nodule hide & seek

[Guest guest]

One of my issues when I joined this list was a nodule on my thyroid,

& the sucker has been playing hide & seek with me.

When I first started taking iodine, my whole thyroid swelled briefly.

Then it shrank to way smaller than I ever remember it being. (Totally

surprised me. I had no idea how swollen it was. No doctor had ever

commented on the size of it.) At that point, I thought the nodule was

almost gone, but then I realize that it had sunk deeper into my

throat, to where the swollen thyroid used to be. I think it was

smaller, but it wasn't gone, & it was so deep in my neck that it was

hard to get a good feel of it.

For a while, I worked my way up to 150 mg, which I thought was a bit

much. I wasn't having horrible detox, but when you feel lousy enough,

it is hard to tell the normal way you feel from mild detox. (I've

been having a rough year, I tell you! Hard to tell if you are feeling

emotional & tired because of detox or because of your life!)

Then my nodule started growing again -- while I was still on 150 mg.

Didn't quite know what to do about that. (Kept thinking, " Where is my

iodine miracle? " ) I have always ascribed to the theory that your body

uses something where it needs it the most, & I keep trying to tell

myself that a thyroid nodule is not as important as shrinking the

whole thyroid. (Although it did make me a bit nervous to wonder where

my body thought it needed iodine more that I didn't even know about.)

And then I started ramping down my iodine a bit, as I seemed to be

having more detox. (Other people have indicated that they need to go

up or down over time, so I am assuming that is fairly common? I was

having the hysteria without the justification, if you know what I mean.)

Well, the nodule has been kind of up & down a lot, but recently, it

started really going to town -- getting as big as it was at it's

largest point. It was quite visible in the mirror. And I haven't been

feeling like ramping up my iodine dose again. So I decided to try

painting my neck with Lugol's. It was really weird. I would put drops

on the palm of my left hand, & then rub them into the right side of

my neck where the nodule is. My hand would get very stained, but my

neck only had a pale mark. So I would repeat 3 or 4 times, & the mark

on my neck never did get as dark as the one on my hand.

The nodule started shrinking again almost immediately. Within 2 days

there was a huge difference.

I am trying to remember back to last year, when I first started

reading up on iodine. I suddenly realized that I was using a lot of

topical Lugol's while I waited for my Iodoral to arrive, & continued

for a little while, but gradually phased out the Lugol's as I

increased my dose of Iodoral. (It seemed redundant, & the Lugol's can

be messy...)

But the message from my nodule seems to be that I should continue

direct Lugol's application, along with Iodoral. Has anybody else

found this to be the case? This also raises the issue of whether this

is going to make me start feeling too detoxy again. I've been kind of

an emotional weinie all my life (just ask my sister -- she'll tell

you!), & I have rather a lot to cope with at the moment, so I don't

need the emotional roller coaster of detoxing too fast. (And I just

can't handle salt loading, so I don't want to make myself detox fast

enough to need it!) But I had multiple indications of iodine

deficiency when I started, & still have a way to go...

This is going to sound stupid, but I look lousy in the mirror -- kind

of haggard. I don't feel all that terrible. A bit emotional &

anxious, but not sick. Except when I see myself in the mirror, it

kind of scares me. I just don't look well, & I don't know what to

make of it. (I was bragging to my aunt about how great iodine was

making me feel, & she reamed me about what an idiot I was being. Hate

to show up at Christmas looking like I'm at death's door...)

Liver cleanse coming up shortly. Seems to be the next obvious step

here. But I feel like I'm missing something. And meanwhile, this

nodule is annoying the hell out of me!

Anne