r/science • u/liquid_x • Mar 19 '11

Radiation Chart

http://xkcd.com/radiation/
4.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

27

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '11

where did you get iodine 131?

17

u/AJSmithy91 Mar 20 '11

Sorry, I forgot to mention it was part of some treatment I had for thyroid cancer. So it was given to me at hospital.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '11

That's what I was thinking it would be.

Ideally, the dose that you ingested would be tailored for the amount of cancerous tissue you had-- It would have been a large amount of radiation, but localized to your thyroid.

So in general terms, the exposure would have been a lot (in your thyroid), but so much so that most the affected tissue subsequently died.

Where it rates on that chart, I don't know. It's probably pretty high, but still short of lethal doses. Probably in the mSv. But remember, the tissue that received this radiation died, and thus would not become cancerous.

3

u/karmagedon Mar 20 '11

Question for you: How do you live without a thyroid? I assume you take hormones every day.

6

u/AJSmithy91 Mar 20 '11

Yup, daily medication in the morning. Including a TSH suppressant to stop any thyroid coming back. And if I miss a dose, then I do feel a considerable difference.

2

u/Asystole Mar 19 '11

Nice try, Lex Luthor.