Am I Allergic to Iodine?

A concern that I will come up when I start patients on iodine is, I think I’m allergic to iodine.

Patients will start taking iodine and they will have an allergic reaction like a rash.

Iodine is a halogen. Now there are other chemicals that we can be taking into the body that are also halogens like fluoride, chlorine, bromide. What happens is that these halogens compete with iodine for the iodine receptors. Then when you start taking iodine, the iodine will displace the other halogens and shift them out of the iodine receptors. Then the body will move the more toxic halogens out of the body. Therefore your body will be detoxing the other halogens from the body and if the body is not able to effectively move those halogens out of the body, then the body can have rashes which can be mistaken as an allergic reaction.

So it is not that you are allergic to the iodine, it is your body detoxing the other halogens from your system. This is typically the case. It is not that you are allergic to iodine, it is your body detoxing the more toxic halogens from the body.