I was highly radioactive for a month after a thyroid treatment — here's what it was like and all the rules I had to follow

I took radioactive iodine as part of a treatment against hyperthyroid that made me highly radioactive for a month.

Marianne Guenot/Insider

• A recent thyroid procedure I had involved taking an iodine pill that made me highly radioactive.
• For about a month I was a danger to others and had to follow a long list of safety rules.
• My photos — including readings from a Geiger counter — show the weird experience in full. 

I've been living with a hyperactive thyroid for years, a disease that has debilitating symptoms and can cause heart problems in the long term. 

When I was offered treatment to fix the problem, I jumped at it — but there was a catch. I had to take a concentrated dose of radioactive iodine which meant I'd be emitting gamma radiation for a month. 

Here's what it was like to become highly radioactive.

I have Graves disease, which messes up your thyroid.

The thyroid is a gland found in the throat. In my case it was overactive.

Getty Images; Marianne Guenot/Insider

I have Graves disease, which means my thyroid is overactive. 

The thyroid controls metabolism — how quickly the body works. By spewing hormones into the body, thyroids affect how quickly body temperature, digestion, energy levels, how fast your heart pumps, and even how you think and feel. 

When the thyroid makes too much of these hormones, the body goes into hyperdrive.

 

Graves disease is very uncomfortable and can be dangerous if left untreated.

I couldn't do the sports I love so much.

Iryna Veklich/Getty Images

If not treated properly, Graves can lead to heart problems.

It's also really unpleasant. My heart would start racing unprompted, I would feel extremely hot in cold environments, my weight would drop or shoot up regardless of my diet, and it made me anxious and sad for no reason. 

I also had to stop going to the gym and doing yoga for fear of putting too much strain on my heart.

Radiation nukes the thyroid to calm it down.

The symptoms of Graves can be controlled with pills. But if the pills don't work, a more permanent treatment is considered.

One method is to kill a good proportion of the cells in the thyroid, sharply reducing the hormone output. 

There are two ways to do this: one is surgery, which is quite invasive. The other is radioactive iodine, a treatment that is thought to have very few side effects that can be done as an outpatient procedure. 

 

The dose is so high that you start emitting a level of radiation that can harm others.

This card lays out the rules to follow during the treatment. I was asked to carry it at all times in case of a medical emergency.

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There were strict rules to follow to avoid harming others:

• For three days: don't make food for other people, and increase personal hygiene. 
• For 16 days: avoid staying within 6 feet of others for more than 30 minutes a day, sleep alone, and no kissing or sex. 
• For 27 days: no close contact with pregnant people and children, no non-emergency medical and dental treatments, and no busy social situations.
• For six months: avoid getting pregnant. 

 

I had to follow a low iodine diet before the treatment.

Delicious meals that were eaten during my low-iodine diet: an avocado toast with tomatoes, a beef and mushroom crepe, oat milk porridge with bananas and fruit, no-cheese pesto chicken.

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Ahead of the treatment, I followed a low-iodine diet for two weeks to flush out iodine from my thyroid. 

The thyroid sucks up iodine from around the body to make its hormones.

That's why radioactive iodine works so well to treat hyperthyroid: it rushes to the thyroid and has its effect there. The rest of the body gets relatively little radiation.  

These are some iodine-rich foods I needed to avoid: 

• Fish.
• Eggs.
• Processed meat.
• Sea salt.
• Milk and other dairy products.

By the end of the two weeks, I couldn't wait to eat a cheese sandwich. 

I was treated at St. Bartholomew's hospital in central London as as an outpatient.

I was given the treatment in the nuclear medicine department in St. Bartholomew's Hospital in central London.

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I headed to the nuclear medicine department and was given the treatment in a fairly generic room.

My pill came in this thick lead container.

The pill was kept in a thick container which keeps the radioactivity inside.

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It's carried around in a lead container to prevent others from being exposed. Staff wheeled it in on a cart.

I wasn't supposed to touch the pill and was given a grabber to swallow it.

This is what the grabber looks like.

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The grabber has little claws at the bottom to grasp the pill in the container and is hollow so I could tip the pill back into my mouth without ever touching it.

Here goes!

Down the hatch!

Marianne Guenot/Insider

As soon as I took the treatment, my Geiger counter started picking up radioactivity.

 

The procedure was completely free via the UK National Health Service.

I live in the UK and got the treatment through the state-owned NHS. There was no charge for any part of the treatment.

As soon as I took the pill, my body gave off high levels of radioactivity.

The level shown on Insider's Geiger counter was 1,300 times higher than normal "background" radiation levels.

Marianne Guenot/Insider

A technical disclaimer! To be completely accurate, Geiger counter readings need to be taken in a controlled environment after the machine was calibrated by a professional.

We didn't do this, so the data in this article is more of a ballpark than a precise measure.

All the same — moments after taking the pill, the radioactivity measure jumped to 1,300 times higher than the "background" level expected of an average person.

The doctor told me that the radioactivity then was mostly in my stomach and that as the pill was digested it would concentrate in my thyroid. 

I left the hospital quickly.

This picture was taken moments after I took the radioactive iodine pill, as I was walking home.

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From this moment on, I had to avoid exposing others. 

In some cases, hospitals decide to keep patients in special protected rooms for a few days.

But I live alone and could easily isolate, so my doctors let me go. I don't have a car, so I walked home on quiet streets.

 

This is a graph of how radioactive I was over the course of the month.

Radioactivity measured at the throat shot up as the treatment started. Please note the disclaimer about the data above.

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I used the Geiger counter to measure radioactivity closest to the source: around the throat.

I found that radioactivity shot up at first, then dropped steadily over time, reaching normal-ish levels by the end of the treatment.

The radioactivity decreased quickly as I got further and further away from the Geiger counter.

As soon as I moved away from the detector, radioactivity dropped. Please note the disclaimer about the data above.

Marianne Guenot/Insider

Radiation was strongest around my throat and decreased steadily as the detector was further away.

That means that those who were more than 6 ft away from me would get a lot less radiation than those who were very close to me. 

I felt totally normal.

The worst people tend to report while radioactive is a sore throat and slight nausea. I didn't even feel that.

The only superpower is radioactive sweat.

I was told to double flush the toilet during the first three days of treatment.

Getty Images

During the first few days of the treatment, you're at your most radioactive.

The radioactive iodine that didn't bind to the thyroid is getting flushed out in body fluids.

This is mostly via peeing, but also through things like saliva, sweat, and poop. 

During those first few days, you are asked to double flush the toilet. Any period pads or tampons should be double-bagged and thrown away immediately. You're also asked to use your own plates and not cook for anyone else. 

I felt guilty about the risk of exposing people, even a tiny bit.

For me, being exposed to the radiation was OK because I had a big upside that outweighed the extra risk.

For other people, there were only downsides to being near me.

The rules I followed are designed to reduce the risk of exposing others to practically zero. But still, because people can't tell you're radioactive, it's up to you to decide what to say or do to manage it.

I found the responsibility of potentially exposing people without their consent to be overwhelming. 

 

For the first two weeks, you are asked to stay 6 ft away from people. In London, this essentially means staying inside.

Going to the park in the early morning was a good way to stay away from people until it got busy.

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Staying more than six feet from other people is trickier than I first imagined. 

I don't have a car and was told to avoid public transport, so any outing from my apartment had to be within walking distance. 

I could buy groceries so long as I moved around and left quickly, but had to avoid all non-essential contact.

I found the park was the only place I could spend a little time outside of my apartment while being far enough from others.

Being isolated felt like going back into COVID-19 lockdown.

I had the time to reupholster a chair.

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I even revived one of my pandemic hobbies: I re-upholstered an old chair and painted my kitchen walls. 

 

You can't kiss, hug, or share a bed with your partner for two weeks.

This is how far I had to be from my partner on day 1 for radiation levels to drop back to background levels

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During the first two weeks, my partner and I could only see each other for short periods of time, and while six feet apart.

It was harder than I thought to not have physical contact. We kept forgetting I was highly radioactive and going in for a hug before remembering we shouldn't. 

Staying away from loved ones after a somewhat scary medical procedure was harder than I expected.

An important election happened during my treatment and there was no way for me to vote.

I could vote for the first round of the French presidential election but not for the second round.

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I'm French, and France's two-round presidential election was happening during the treatment period.

I realized there was no way I could safely stand in line to vote in the second part, a contest between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.

I tried to vote remotely but found that still required visiting a voting center at a different time, which I couldn't do.

So I couldn't vote, which felt infuriating. (Macron won the election.)

I couldn't go to a gig I was really excited about.

My partner had won tickets for a festival in Bristol where the band Portishead performed for the first time in seven years.

I had to settle for streaming the event live at home instead.

I couldn't get my hair cut.

My hair was getting pretty shaggy a month in

Marianne Guenot/Insider

A haircut takes more than 15 minutes. And when your hair grows fast like mine, going without means you end up looking pretty shaggy.

After two weeks, places where I'd be close to people for a long time were still out because you never know who might be pregnant.

This art exhibit wasn't too crowded and I could leave if it became crowded.

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After two weeks of strict isolation, I was allowed to see adults but had to stay away from pregnant people and children. 

That meant that any crowded places like pubs and cinemas were still out. 

But I was desperate to get out of my apartment. I could go to places where it was OK to move around a lot. I found that my partner and I could go to some events together, as long as we knew they weren't going to be too busy.

I went to a gig I knew wouldn't be too crowded and watched from the back.

At this venue, I was sure to stay more than six feet apart from people.

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At the end of my treatment, I went to a short gig where I knew people were going to be far away from me. 

I had a few friends over for dinner. They had fun with the Geiger counter.

The friends I was allowed to see in the last two weeks of my treatment had fun playing with my Geiger counter.

Marianne Guenot

I explained the situation to my friends before they came, and they were OK with the small exposure. Measuring your radioactivity turns out to be a fun party trick.

Airports have detectors for radioactivity, so I got a special letter to explain myself.

I had to travel with a special letter to attest that it is normal for me to be radioactive.

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After 27 days I was allowed to go back to life as normal. But I was still giving off a slightly higher level of radiation than normal.

I learned that airports have detectors to spot unnatural levels of radioactivity. So I was given a letter attesting that I was a little more radioactive than expected.

 

Airports in Europe were no problem, but I set off a detector in a US airport.

Looking pretty tired after setting off a radiation detector after a long-haul flight.

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After a long flight from London, I set off gates at San Francisco International Airport that started beeping with bright lights. A border agent reviewed my documents and measured the radioactivity in my thyroid with a big Geiger counter.

Thankfully, he didn't think I was a safety risk and let me through.

The treatment worked!

Back in Insider's London newsroom after the treatment.

Marianne Guenot/Insider

After years of hyperthyroidism, my levels are down and almost back to normal!

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