RAI Coming Up? --> What works in the "food dept" on the restricted iodine diet & can somebody post a bit abuot the how's / why's the LID diet b4 RAI, etc?

[ChitChatNine]

List when & why you having RAI done

Some Foods that work for you best on the LID Diet

Anything else about the diet that can help others.

Ahh, any other acronyms for the health pages either add them or post them and we'll see that they are there .. going to ck. to see if LID (low iodine diet) is there ..

Cheryl

[Call_me_MN]

One thing that isn't mentioned as much is topical lotions/ointments. It appears that you should also avoid using bath washes, soaps, etc. that have iodine/iodine derivatives. (Look for words that start with iod- .) I'm not using my Dial Mountain Fresh body wash this week. I found this information on the Thyca Yahoo group. The basic idea was that it was okay if it had "somewhere to go" (i.e., a shampoo with iodine derivatives would concentrate in hair, not be absorbed), but lotions would be absorbed through the skin. Betadine was specifically mentioned, but I'm going to guess that most people aren't doing RAI soon enough after having to wash with Betadine before surgery to worry about it.

[Liz94]

The hardest part of the LID for me was the fact that you can only have 5/6 ounces of meat or chicken per day. That is not a lot people!  I bought a food scale and then bought meat and chicken at the organic market, weighed it and cut them into 5/6 ounce servings. Ate half for lunch and half for dinner.   If you are a big protein eater this diet is kind of hard because it's lacking protein in my opinion. No dairy, limited meat, and one can only eat so many freakin nuts!  

I attempted to make the spaghetti sauce in the LID cookbook and it came out nasty. THen the next day I went to the organic food store and saw spaghetti sauce made with no salt and it was good!  So, shop around at specialty food stores because if you really look you can find lots of good stuff without salt.

[nissah46]

I call it the nuts and berries diet! No dairy which is hard for me because I live on yougurt.Bread and baked goods must be home made to avoid the iodine in salt. I make my salad dressing because everything processed has salt in it. Fish is not allowed.  Chicken and beef is fine as long as it hasn't been injected with anything or marinated in anything.Basmati rise is recommended.Vitamens etc. must be checked for red dye.

[nissah46]

I wonder if the difference might be for those with thyroid cancer vs those having RAI to destroy their thyroid.I was told it is for the whole body scan, so the iodine would go to any remaining thyroid cells and would show up on the scan.My Dr. refered to them as standing at attention!

[debj52]

hi,thats the same here ..nothing was said to me either...take care deb

[stella5349]

Never was I told about LID before my RAI - .... figures. :(

[KelDC]

Thyca.org has a Low Iodine Diet cookbook loaded with recipes and suggestions.  It's really wonderful and helpful.  I printed it out to have handy when they schedule my RAI.  TT is a week from tomorrow (EEK!), so I believe I'm looking at RAI in early May.  

My endo said that the purpose of the LID is to deplete as much iodine from your system as possible.  As thyroid cells are the only cells in your body that absorb iodine, this ensures that they are "starving" for it.  When you take the RAI, they absorb it faster and better.  

I believe there is some question currently as to how effective the LID is before RAI versus just avoiding certain high iodine foods, but it's still very commonly used.  

[ChitChatNine]

typo -- *about* can't type this morning ... :0