July 27th, 2010 | 
Author: I would like to know if the patient is able to go outside after this treatment and how they might feel. What would happen if the patient wasn’t feeling good and needed help. Would we have to wear special suits to come in to the home and help? Does this treatment affect the appetite. Do we have to do anything to bedding, dishes etc. they used while in home… disinfect?
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I hope you haven’t had this treatment yet. If you are scheduled for it, please reconsider. What I’m saying does not apply to thyroid cancer, but if you have Grave’s disease, this is not an appropriate treatment. Doctors push it and push it because it’s simpler for the doctor, but the doctor doesn’t have to deal with the negative consequences to your health for the rest of your life. Please know that this is NOT a cure for Grave’s disease. You will still have Grave’s disease after the treatment. The only symptom that you will be rid of is the hyperthyroidism due to Grave’s disease. And you will only trade it for a new disease – medically induced hypOthyroidism. You will have to be treated for hypOthyroidism for the rest of your life. And it is very difficult to get good treatment, and it is a miserable disease to have. Do not let your doctor give you this disease.
If you treat your Grave’s disease with methimizole, there is a chance that it could go into remission naturally at any time. If you have RAI, you don’t have this chance.
I found the following information at http://www.endocrineweb.com/thyroidca.html.
The patient goes home, avoids contact with other people for a couple of days (so they are not exposed to the radioactive materials), and that’s it.
A week or two after the radioactive iodine treatment the patient is started on a thyroid hormone pill. You can’t live without thyroid hormone and since you don’t have a thyroid anymore, the patient will take one pill per day for the rest of their life. This is very simple and a very common medication (example of drug names are: Synthroid, Levoxyl, Armour Thyroid, etc).
Every 6 – 12 months the patient returns to his endocrinologist for blood tests to determine if the dose of daily thyroid hormone is correct and to make sure that the thyroid tumor is not coming back. The frequency of these follow up tests and which tests to get will vary greatly from patient to patient. Endocrinologists are typically quite good at this and will typically be the type of doctor that follows this patient long-term.
Good luck with everything.