Radioactive Iodine

[Picu]

hi All

I had rai in December 2024 , just been to see endo and was advised levels are extremely high therefore need to back on carbizamole , has anyone else experienced this as I feel so much better than before treatment. Any advice welcome 😊

[bantam12]

It does happen and some Drs routinely put patients back on Carb after RAI. Takes time for it to work so your levels may go down or if not you may need another dose of RAI.

[PurpleNails Administrator]

Welcome to forum.

RAI requires repeating about 10% of the time, so it not unheard of that initial the hyper levels remain.

It can still lower for some months after treatment but if you remain hyper, dr look at repeating treatment around 6 months later.

Do you have results? If you’ve been hyper your TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) which is a pituitary hormone can be unreliable & appear low making dr assume you are hyper when your thyroid hormone ( FT4 & FT3) are not high at all.

For full thyroid function you need -

TSH, FT4 & FT3.

Very import to test folate, ferritin, b12 & vitamin D.

You are entitled to copy of blood test results, always obtain printout with lab range or set up to view online.

What was cause of hyper & what thyroid antibodies were tested?

How long were you on carbimazole before RAI. What is current restarting dose?

[pennyannie]

Hello Picu and welcome to the forum :

In the short term - it is known that RAI can increase the antibody and immune system activity as the dose of RAI not specific enough in every case - but hopefully you will not need further treatment.

So, I'm guessing you have Graves Disease and initially treated with an Anti Thyroid Drug ?

Graves is an Auto Immune Disease that generally only gets diagnosed when the thyroid starts malfunctioning and or your eyes start becoming uncomfortable and quite why your immune system started attacking your body rather than defend it - is of course the question - though we do know that with Graves stress and and anxiety are common triggers.

Most people after RAI treatment tend to be hypothyroid within 6 months from treatment -

RAI is also known to also trash vitamins and minerals -

Once primary hypothyroid you will be prescribed thyroid hormone replacement - probably T4 - Levothyroxine - and for any thyroid hormone replacement to work well -

we need optimal levels of ferritin, folate, B12 and vitamin D -

so make sure these get run and we can advise where best these core strength vitamins and minerals need to sit -

as just being in a range somewhere, anywhere, is not conducive to good health and well being.

Similarly you do need to know that you must be dosed and monitored on your Free T3 and Free T4 blood test results and not a TSH seen in isolation as generally happens in primary care.

We generally feel best when the T4 is up at around 80 % through its range with the T3 tucked in behind at around 75% through its range.

It's early days - just go 1 step at a time - if with Graves Disease for any length of time - the brain and body need time to heal, mend and reset themselves.

The most rounded of all I researched is that of Elaine Moore books and website -

web.archive.org/web/2024122...