people get eczema if it’s too much too fast.
Amanda Montalvo [00:35:30]:
So it doesn’t mean you can’t take it, but it typically means you need to go a lot slower. You may want to salt load if you didn’t already, or do it again and just make sure you’re taking the CO factors, eating enough, managing your stress, things like that. But I would say like ratchet, really simple, like skin rashes, but all the way to eczema. That’s like a huge tell that it’s way too much too fast and you’re detoxing hard. Probably have some histamine stuff going on. And then acne. I see some people get reflux from it if you, if they go too quickly. Those are usually our Histamine people and those people we use Mary Ruth’s with because it’s a lower dose, so they’re, then they don’t have issues.
Amanda Montalvo [00:36:07]:
But if you’re someone that maybe we didn’t know you were super histamine, it wasn’t part of your health history. It’s like newer. It was like hidden. It was kind of brewing underneath behind the scenes. And maybe we didn’t do like stool testing or things like that, then that’s one where that can come up for some people. But if someone’s feeling like more fatigued or worse, then we’re like, no, this is not working. We need to either do a lower dose, take a break, detox, like maybe do some detox support first. Make sure that your halogen exposure is minimized, things like that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:36:34]:
But most people do really well with it. The things, the like. And even if someone has symptoms like, they’re often like, man, I have this like rash. But like, I, my, I have so much more energy. I feel like I’m cognitively so much better. And we’re like, it doesn’t mean you have to stop. It just means you probably had a lot of halogen exposure. So then we address that with them.
Amanda Montalvo [00:36:51]:
But yeah, you can get some negative reactions. If someone’s ever like really not feeling good though, then it’s. I don’t, you don’t push through that. You figure out what’s going on and why is your body reacting that way. And I say that because I know a lot of people are like, should I just push through? We even get clients to ask, I’m like, oh, no, absolutely, do not push through. There’s always things that we can, we can change. So that is kind of like how we utilize it as far as long term dosing goes. Typically our clients are going to be like their recommendations.
Amanda Montalvo [00:37:19]:
It’s going to be about like at least six months, so depending in the dose, like, and everything. So typically we’re going to like slowly work up the total number of drops in milligrams of iodine is going to depend on the person. And, but we’ll often work up to that higher dose for like three to six months. And then from there we’ll already have done lab testing, redone their hair test, looked at blood work and looked at their symptoms and why they’re seeing us and deciding, okay, do we, what do we need from here? Are you, is. Does your iodine status look better? Do you feel better? What are we working on now? What’s your next goal? Are you Trying to conceive. Are you postpartum? Are you perimenopausal? You know, it just depends on the person. And so that, but typically it’s gonna be like that three to six month time range. The thing to note is that your tsh, again, I say this over and over, people freak out when they see their TSH higher.
Amanda Montalvo [00:38:14]:
If it’s not higher, then something isn’t working. So TSH will be higher with iodine, it’s normal. And so that’s something to keep in mind. We would wanna see. Like is t, is our T4 levels increasing? Is T3 increasing? That’s the goal. And if someone did have elevated thyroid antibodies previously or in their past, and we would have those retested as well. If someone doesn’t have elevated antibodies before they take iodine, we don’t test them after unless they personally want to. But unless someone has a history of it, we’re, you know, taking iodine doesn’t induce thyroid antibodies much to it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:38:51]:
Like that’s like what now we’re now seeing with the research. But so that’s, those are kind of like the big things, like that six month kind of timeframe of iodine use. It’s typically trying to figure out, did we accomplish our goal? Do you need more? Where are we going from here? And then the, you know, six plus months to that 12 months, that’s when we’re typically going to be reducing that dose down to more of a maintenance dose. It just depends on the person. I would say like on average like 1 to 3 drops, which is around like 3 to 6 milligrams is probably going to be a safe bet for most people. The question is now like, based on your health history, how much do you need? What is your thyroid labs telling us? Are your minerals improving? How are your symptoms? And then again, like what are we trying to do next? Going to try to get pregnant. Are you pregnant now from utilizing the iodine? Then? We definitely. You don’t go above five drops, that’s 12 and a half milligrams during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
Amanda Montalvo [00:39:44]:
So that’s a pretty clear cap. A lot of people don’t necessarily need that much. It’s just something to be aware of. Like you don’t want to overdo it. If someone has a history of graves, they’re probably going to be taking iodine forever at varying doses. Right. We’ve had a lot of clients that, you know, they typically work up to like 8 to 12 drops, which is a good significant amount of iodine. And Then they’re.
Amanda Montalvo [00:40:07]:
They come down, their symptoms are managed. And what now we’re trying to figure out, what is your maintenance dose? Like, how much are you gonna need to be stable and not have symptoms? And so much this depends on their lifestyle, their stress levels, their nutrition. So they know that they have to have all those things in good place. But they also understand, hey, life happens, people travel. People. Like, stressful events happen. And so that’s something where we’re like, if that happens, they are educated in that you will probably have to increase your iodine. Like, if you start to feel those symptoms, then know, okay, I’m going to take more.
Amanda Montalvo [00:40:40]:
So that. That is like, you know, graves is a very specific. Like, they’re never going to come off. And then if someone has prostate concerns and we’re using it with like, typ. It’s typically our clients, husbands, honestly. And they’re often going to have to work up to a dose of like 6 to 8 milligrams or 2 to 4 drops daily for at least six months, sometimes longer. And then long term, it just depends on the person. Like, are they making other lifestyle changes? How does their hair test look? Um, I still.
Amanda Montalvo [00:41:08]:
I don’t always do I. Our thyroid testing with them. It just kind of depends, like, what that person’s health history is, but the dose is gonna change and be very dependent. Usually they have other health things going on, and so it’s okay. We’ll use a low dose for a while and, like, see how things go. And then the other big question I got was like, okay, well, how often are you retesting labs if you’re taking iodine in the beginning, if. If antibodies are present? I say every eight weeks. You want to retest if they’re not present, I would say in the beginning, like, eight.
Amanda Montalvo [00:41:37]:
Around eight to 12 weeks. Or like, for example, with our clients, like, sometimes, like, we’re taking a long time, we’re going really slowly at increasing their dose. And so we all. We wait, like, 12 to 14 weeks, because that’s what makes most sense. We want to get them to the dose and have them there for a little while so that we can see changes and improvements in their labs. So it just kind of depends on the person and, like, what we’re working on. But I would say, like, you know, if you are unsure, if you’re not feeling good, retest for sure. But typically, this is all based on their dose.
Amanda Montalvo [00:42:09]:
How are they tolerating the iodine? Are we trying to find their maintenance dose, their health history, things like that? And I did have someone ask from my patron about like, how can you work with a practitioner on this? Yes, you, I would say, like, for the most part, like you want to work with a practitioner for iodine. Obviously we have, I have like a few practitioners on my team that are amazing, all very educated with iodine. We utilize it a lot. We also, if you’re a master minerals course student, you can do a results review and you could get recommendations there and then following up, you could, you could do results reviews in the future or like chat access or things like that. But there’s definitely like, I. We have many different ways to offer support. So if anyone’s ever like, I don’t know what to do, you can always email contactormonehealingrd.com and ask and we can share them with you. But overall, like, that’s kind of how we view the long term use.
Amanda Montalvo [00:42:59]:
Like it just depends on like, what season of life are you in? Like, I was trying to conceive pregnant, breastfeeding and now it’s like, so I’ve been on iodine for a long time, but I’m only at a low dose now. You know, what will that shift and look like when I’m no longer breastfeeding? I’m not totally sure because then I’ll probably be slowly starting to move into those perimenopause years. And so that’s like another concern where I’m like, I’ll probably take a low dose of iodine for pretty much forever is like my guess. But that’s based on my health history of hypothyroidism, estrogen dominance, things like that. So it’ll really just depend on the person. I think it’s more just like, how do you feel? How do your, how does your blood work look? How’s your hair test look? Is this essential? And then just being more conservative with it, just not going too crazy on the dosing and it’s just, then it’s not going to be so extreme and something that becomes like an issue for your body. So always just being so smart, you know, I, and I often get asked about like, well, how long is it going to take to see improvements in thyroid health? I’m like, it just depends. But most people feel they’ll feel their symptoms will improve sometimes even before their blood work improves.
Amanda Montalvo [00:44:04]:
And like that’s what also really matters when it comes to thyroid health. We can’t just look at labs because thyroid labs are going to vary. You know, they’re released based off a circadian rhythm. They change very quickly. And so you could get them done one time and then you get them done again. And if something was a little different in your life or anything like that, like, they could be completely different. And it’s not necessarily based on your thyroid function. It’s just that blood work’s a moment in time.
Amanda Montalvo [00:44:28]:
So you can’t hang your hat just on blood work or even hair testing. You need to pay attention to how you feel. What are your, like, hypothyroid symptoms and are they improving? And then, you know, just, I. I think most people, when they really start to slow down and understand, like, you know, their symptoms are not bad. We’re always going to have some symptoms. It’s our body’s way of communicating with us. But if we have a ton all the time, you know, that’s the concern of, like, are they getting better? What is my body trying to tell me is like, I just think such a good thing to ask yourself versus, like, I need to get rid of all these. I need to get to the root cause of all these symptoms.
Amanda Montalvo [00:45:01]:
Yes, we want to address them, but the whole point is that it’s like your body’s never going to not talk to you. You want it to talk to you. So just kind of keeping that in mind as you kind of go. Thyroid stuff, it can be frustrating, and that’s why I mentioned this. And we work with a lot of clients that have thyroid issues and concerns about thyroid function. And it’s like, you know, even looking basal body temperature is a great marker. How are your cycles? Energy, mental health, cognitive function, skin, hair? So many things can be tells for the thyroid. So that’s kind of I.
Amanda Montalvo [00:45:32]:
Because I know I’ll get quite like, should I do it faster? I don’t think we should speed up healing, especially, like, because it’ll lead to other imbalances. Like, you could take too much iodine and then feel worse. So just kind of trying to play the long game with your health and be like, okay, I didn’t get out of balance in six to 12 months. But if I can support my thyroid and minerals and my. Have a good foundation and my circadian rhythm and do that and utilize iodine for six to 12 months and like, completely transform your health. Like, that’s really not that long. So I. I wouldn’t use a higher dose for a shorter time.
Amanda Montalvo [00:46:06]:
I prefer to use a lower dose longer. You know, pay attention to your labs and how you’re feeling and go from there. But I think iodine can be incredibly helpful and supportive on the healing journey when it is appropriate. You just want to make sure you’re a good fit. And I do have if, like, if you can’t work one alone, the Provider I go through all this stuff in my Master Minerals course too. There’s a whole. There’s a lot of lessons on thyroid, a lot of lessons on iodine and how to look at your hair tests and your blood work and see should I take it, how much, things like that. And of course I respond to all the questions in the course anyway, so that is it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:46:40]:
I hope that you guys have enjoyed this Iodine series. I hope you’ve learned something and that you all now love iodine as much as I do. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Are you Menstrual? Podcast. If you want to support my work, please leave a review and let me know how you like the episode. This lets me know like what you guys want more of, less of. I read every single one and I appreciate them more than you know. If you want to keep learning, you can get access to the bonus episode and additional resources on patreon.com hormonehealingrd I’d love to have you in there. Thanks again and I will see you in the next episode.
