Bromine - Why Iodine can change the world

When starting The Iodine Protocol, or just increasing our unrefined salt intake, we may find ourselves dislodging and detoxing bromine. Bromine is iodine’s evil sibling that makes it harder for our body to remain saturated with iodine. Today’s environment of new products gassing off, medications and food ingredients etc are overloading us with bromine while most of us are not exposed to much iodine at all.

How elevated could our bromine levels be?

Since the 1970s, brominated and chlorinated flame retardants have been applied to

Textiles
Foam in couches and baby products
Building insulation
Carpets
Drapes
Personal computers
TV sets
Car dashboards
Electrical cables
Many other products

Bromine is used to bleach flour. Iodine had been used for this purpose, but the people that care a lot about us decided to remove iodine and replace it with the potentially cancerous¹ version of a halogen, bromine. There are breads available that do not use bromine, but if the bread is white, it probably has bromine.

Bromide is one of the most abundant and ubiquitous trace elements in the biosphere. In the 20th century, bromide was increasingly introduced into the environment as a salt‐mining waste product and a degradation product of fumigants, leading to the inevitable exposure of bromide for the general population via their food intake.²

Because bromine is not chemically bound to the material but is instead incorporated during manufacturing or sprayed on afterward, they routinely escape as vapor or airborne particles that tend to stick to surfaces or settle in dust.
These compounds are building up in human fat, breast milk, and seminal fluid.³
During the past 30 years, Hites reported in 2004, PBDE levels in human blood, milk, and tissue increased by a factor of 100 — essentially doubling every five years.⁴
Read more at Flame retardants in consumer products are linked to health and cognitive problems – The Washington Post

Is it really that bad for us?

A child’s exposure to bromine, whether before or after birth, is associated with poorer attention, fine motor coordination, and cognition. ⁵
Bromine competes with iodine and chloride.⁶⁷ We know how important iodine is https://whyiodine.com/who-cares-about-iodine/ but chloride is very important as well.
The seriousness of poisoning caused by bromine depends on the amount, route, and length of time of exposure, as well as the age and preexisting medical condition of the person exposed.
Survivors of serious poisoning caused by inhaling (breathing in) bromine may have long-term lung problems
People who survive serious bromine poisoning may also have long-term effects from damage done by what is called systemic poisoning, for example, kidney or brain damage from low blood pressure

So if acute exposure can cause long-term systematic poisoning resulting in kidney and brain damage, I wonder what happens when we are exposed to it slowly, like when we eat bread regularly or own furniture or a car or tv, or computer, or curtains, or food..

How are we exposed to bromine?

It’s everywhere.

Bromine is found naturally in the earth’s crust and in seawater in various chemical forms. Bromine can also be found as an alternative to chlorine in swimming pools. Products containing bromine are used in agriculture and sanitation and as fire retardants (chemicals that help prevent things from catching fire). ⁸

Bromine is a naturally occurring element that is a liquid at room temperature.
It has a brownish-red color with a bleach-like odor, and it dissolves in water.
Food via chemicals used to grow it
Disinfectants
Some bromine-containing compounds were historically used as sedatives (drugs that can make people calm or sleepy)

Symptoms of bromine toxicity or detox

A lot of these symptoms are from a handful of the same papers. So instead of linking random symptoms to those pages, these footnotes here have them –> ⁹¹⁰

Anorexia
Anxiety
Ataxia
Abnormal skin pigmentation
Acneiform ( acne vulgaris, rosacea, folliculitis, and perioral dermatitis )
Bad Breath
Brain fog
Breast tenderness ( transient—on & off )
Bromoderma ( acne ) on the face and hands, skin eruptions
Changes in body odor
Cherry angiomas
Coma
Confusion
Constipation
Dark thoughts ( no reason to live ); depression
Diarrhea/constipation, GI issues
Disturbance of color perception
Drowsiness
Dry mouth
Eyelid twitching/foot twitching
Fatigue
Erythematous rashes
Hair loss
Hallucinations
Headache
Hormone changes
Increased salivation

Increased sweating
Kidney pain
Leg and hip ache ( like arthritis )
Memory loss
Mental dullness
Metallic taste
Mood swings, irritability, rage
Mouth & tongues sores, or “sore mouth”
Muscle weakness
Odd swallowing sensation
Psychosis
Pustular
Rash
Runny nose
Reflex changes
Restlessness
Sensitivity to light
Skin splits
Slurred speech
Stupor
Tingling in hands &/or feet
Tremors
Urethral spasm, frequent, urination ( mistaken for urinary infection )
Unusual urine color or odor
Vision changes
Vomiting
Weakness

Can Bromine toxicity be handled better?

“There are no specific antidotes for bromide, although administering chloride and fluids can help the body to excrete bromide more quickly. Furosemide may help aid urinary excretion in individuals with renal impairment or where bromide toxicity is severe.” ¹¹

The medial establishment seems to agree that there is no antidote for bromine, then turns around and gives two potential solutions. One of them is chloride, which is part of unrefined salt included in the iodine protocol. I have consumed very large amounts of Celtic salt on my food as I was detoxing bromine. I found relief from Salt Loading a few times, but preferred to increase my salt intake via food instead of via water for several reasons. More information about salt loading here https://whyiodine.com/salt-loading

Bromine is taking the place of iodine as we’ve been exposed to more bromine than iodine. One we get enough iodine to push the bromine out, it can find its way out in various ways depending how our body’s chemistry is currently running.