Mold & Environmental Illness

Is Your Environment Making You Sick?

Mycotoxin Illness

There have been lots of names for this illness over the years. Let’s start with some basic ideas: this illness is not an allergy. It is an inflammation within the body which is caused by an immune system that has gone haywire. For those with a Lyme infection: If the immune system is overcome by mold and mycotoxins, it will make clearing up Lyme infection very difficult.

What Is Mold Illness

Mold illness is caused by exposure to mold spores and mold biotoxins. As the word implies, biotoxins are toxic substances made by biological organisms, like molds or bacteria. The term “mold illness” is a subcategory of biotoxin illness called Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) defined by Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker in the late 1990’s. We’ve come a long way in our understanding from CIRS.

Though it may take more time for some clinicians to fully recognize this condition, there are enough practitioners making a true difference in their patients’ lives to give anyone with this condition hope.  If you want to learn more, I suggest checking out the newly formed (ISEAI) for up to date clinical research and education whose mission is to “raise awareness of the environmental causes of inflammatory illnesses and to support the optimal health of individuals affected by these illnesses through the integration of clinical practice, education, and research.” (https://iseai.org/)

I am in an ongoing clinical mentorship program with mold experts and educators Dr. Neil Nathan and Dr. Jill Crista and a member of ISEAI. Though we still have more to understand, living with mold toxicity and CIRS is no longer without solutions and people can get better!

Testing For Mold Toxicity

I use Real Time Laboratory urine testing or Vibrant Wellness testing, generally collected after a glutathione challenge.

Symptoms of Mold Toxicity

Mold symptoms are often misdiagnosed, and largely overlap with many tick borne symptoms. A thorough assessment of exposure history, along with objective lab data combine to make the diagnosis. For a quick self-assessment tool of the likelihood of your symptoms coming from mold, take the Crista Mold Questionnaire.

  • Breathing: Difficult, Tightness in chest, Asthma

  • Diagnosis: Chronic Fatigue, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Fibromyalgia, Lyme Disease, Lupus, MS, Auto-Immune

  • Emotions: irritable, anger

  • Extremities: Tingling Hands and Feet

  • Eyes: Blindness, Pains, Wear sunglasses, Light Sensitivity, Bloodshot eyes, loss of vision, Detached retina

  • Fatigue: Chronic Fatigue (some estimate cause of up to 1/3 of chronic fatigue), post exertional fatigue

  • Mental: Confusion, Absent mindedness, losing things, brain fog, ADD/ADHD, learning disabilities, anxiety, depression

  • Mold sensitivity: Exposure to Damp house, Mold in air ducts, Red Tide, React to mold

  • Nasal: Congestion, Nasal soreness, sinusitis. A study by the Mayo clinic found that 96 percent of all sinusitis is fungal!

  • Pain: pain in temples, sudden headaches, sudden, sharp, icepick like

  • Sensitivity: Car fumes, Smoke, Pets, Feathers, Detergents, Toothpaste, Chlorine, Plastic cups

  • Skin: Rashes, Alopecia

  • Stomach: Cramps, nausea, Diarrhea

  • Taste: Metallic

  • Thirst: Dryness, Excessive thirst, excessive urination

  • Weight Gain: Sudden, inability to lose weight despite stringent dieting and exercise