Tiredness and fatigue

Finding a cure for tiredness and fatigue is the Holy grail of any doctor or health practitioner.

Although most patients don't "want to bother the doctor" about their tiredness, it is listed as part of the syndrome of 1071 conditions.

One of the conditions typically associated with tiredness is low thyroid function.

Low thyroid is widely under-diagnosed or badly diagnosed and is very difficult to treat. Typically doctors give synthetic thyroxine - on the basis that if you don't have enough, we can just give you some more. This ignores the complex biofeedback mechanisms that govern thyroid function which signal to the brain and hypothalamus that there is enough thyroxin now and the thyroid should stop production, further inhibiting a depressed organ.

It was while researching thyroid disorders that I came across a webpage showing some remarkable before-and-after photos of people who had been treated with glandular thyroid supplements.

The pictures show one of the extreme effects of hypothyroidism - myxedema - which is accumulation of fluid in the tissues. The other extreme effect is cretinism or low mental function.

Many people like to think that disease is an either/or thing - either you have diabetes, or you don't. But like is more complex than that - so for every disease, there are shades of gray. If hypothyroidism is at one end of the scale, there are a lot of people somewhere on the path that cannot be diagnosed with the disease, but their thyroid function is not optimal and they suffer from minor versions of the extreme syndrome.

Typical symptoms include

• feeling tired and sleeping a lot

• feeling the cold easily

• dry and/or pale skin

• coarse, thinning hair and brittle nails

• sore muscles, slow movements and weakness

• a hoarse or croaky voice

• a change in facial expression

• depression

• problems with memory and concentration

• weight gain

• constipation

• fertility problems and increased risk of miscarriage

• heavy, irregular or prolonged menstrual periods

• a slow heart rate

Essentially, symptoms are either mental - foggy thinking - or fluid related - puffiness and high blood pressure.

Obviously, I have treated thyroid disorders in the past, usually with Kelp, which contain the essential ingredient Iodine.

Unfortunately, I've never found Kelp actually helped anyone, even thought the theory said it should.

Enter the work of Guy Abrahams MD.

He has published extensively on iodine and thyroid and I found his research fascinating. He designed and developed a product called Iodoral, which I had never heard of but found was available in the US. The interesting thing about Iodoral is that one table contained as much Iodine as one thousand kelp tablets - and the recommended dosage was 4 per day (for 3 months).

No wonder the Kelp didn't work!

Which bought me to the next question - why do we need so much and why can't we get it from our food?

It turns out Iodine is in the same element as Chlorine, Flouride and Bromine - all of which compete with Iodine in our body. With Chlorine used in all our tap water and swimming water, it's no wonder our iodine was depleted. We need extra iodine to wash out the chlorine.

The first pot of Iodoral I imported cost me £45, and it is on sale at the Nutri Centre for £50. Fortunately, if I buy it in bulk I can sell if for £26.00 for 180 tablets which should will last 1 and ½ months at the treatment dosage and 6 months at the maintenance dosage of 1 per day.

Iodoral was supposed to be the tablet form of Lugol's solution. When I thought it was £50 a pot, I found a firm in Wales who manufactured Lugol's solution so I bought some in and sold quite a few bottles.

Unfortunately, while the Lugol's drops worked quite well for some, it turned out not to work for others. If you have been taking Lugol's solution and not getting results, you need to let me check and see whether you would be better off on the iodoral.

Iodine also needs Selenium to work properly and some people benefit from a Selenium supplement or a supplement containing selenium called Phytomins.

If you want an easy-to-read version of the iodine story, check out the first 15 pages in the preview of this book:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5kNh81Z_eYUC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=
iodine+abrahams&source=web&ots=
HwZVh8TChg&sig=g_EBvCq9AgSN2F_lw9w36qiCpYs&hl=en#PPP5,M1

If you want chapter and verse, try

http://optimox.com/pics/Iodine/IOD-01/IOD_01.htm

Since I have been testing people for Iodine, it seems as though nearly everyone is deficient in it and most people benefit from taking it. My own benefits are mainly mental. I find I am more switched on when I take it. I fall back into being switched off if I leave it for about a week, so my levels are obviously still not adequate.

There are some people who need to exercise caution with iodine.

If you're on thyroxine, start slowly. People with low adrenal function (stressed, crying easily, not coping, cold hands and feet) should be careful with iodine, starting with a lower dose and working to eat right and seeing me to locate the sources of their stress.

You should also consider a good water filter to remove chlorine. Although an activated carbon filter will remove some chlorine, reverse osmosis filters are the only ones that will give you really clean water. This is even more important now that researchers from the university of Birmingham have now found that our water is so toxic that it can cause birth defects.

I hope you have a great month.

Talk again in July

Simon King

PS I have just placed another order for Iodoral. It should be here by the 15th June. Let us know if you would like us to save you one.