Mold Toxicity + Survival Guide eBook
This is not going to be a pretty blog post. As a photographer, I always try to make things look as attractive on camera as they possibly can, but unfortunately, there’s no way to make mold toxicity look cute or trendy.
If you’ve stumbled upon my website, it probably means you’re looking for the root cause of your symptoms and chronic illness that have plagued you for years. I, too, was in your position only a year ago and if someone had told me that my living environment was the thing that was harming me the most, I don’t think I would have believed them. Mold illness can happen to anyone, at any time, and it’s a series of fate and timing that causes mold to be your own worst enemy.
For me, I was 21 and had suffered from a skull fracture that had left me with a traumatic brain injury I didn’t know I had. It wasn’t until a year later when I moved into a moldy environment that not only my brain trauma began showing symptoms, but a hidden Epstein-Barr virus showed up as Mono in the same month. Mold can allow underlying viruses like EBV or Lyme to activate in the body, so it’s hard to trace back to exactly where the problems began. My symptoms escalated quickly over a number of months as things got worse and worse for me.
These photos were only taken one year apart. No change in my diet or lifestyle, but still gaining weight from the overgrowth of mold in my home.
It started as constipation, fatigue, body aches, sinus infections, and bloating. I began seeing doctors who told me that I must be struggling with adjusting to adulthood after college and I needed more sleep, and possibly antidepressants. Fatigue and constipation slowly turned into food sensitivities and autoimmune disease over the course of two years when I couldn’t find a diagnosis. I began experiencing brain fog, hypoglycemia, and alcohol intolerance before I got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis in 2015. I began making lifestyle adjustments after I didn’t react well to thyroid medication. I ate a strict paleo/AIP diet, I stopped doing strenuous exercise, I gave up alcohol, I tried to get at least 8-9 hours of sleep a night, and switched all of my cleaning/beauty products to all-natural due to having constant reactions to anything I put on my body. Even with all of these healthy changes, I was still gaining weight.
I finally started seeing holistic doctors who put me on multiple different protocols to detox from a myriad of health issues: parasites, gallstones, SIBO, candida overgrowth, Epstein-Barr, leaky gut, and leaky brain. It seemed never ending.
Only three weeks apart. The photo on the left was during a flare when my entire body gets inflamed.
I had been working with my holistic doctors for almost three years to detox from all the issues I walked in with when symptoms began to resurface once again. This was the clue that lead us to environmental mold. I should have been able to heal and recover if it wasn’t for my living environment keeping me sick. We discovered mold not only in our air ducts, but in our crawlspace as well.
It took me FIVE YEARS of living in toxic mold before I was able to discover the root cause of my symptoms. There were days where I felt like a prisoner inside of my own body and the second I got those test results for Mycotoxins overflowing in my system, I felt like a prisoner inside of my own home too.
My first reaction was, “We need to move out of this rental RIGHT NOW.” But then I realized, “Wait…but how do I know my next rental won’t have mold?” And, “Can I get my landlord to remediate, or could I sue her for the thousands of dollars of medical bills I’ve spent?” I mean, come on…the past five years had changed my life and not necessarily for the better. I had so much research to do.
It took me months of speaking with doctors, mold specialists, realtors, lawyers, labs, and reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching interviews to understand how to recover and escape the mold that had held me back all these years. It was so much stress trying to find a new home with my boyfriend, moving but making sure that we didn’t bring the spores along with us on our furniture, detoxing from the mold for months and spending over $600 worth of supplements a month to do so. My friends were calling me “The Mold Expert” for months because it was literally all I could think or talk about. It was obnoxious and exhausting.
It’s been a year since we have moved from the mold and my life has drastically changed. There were some symptoms I didn’t even realize I had as I began to recover from this. The first things I noticed were how much easier it was to breath and how my face wasn’t puffy in the morning. As months went by, other things began to change. My stomach wasn’t as bloated, I didn’t react to food or products as much as I used to, my joints didn’t hurt as badly, my brain fog and headaches went away, I was able to balance my blood sugar and had less hypoglycemic episodes, my hair grew longer, thicker, and had more color, the color of my skin went from an almost yellow back to a bright pink, and the energy I was supposed to have in my 20s began to show itself. I decided I didn’t want anyone to go through the same stress I went through to find answers so that they can begin healing as soon as possible.
There is so much information online and it’s hard to understand exactly what to do when you realize you have mold in your living environment. I wanted to make it easier by putting it all in one place so that it’s one less stressor to take off your plate during this difficult time.
I really hope that this guide helps you along your way to discovering your root cause and makes as big of a difference for you as it has for me.
The results from my Immunolytics environmental mold testing that told me I was living in a toxic environment.
DO YOU DEAL WITH: constipation, fatigue, body aches, insomnia, sinus infections, bloating, brain fog, anxiety, depression, food sensitivity, alcohol intolerance, SIBO, or autoimmune disease? You could be dealing with toxic mold in your home causing a long list of unwanted symptoms.
This guide provides resources and information on:
How to get diagnosed
Why the foundation of your home matters
Environmental mold testing kits
Your rights as a renter and how to address your landlord
How to find a mold-free rental
HVAC and air duct cleaning
The best air filters for Mycotoxins
How to not bring mold spores with you when you move
Infrared sauna therapy & ways to help detox
Die-off reactions
How genetics affect the way our body reacts to mold
How mold affects our pets
Intermittent Fasting
DNRS (Dynamic Neural Retraining System) for limbic system impairment