Low Iodine Diet

At my post-op visit in late June, I was told the pathology report from the surgery. Unfortunately, one of my lymph nodes looked questionable as to whether or not the cancer spread, so I would need to take the radioactive iodine. The radioactive iodine is used to ablate all remaining thyroid cancer cells in the body. In order to prepare for the radioactive iodine, I went on a low iodine diet for 2 weeks. This diet depleted my body of iodine so when I took the pill, it would kill the remaining cancerous cells. The most helpful resource for recipes to use on this diet was from the low – iodine cookbook on www.thyca.org. During the diet, I couldn’t eat eggs, dairy, salt, soy, seafood…pretty much everything that is really DELICIOUS. The one good thing that came out of the diet was that I was basically FORCED to learn how to make many things that I otherwise would never have made. I learned to make bread, chili, sorbet, and many other dishes from scratch using all organic, basic ingredients. Luckily, since I am a teacher, I had my summer off so I could plan my menus in advance and cook the recipes in the afternoon for that evening/the next day.

Initially, the diet was very difficult to understand because there are so many discrepancies on websites and within the Thyca.org cookbook. Although I was referred to use this particular cookbook, I realized AFTER baking some of the items, I couldn’t have them. For example, I made the oatmeal raisin cookies and later noticed my oncologist requested I did not eat raisins or bananas, both ingredients in the cookies. Also, on the first day of the diet I took my usual multi-vitamin in the morning. After I took the vitamin, I looked on the back of the bottle and noticed an ingredient that contained fish – which I knew contained some iodine. Luckily, I was on a very LOW iodine diet and not a NO iodine diet. The diet is frustrating because the FDA still has yet to put out a list of foods that contain iodine. This is because iodine levels vary depending on where the plant is grown (iodine is found in the soil) and where the product is packaged (some companies use an iodine based clearer to clean their canning machines). All the blogs on this will make your mind spin. So basically, my theory was not to eat anything grown or canned in an area that might potentially contain iodine. I also drank distilled water, because after doing some research, I realized some tap waters contain iodine. To help people with the diet, I have recorded what I ate and when for the first week. Every diet is a bit a different, so I would double-check all the approved ingredients specific to your diet with your oncologist and how many portions you can have of each before making some of the recipes. My diet started on a Sunday and ended on a Tuesday – a total of 17 days.

If you have to go on this diet, my recommendation to you is before you start the diet make a few recipes in advance since you will be very HYPOthyroid., therefore exhausted. I made chili, oatmeal cookies, 2 loaves of multigrain bread, peach sorbet, and salsa in advance. The good news is some of the recipes are quite tasty. My husband enjoyed many of them with me including the dinner of Greek chicken with sautéed mushrooms, the chili, chicken fajitas and the peach sorbet. The better you stick with this diet, the better your chances are of killing all the cancer is in your body. Just keep strong and don't cheat - even if your husband enjoys your favorite foods in front of you like - sushi take out and mussels at your favorite restaurant (oh yeah, I've been there).