Hi, hansontrish, and welcome to our Board.
First of all, there is no one-size-fits-all "right way" to treat hyperthyroidism. Patients present different, and highly individualized issues, and what may be the best way to treat one patient is not necessarily the best way to treat another.
What a doctor decides might be the best way to treat a patient, depends a lot on the doctor’s experience with adverse side effects, opinion about the safety of certain drugs in women of child-bearing age, the age of the person, the person’s heart condition, etc. etc. etc. etc. ……. A lot of times, our doctors will present us with options, telling us the pros and cons of each, and let us choose. Other doctors are more dogmatic in their approach. It sounds like your doc falls on the dogmatic end of the scale.
You may have options. Is it possible to get a second opinion from another doctor? If you are on the antithyroid drug (methimazole — we call them ATDs here) and it is functioning to keep your thyroid levels in the normal zone, then you probably have time to seek out another doctor to discuss the issues. On the other hand, if the drug is NOT functioning well to keep your thyroid levels in the normal zone, that is a whole other thing. Waiting for another endo appointment might not be wise. A way for you to tell: get that lab report. It is yours. It doesn’t belong to the doctor, or the doctor’s office. I always ask for a copy of my lab work. And my doctors give it to me, without quibbling. We cannot — as patients — intrepret a lot of the results from lab reports. But one piece of information that is loud and clear on those reports is whether or not our thyroid levels are in the normal range. The reports tell us the range of "normal" for every test taken, and where our results lie (either "high" or "low" out of range).
How long do we have to remain away from other people after RAI? There is –again — no definitive guidelines. One person will say "a weekend" while another will recommend a week. Some of the variations are due to the caution of the recommender; other variations may be due to the dose of RAI. The recommendations are given to prevent the people around us from getting unnecessary exposure to radiation. It is very much like making dental technicians leave the room when they turn on your xray machine: the amount of radiation is not harmful all by itself: we get the lion’s share of the radiation, and RAI has been proven safe for us, so the exposure other folks get from us is not likely to be harmful all by itself. But radiation exposures are cumulative over a life time, so preventing unnecessary exposure is important. The smaller the person (or pet) the more likely you are to hold that person, or pet, near your neck and that would lead to radiation exposure. And radiation exposures in small people and pets, particularly, can have a greater effect. So, we are always told to take a few days away from babies, because we cannot tend them without holding them. Older children, spouses, that we can keep a distance from (speaking of feet, rather than miles) are typically excluded from such a ban. My own instinct was to follow the advice of the radiation doctor/tech — i.e. the individual responsible for administering the treatment, and the person most trained in handling those materials. If you go ahead with the RAI, make sure that that person knows your home situation, the age of your child, etc.
The science facts may help you to determine what you think is wise. I131 (the RAI treatment) has a half-life of 8.1 days. This means that after 8.1 days, half of it is still emitting radiation in your thyroid. It is also, highly soluble in water. The effect of this aspect of it means that any I131 that did not get trapped in your thyroid within the first 24 hours is rapidly eliminated from you body via fluid: urine, sweat, saliva. Many times we are told to sleep on separate sheets, flush the toilets twice for a few days, use plastic disposable eating utensils, for this reason. Scientists believe that a radioactive material is essentially "gone" once five half-lives have past. So, the RAI is considered completely gone from the body after about 40.5 days. But, each week the existing amount has diminished by half, and after 10 days (just under your doctor’s estimate) we are, normally able to go about our everyday business without taking any extra precautions for other people. His use of the word "isolate" however is excessive. We do not have to live, by ourselves in a locked room for 10 days.
We have a list of recommended books on the subject, somewhere on the main Home Page (I think). I have forgotten how I navigated to that list, unfortunately. I have read most, if not all of those books, and I think they helped me to understand things fairly well when I was trying to figure out what treatment to do. At least some of them are available in libraries and bookstores, or from online sources. The organization tries to list books that have factual, well-founded information (as opposed to untried speculative suggestions), so I recommend that you try to get one of them.
I hope this info helps. If you have more questions, feel free to ask them.
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