Iodine raises TSH

[vocalEK]

medpagetoday.com/infectious...

This is an interesting story about a small French randomized trial looking at using iodine mouthwash as a COVID-19 prevention. What's interesting is that participants in the intervention group "experienced a jump in thyroid-stimulating hormone after 5 days, which exceeded the upper limit of normal in five patients. However, all patients returned to baseline values 7 to 12 days later, and there was no modification of thyroid hormone (T3 or T4) or creatinine levels."

Maybe we should gargle with iodine before our blood tests if our doctor is in a panic about our low TSH?

[Animal-lover2]

I love this forum - thank you everyone. I have renewed courage to tackle my Hashis and zombie lifestyle with loads of PRACTICAL advice. Vocal EK your post gave me a good laugh ... not because it's funny but because we have to consider these maneuvers to outsmart the doctors 😱🙄

[Celestialbeing]

Interesting! I notice an upward trend in the USA of people whose TSH is on the rise. The last time this occurred, the reason was thought to have occurred from “bad” test kits that some labs purchased from different manufacturers.

[PPower in reply to Celestialbeing]

Where did you see this info? I am in the US and have not seen this.

[Celestialbeing in reply to PPower]

Some of the endocrinologists mentioned it.

[PPower in reply to Celestialbeing]

Interesting. Thankfully, mine's not going up!

[PPower]

It's true that taking iodine can raise your TSH for a period of time. What a fascinating idea, to take it so that our doctors won't freak out. And what a shame we have to do that because of their ignorance...

[Celestialbeing in reply to PPower]

Nor did mine but I facilitate an online group in the USA. Members tell me their TSH has increased for no apparent reason.

[vocalEK]

My TSH has been <0.001 since June of 2020. I am going to order this stuff and gargle once a day for 5 days before my next blood test. Betadine Antiseptic Sore Throat Gargle

Note: My FT4 is 1.3 ( 0.9 - 1.7 ng/dL) [50% through range] and FT3 is 3.0 (2.0 - 4.4 pg/mL) [42% through range], so I am nowhere NEAR hyperthyroid. I feel pretty good, so if all I have to do to relax my GP a little is something that is supposed to be good for my mouth health, then fine. I won't continue it long term.

If I don't do something I am afraid she will discontinue or reduce my T3 dose (25 mcg Cytomel), which finally cleared up some bothersome hypo symptoms for me. I really don't want those symptoms back. In fact, I wouldn't mind having my FT3 a bit higher.

Although I have yet to find anything in the medical literature about taking T3 medication making the TSH go way down, I have seen it discussed on here quite a bit.