How does radioactive iodine therapy work?
The thyroid gland uses iodine, as it’s an important constituent for making thyroid hormone, which is it’s product. By giving radioiodine, we are replacing what iodine the thyroid gland would have taken up with this radioactive iodine. The radioactive iodine kills the thyroid cells, and by doing that we diminish the number of the active thyroid cells. In that way, we diminish the amount of product that is produced by the thyroid gland. Therefore, that’s how we treat the hyper functioning thyroid – by declining the amount of thyroid hormone that is being produced.
