Understanding Mold Toxicity and Biotoxin Illness
Episode 186
It is estimated that half of the buildings in the United States may be “WDB”, or water-damaged buildings. Most houses are often built of wood and drywall, and mold and fungi thrive on these types of building materials and surfaces. Prolonged exposure to mold can cause a lot of health problems. Mold can affect human health by causing allergies, infections, and toxicity. On this week’s episode of Integrative Wellness Radio, we’ll be taking a deep dive into discussing mold toxicity, how it affects your body, and what measures you can take, in order to avoid mold exposure. Most people spend 90% of their time indoors, thus, they are in contact with mold every day of their lives. There is mold all around us. Mold travels in the air as tiny spores. These spores are highly toxic to humans over long durations. Leading this episode, Dr. Nicole will be busting some myths about mold while shedding more light on the subject. She will also be sharing her experience with mold toxicity along with what protocols she followed, in order to detox from mold. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! What you’ll learn: How to know if you have mold toxicity, and where it’s coming from Importance of working with someone who understands mold completely, for better testing How mold, being an immunosuppressant, opens you up to other types of fungal infections, bacterial issues, Lyme disease, and a variety of other things How mold comprom
Topics: mold, toxicity, testing, lyme, unknown, exposure, infections, learn
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Understanding Mold Toxicity and Biotoxin Illness
- The Prevalence of Mold:** Discover how common mold exposure is in daily life and why understanding its impact is crucial for overall health.
- Myth Busting Mold Toxicity:** Dr. Nicole debunks common misconceptions surrounding mold illness and shares her personal experience and recovery journey.
- Mold's Impact on the Immune System:** Learn how mold acts as an immunosuppressant, potentially opening the door to secondary infections like fungal, bacterial, and Lyme disease.
- Identifying and Managing Mold Exposure:** Gain insights into recognizing the signs of mold toxicity and the importance of seeking expert guidance for accurate testing and effective detoxification protocols.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
So tonight we're really going to be talking more about, you know, what is mold toxicity?
Transcript
**Unknown:** I've been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here. Hi everyone. Uh, welcome back, and we are now focusing on mold.
**Unknown:** And, you know, when we're talking about Lyme, there is a big correlation with people suffering with that type of condition that also are dealing with issues with mold as well. So tonight we're really going to be talking more about, you know, what is mold toxicity? How do you get exposed to it? Where does it come from?
**Unknown:** And how is it actually affecting the body? Because this is something that is not honestly very well understood. I think a lot of us think of mold toxicity as maybe a respiratory issue, maybe sinus issues, but we're not necessarily understanding the ramification that it has on our immune system, on our neurological system, and it's also we're unaware of how it's affecting our hormones. There are so many women that I work with that are struggling with hormonal issues when it really comes back to the root cause being mold toxicity.
**Unknown:** So as we start up tonight, we're really going to uncover, you know, some of the biggest limitations with the testing that's available, and we're not just talking about necessarily the limitations with testing your body, but we're also gonna talk about the limitations of testing your home. And then we're also going to dive into, you know, what are some of the symptoms that it's causing, and what are the symptoms that you should look out for that might be a sign that your body is struggling with mold toxicity. The top things we wanna cover today is, first of all, you don't know what you don't know, and you don't know if you have mold toxicity and where it's coming from unless you do better testing, and you're really not gonna necessarily know what the testing is unless you are working with somebody who understands mold completely. And then obviously most of you are here because you want tools.
**Unknown:** You wanna know what can you actually do to get better, and that's gonna be one of the things that we obviously cover as well. So first and foremost, for those of you that are listening, some of you are just interested in this information or brand new to this whole world. Some of you are here because you have been on a merry-go-round of feeling absolutely terrible, really, really have potentially fallen flat with your efforts to heal. So I just want you to understand it is not your fault.
**Unknown:** It is not your fault that you haven't been able to figure out what your body needs, and it's not your fault that you potentially don't even have the right diagnosis. It is not your fault that you don't know exactly what your body needs to heal. Okay, guys. So let's get into the nitty-gritty of where the heck is this mold coming from.
**Unknown:** So number one is water-damaged buildings. The thing that's always so interesting in the conversations that I have on a day-to-day basis is that nobody sits there and looks at me and goes, "Oh yeah, I kn- yeah, I'm definitely been exposed to mold. Oh yeah, I know I'm being exposed to mold." Nobody knows because it's not in your face. If it was in your face, you would do something about it.
**Unknown:** But mold is usually behind walls, in crawl spaces, in the ducts of your HVAC system. It's not in places that you are usually aware of. It's in the, the filters of your air conditioning units that are sitting in your windows. It's going to be hiding in a variety of different places that can still make you sick despite if you see it or you don't.
**Unknown:** And this is also not just about your house, this is about your job. This is about where do you spend a lot of time. And then the big one that is completely, completely overlooked is the massive amounts of mold we are being exposed to through food. So when we have this big conversation about candida, some of you might know what that is.
**Unknown:** Candida is a yeast that has a lot of talk because when you read the symptoms of candida, I think most of us can relate to it to some capacity. Feeling fatigued, feeling bloated, um, getting bloated after eating carbs, you know, feeling, uh, sluggish, having joint pain, achiness. The thing about candida is candida can be overabundant when you are dealing with an overabundance of mold. And again, this mold can come from water-damaged buildings, but it can also come from the things that you're eating.
**Unknown:** So guys, it's everything from wheat to oats to quinoa, rice, other types of grains. Peanuts have one of the most harmful mycotoxins on them. Peanuts carry something called alpha toxins. Alpha toxins are a type of toxic mold that is actually associated with being a carcinogen.
**Unknown:** It causes cancer. Then we move into wine, cheese, coffee. Guys, how many of us are drinking coffee every single day? And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that all coffee is created equal.
**Unknown:** There are actual coffees out there that are non-mold coffees. So one of them is called Purity. You can find this online. But when you go to your Dunkin' Donuts or your Starbucks, these, you know, big, uh, chains, like, those coffees have massive amounts of mold in them, and it's not really even just about the mold, it's also about the pesticides and the herbicides that are also on these crops.
**Unknown:** So I'll tell you guys an interesting story because when I was in France, I actually stayed at an Airbnb, and for whatever reason, there-- the woman was there when we showed up, and she was like, "Hello." And I was like, "Ah. Why are you here?" She was really nice. She actually was like, "I just wanna show you guys the ropes because, you know, Paris is pretty hard to get around and, you know, there's so many little streets," et cetera. But one of the things that she said, she's like, "You need to watch France 24 News every day for twenty minutes." And I was like, "Okay." She's like, "You need to know what's going on in the city around you." And I was like, "Okay.
**Unknown:** Okay, I'll watch it." She was very serious about it. I found it so interesting 'cause I don't normally watch the news back in the US, but while I was there, I found the news to actually be very interesting. They talked about all different types of topics, but one of the segments that they did was about as-Agrotech. It was actually technology used in agriculture.
**Unknown:** So one of the things that they were showcasing was drones that hover over the, uh, vineyards there, 'cause the French are very serious about their wine. If you've ever been to France, you know what I'm talking about. They're very serious. They take a lot of pride in their wine making.
**Unknown:** But they pretty much created this artificial intelligence, these drones that hover over the vineyards. The primary purpose for this is to monitor the vines for fungal invasion, mold. So as soon as it picks up on any type of fungus, it would alert the software, and then they would go in and rip out that portion of the vine so it didn't spread. So this really got me thinking about if they went to the lengths of creating an, a form of artificial intelligence to monitor this, this must be a big problem.
**Unknown:** When you talk to farmers, you talk to all different types of people that work, you know, in agriculture on, on farms, in vineyards, and they will tell you the fungal invasion and mold is a huge problem. It can wipe out an entire farm. So if we are consuming the foods, the grapes, you know, whatever that comes from these crops, we are getting exposed through the things that we're consuming on a day-to-day basis. And honestly, sometimes I have people are like, "Oh my gosh, I can't tolerate gluten.
**Unknown:** Oh, I do so terrible with wheat," et cetera. And sometimes it's not that. Sometimes it's more the effects that they're having from the mold that is on the crop. This is also very, very common when people come up for a boatload of food allergies, and their food allergies range.
**Unknown:** Their food allergies are nuts, there's some seeds, and then there's wheat, and there's all these grains. Sometimes it's not about the food, it's about what's on the food, and that can definitely come back to different types of mold exposures. So the other one too that is very overlooked is antibiotics. So one of the most common molds that I see as a toxicity in people's systems is called penicillium.
**Unknown:** Penicillium is how they make penicillin, the antibiotic that's been around forever. It's also how they make ampicillin, amoxicillin. How many of you guys have been on amoxicillin? I think every single one of us have been on it at some point.
**Unknown:** So this is why they say, or not they say, but this is why when people take antibiotics, sometimes, especially in females, they get yeast infections, or you get fungal skin infections, or you get athlete's foot, or you get some other type of manifestation. It's because these antibiotics are made from mold. So if you have had a boatload of antibiotics in your life, chances are you have some level of mold toxicity from that exposure. So one of the things that I wanted to touch base on is Dr.
**Unknown:** Shoemaker's protocol. S- and I did this because some of you might know about the Shoemaker protocol and the Shoemaker, um, testing diagnostics. Because as soon as we get sick and we start reading about mold and we go, "Oh my gosh, that's me, that's me," then we start, you know, figuring out who's the expert, who's the expert? And Shoemaker's been around for a really long time, and he's been one of the main guys that is classified as the mold expert.
**Unknown:** So of course, for me, I wanted to learn from the expert. So as I was learning about his, um, all the blood work and the nasal swab to figure out if there's something called MARCoNS in the sinuses, um, I also came across his treatment protocol, and I do not work with prescriptions. I only work holistically and naturally. So I definitely was like, well, this is not a protocol that I'm gonna utilize, so how can I deconstruct this protocol and take away the concepts but make it more natural?
**Unknown:** So what happened in my early days of doing this is that, you know, I had patients that did well, and then there was other patients that didn't do well, and that's when we would refer out for the prescriptions, and we would refer, refer out for the cholestyramine, we'd refer out for the, um, the beg nasal spray or the VIP nasal spray. None of those people got better. Um, I, I find that my journey with mold was quite the evolution. And what I mean by that is, first of all, nobody just has a mold toxicity and that, and that's it.
**Unknown:** It's just not possible, and I'll tell you why. Number one is that mold/fungus loves to hang out with toxins. So you will usually find things like herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals, different types of chemical toxicities that are hanging out with the mold. The other thing about it is that mold is very immunosuppressive.
**Unknown:** So it suppresses the immune system, which then opens you up to getting other types of fungal infections like candida. Also opens you up to getting bacterial issues, parasite issues, Lyme disease, a variety of other things. So I never worked with anyone who only had mold toxicity and nothing else going on. The other important thing is that this is not about kill the fungus, kill the fungus, kill the fungus, kill the fungus, and it's also not necessarily about bind it, bind it, bind it.
**Unknown:** You have to make sure that you are supporting the body's ability to eradicate the mold. You have to support the lymphatic system. You have to support the kidneys. You have to support the liver.
**Unknown:** You have to support the gut. So what I mean by this is the person has to be pooping, the person has to be sweating, and the person also has to have properly functioning kidneys. If you don't make sure that those pathways are supported, this person is either gonna get sick or they're not gonna get better altogether. What I realized with all of the markers that I used to run as the Shoemaker protocol, I would run things like trans growth factor beta one, and all these fancy terms that some of you know of and some of you are like, "I don't even know what she's talking about." But the point is is that a lot of these markers that I was taught were mold markers are not mold markers.
**Unknown:** They're immune system markers. So what we've realizedIs that these markers that I was running that I was under the impression were the tell-tale mold markers actually weren't. They were actually markers telling me that the immune system was in complete disarray and the body was in a cell danger state. So yeah, maybe the cell danger state is because of mold but what if it's because of a virus?
**Unknown:** What if it's because of a parasite? So we cannot use the Shoemaker markers and be like, "Oh, this is a hundred percent mold," because that's not how it works. And I... It took me a long time to realize this, and I even have people and they bring me, they're, "Oh my God, I must have mold in my house." I'm like, "No." I was like, "Because of the other tests that we did, we realized this is actually a viral issue.
**Unknown:** This is not actually a mold issue." So I- I'm saying this to you guys because some of you listening have maybe been on the mold journey, you're looking to learn more or you're looking to be like, "Oh, does she do the Shoemaker protocol? 'Cause I need a Shoemaker doctor." Yeah, I'll run some of those markers, but I'm not gonna sit here and look at you as a mold patient, I'm gonna look at everything. I'm gonna look at do you have mold, do you have bacteria, do you have parasites, do you have a suppressed immune system? I'm gonna look at all of it because that's the only way you're gonna actually get better.
**Unknown:** So this is always the best part is when you are talking about mold symptoms, this is where people get so confused, so overwhelmed and just like paralyzed. So mold can cause pain, mo- mold can cause inflammation. The m- the symptoms of mold actually look identical to rheumatoid arthritis. And by the way, mold loves small joints, so it loves to go to the hands and feet, which is why I'm saying it can look almost identical to rheumatoid arthritis.
**Unknown:** But in addition, the, probably the more common mindset is sinus issues, respiratory issues. But the stuff that nobody's thinking about is how it screws up your pituitary gland and causes hormonal issues. Your pituitary also controls your urination, so you can have excessive urination. As men, you can have low testosterone levels which can then lead to erectile dysfunction.
**Unknown:** You can have thyroid issues and it's not because the mold necessarily shuts down your thyroid, but it's because if the mold is airborne it gets into your glands and lymph nodes which then creates a really terrible environment for where your thyroid sits which is right in the middle of it. Then we can deal with brain fog. I have actually seen fungal invasion of the brain and one of the things I think I actually put in here but in case I didn't, I was just at a, a brain conference and a company called Fry Labs, F-R-Y, they actually just did a really long study. They did two populations.
**Unknown:** They did multiple sclerosis and ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, and they actually found that multiple sclerosis was always associated with fungal invasion of... and this was, uh, over five hundred patients by the way. It was fungal invasion of the central nervous system. The weirder one was the ALS, uh, Lou Gehrig's, was actually associated with algae invasion of the neurological system.
**Unknown:** So yes, this stuff is real guys. Like this isn't just like, "Oh, mold toxicity, that doesn't sound very common or..." Like this is extremely common and this is being associated with some of the most debilitating neurological conditions that exist. So that's obviously on a very grand scale that you can have something with mold and fungus but you can also have brain fog. You can have memory loss.
**Unknown:** You can have memory loss that becomes so severe over time that it full- it turns into full-blown dementia. You could have gut issues. Yes, fungus can get into your gut. Mold can get into your gut.
**Unknown:** These are the people chronically bloated, constipated. They eat the littlest bit of carbs or sugar and their stomach blows up. Those are all signs of fungal issues in the gut. And then we have more of the topical issues.
**Unknown:** Athlete's foot, um, hives, rashes, eczema, literally the list goes on. I even have seen some cases of seizures. Again, these are not people that mold was their only issue, there were other factors in the mix but mold was part of their puzzle. So this is kind of going back to this thyroid conversation.
**Unknown:** So when we're dealing with different types of issues when it comes to the thyroid, it's so frustrating to me when we think of the thyroid. The thyroid just dysfunctions and, you know, we don't really know why but you just need to go on medication. So if we think about the location of the thyroid being in the middle of the neck and then we think about the sinuses. And the sinuses we only feel this stuff when we're sick.
**Unknown:** So then the sinuses when we're sick, you know, we get postnasal drip and our throat hurts a bit. And then when we get such bad, uh, throat infections as a kid then they remove our tonsils. By the way, your tonsils are the filter that keeps all the bacteria in your mouth and all the crap in your sinuses it keeps it out of these lymph nodes and it keeps it away from your thyroid. So then you get your tonsils removed and then everything just dumps directly into all the lymph nodes of your neck and you literally then start to have thyroid issues.
**Unknown:** I have seen so many thyroid issues, especially autoimmune thyroid issues that are tied to crap that is either in the tonsilsIn the lymph nodes or both. So when you really think about an autoimmune thyroid condition like Hashimoto's, why is the immune system attacking the thyroid? It would make sense that it's attacking either a toxin, a foreign invader, or a bacteria around the thyroid, but your body just doesn't turn on itself for no reason. It's going to attack something that is foreign.
**Unknown:** So if you have mold that you are breathing in because of your environment, it's getting into your sinuses, which is then dripping into your throat, which is then getting into your tonsils, which is then getting into the lymph nodes, then yeah, your immune system is gonna come to the scene. It's gonna fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Cause a boatload of inflammation, and then that's going to lead to antibodies against the thyroid, and now you have Hashimoto's. So sometimes it's not about your thyroid, it's about what's happening around your thyroid.
**Unknown:** Is your thyroid in a bad neighborhood, essentially? I can't even take credit for that 'cause that was one of my patients when I was explaining what was going on with her thyroid and how the sinuses were connected, and there was all these different toxicities going on, and she had swollen glands all the time, tons of neck pain. And her husband's like, "So you're saying her thyroid's in a bad neighborhood?" And I'm like, "That's exactly what I'm saying." So this is really, really significant for you guys to understand because when we're talking about mold, again, there's so many faces of it. So some of the myths we're gonna bust through.
**Unknown:** Number one is that you've actually had good testing for mold toxicity because you probably haven't. Also, to bust through the myths that your home inspection or your air quality test in your house was actually accurate. Also, that all mold is bad because it's not. In addition is that mold is always visible and detectable.
**Unknown:** This is a big one. Just because one person in the house is sick does not mean there's no mold in your house. So what I mean by that is I have, I have a mom that comes in and she goes, "I'm super sick." And then husband comes in and says, "No, there's no possible way you have mold-- we have mold in the house 'cause I feel fine." I'm actually gonna make you guys understand that. Mold is not necessarily coming from your personal products because it is.
**Unknown:** And then also that your allergy to mold means nothing because that's also not true. In addition, we're gonna talk about antifungals, if they are even effective, and how mold also coincides with other types of infections. So first and foremost, so outdated protocols. So again, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that the Shoemaker protocols are completely outdated.
**Unknown:** I think the biggest point that I wanna make about that is that these markers that are part of the Shoemaker protocol, like the TGF-beta1 is a big one. This is not only a marker for mold. So if you've had this tested in the past and it was through the roof, and they told you, "Oh, you have mold toxicity," that's not how it works. So TGF-beta1 is, is representative of your immune system being under massive, massive stress that your cells are in a danger state.
**Unknown:** So this could be due to immunosuppression, this could be due to mold, this could be due to viruses, this could be due to so many things. So we need to do further testing to decipher, does this, is this number elevated because you have mold or because of something else? The other thing too is the MSH and the VIP. These two markers come from your pituitary gland.
**Unknown:** So the thing about this is that if these markers are out of range because the pituitary gland is being affected by mold, then how is that affecting your thyroid? How is that affecting your other hormones like your estrogen, your progesterone, and your testosterone? How is this affecting your energy levels and your adrenaline? So when we're talking about these levels being out of range, again, this is not just like, "Oh, you have mold, end of story." This is, "Do you have mold?
**Unknown:** Do you have something else going on? And why is your pituitary gland so compromised?" And then the VEGF, this is actually has to do with your vascular system. So this is, uh, vascular endothelial growth factor. Um, I actually just had a patient today that we had this conversation that a lot of her mold exposure was actually due to massive, massive amounts of antibiotics throughout her life, uh, from taking antibiotics from Li- for Lyme disease.
**Unknown:** And what has happened is that a lot of the mold has actually gotten into the endothelium of her vascular system. So just think of the lining of her blood vessels. So now she's dealing with all these issues with her blood pressure. She has heart arrhythmias.
**Unknown:** She's like her c- uh, cardiovascular system is in complete disarray because she's had fungal invasion of that system. So if you've been told you have, um, arteriosclerosis or you have plaques, don't sit back and think that that's only cholesterol. That could be caused by fungal issues. It could also be caused by blood sugar issues.
**Unknown:** But it's very important to kind of understand that these markers are not just like mold, end of story. They can have a lot of interpretations. So you need someone who's not just a mold expert, but understands the big picture of how the body works. So the other one is the nasal swab for MARCoNS.
**Unknown:** So nasal swab is something that is often used in the Shoemaker protocol to check for something called MARCoNS. MARCoNS are, is this very specific, uh, methylene-resistant type of, uh, staph infection, and they find that this is very correlated with fungus. But the thing is, is staph is a bacteria. So when we go and pump our nostrils full of amphoterecin V and all these antifungal nose sprays, we're kind of missing the whole boat on the fact that there's also a bacterial issue.
**Unknown:** So again, you don't have to go to these crazy extremes of using these really, really, really aggressive protocols because if we can figure out, you know, is the MARCoNS the primary problem? Is there something else going on in the sinuses? We can be really, really strategic on how to actually work with it. And one of the really cool things we do here at our practice is we testWe test to figure out what types of supplements are best for your body, what types of nasal sprays are best for your body, what types of detox solutions are best for your body.
**Unknown:** So you can get extremely specific, so we're not just kinda like throwing things at the wall to say, "Oh, let's hope for the best," because that's honestly how you waste a lot of time and money. So another big thing too is one of the, the labs that's really pioneering when it comes to mold testing is Realtime Labs. So Realtime Labs is really fantastic because they're not just giving us the ability to test the body, they're also giving us the ability to test our home, which I'm gonna actually talk about more in the next slide. But they do a urinary mycotoxin test.
**Unknown:** I think that this is important for you guys to understand. It's not about mold, it's about do you have exposure to toxic mold, and that's why this lab is testing mycotoxins, which are toxic molds that would be negatively impacting your body. So when you're dealing with Realtime Labs, they do have some very, very strategic ways to go about testing the body for mold. So this is definitely probably the most confusing for people and the most overwhelming, is when they do their own research, they maybe go get some testing and they find out mold is part of their health issues, and then they start panicking, "Oh, my gosh, do I have mold in my house?" Like, "How do I get it out?
**Unknown:** What do I have to do?" And then they get an air quality test. So they go and they measure the amount of mold spores in your home, and they compare it to the amount of mold spores outside. So the big thing that you have to understand about this is that it's not about the abundance of mold, because there are plenty of molds that are not harmful, and there is molds and pollens on, like, every tree, branch, bush, grass, whatever. So if we're trying to compare inside to outside, chances are we're not gonna get very good information.
**Unknown:** You need to test for toxic molds. So one of the tests that's offered through Realtime Labs is an environmental swab test. So what you do is if you have no idea where the mold is, that's okay. You actually take your vacuum through your home, and then you swab the vacuum filter and you send that out to be tested.
**Unknown:** If you do have an idea, if you're like, "Oof, I think it's coming from the vents, I think it's coming from the basement, I think it's coming from wherever, the bathroom," you can swab those areas and test it that way. But again, it's about testing your home for toxic mold, it's not about just testing for the abundance of mold. And the having that tip about the vacuum is really great because you don't always know where the mold is, and it doesn't mean that you're just screwed, it just means that you can take that, you know, sample through the home and, uh, swab the filter to at least get some better quality information. And then the last thing too is one of the women that I work with that does some of our mold inspections, um, she has a technology called an InstaScope.
**Unknown:** I actually never heard of it before working with her. But the InstaScope is something that, um, is a technology that reads room to room, that has the ability to pick up on VOCs, which are different types of toxic compounds that can come from, you know, carpets and off-gassing of furniture and things like that, and it also has the ability to pick up on mold spores. So she usually will use this technology in conjunction with these other types of swab tests. But, um, the InstaScope is something that you can always research in your area to see if somebody is doing some of that advanced testing.
**Unknown:** So this is a really interesting story. I had a patient who had really, really severe ulcerative colitis. She just had tons of pain, tons of spasms, tons of bleeding. And she went through conventional treatment originally, so she was taking all different types of, um, medications.
**Unknown:** She had to take a lot of antispasmodics because she was in such debilitating pain when she had a flare. And then traditionally with ulcerative colitis being classified as an autoimmune condition and obviously being a highly inflammatory condition, they give you immunosuppressants, and the immunosuppressants shut down the immune system, which then will shut down the inflammatory response, which is why it helps people to feel better. Unfortunately, she was running through so many immunosuppressants. She was on Remicade.
**Unknown:** I think that she ended up on, um, Humira. She was on all these different, uh, types of anti... or, I'm sorry, immunosuppressants because she kept, uh, developing antibodies to them and they stopped working. So she finally was like, "You know what?
**Unknown:** I need to, like, figure something else out and see if there's more to the story here." So she went to a functional doctor. She didn't come to me right away. She went to a functional medicine doctor who found that she had something called SIBO, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and she also had candida. So they were trying to do a protocol, um, it was like a cookie cutter protocol for SIBO and candida, and she had a little bit of progress, but she still was having a lot of issues.
**Unknown:** So she was like, "Well, I have to, you know, I need to have something more specific done to figure this out." But she came to us, and we did the bioresonance. And it, this is, you know, unfortunately kind of a little bit of a sad story because the bioresonance revealed that the biggest issue was mold toxicity. She had penicillium, she did have candida, um, she also had-Aspergillus, which are, uh, between penicillium and aspergillus, they're two different types of molds. And she had these, and they actually were coming from her environment.
**Unknown:** So she said she moved back home, um, after college. She had some issues with her gut in college, unfortunately, don't we all, with all the crappy food they feed us in the dining hall. But then when she got home is really when it got bad, and she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. So she moved back home.
**Unknown:** She wanted some privacy, so she moved into the basement. Basement, you know, partially finished, had some funky smells, et cetera. She kinda didn't really pay notice to the fact that there might be mold down there, but obviously when I brought this to her attention, she was like, "Oh my gosh, like do you think it's in the basement?" I was like, "Well, according to what I'm seeing in all of your results, like I think you're being actively exposed, and I think we need to rule in or out if this is, you know, part of the puzzle." So she ended up doing testing, and she had massive, massive amounts of black mold called Stachybotrys in the basement where she was living. So we knew at this point that this was a big part of the puzzle, and, um, she didn't actually have the opportunity to like move upstairs because not-- there was no available rooms.
**Unknown:** So, um, her parents really were-- didn't really agree with her going more conventi- or I'm sorry, going more holistic and didn't really believe in anything that she was saying, that mold was part of her gut issues, et cetera. So, um, I guess she got into a very big argument with them, and she ended up, um, going into the basement and throwing bleach on all of the mold. For those of you listening, don't do that because the bleach causes spores, which can make you very ill, um, especially because she was in such a heated moment. She was not wearing gloves.
**Unknown:** She was not wearing a mask of any sort, and she put herself in a full-blown flare and put herself in the hospital. So it was really heartbreaking to see this person who had zero support and, you know, felt so happy that she finally figured out what was causing her issues and that, you know, then just shift it to such a negative of, you know, the-- they didn't believe her, and they thought that she was stupid and everything else. And, um, honestly, uh, you know, it, it caused this massive spiral. I would say the good thing is, is that she ended up moving out, and we ended up working together, and she's in full remission.
**Unknown:** But, you know, it was really heart-wrenching to see that. So, you know, overall is like do not disregard someone's symptoms, and do not re- disregard the fact that molds can be playing such a significant role for them because this was a hundred percent the reason for how ill this person was. And all that was recommended to her was shut down your immune system, shut down your immune system, shut down your immune system, and live in pain. So that is not fair for us to push our beliefs.
**Unknown:** If you don't agree with what somebody is doing, just keep it to yourself because this is a person that, you know, this was their root cause, and they were actually able to get better and change their life. And, you know, I-- it definitely I, I hear these things too often of, you know, family members and friends not being supportive to people on their health journey of, "Ooh, when are you gonna eat normal again?" "Oh, you know, oh, you look miserable. It probably is 'cause you can't eat gluten." And it's just like such a funny thing to me 'cause then these are the people that feel like shit every day, but that's just my opinion. So this is a big one.
**Unknown:** So this is what I said before for those of you who've been listening the whole time is that when I have a family dynamic, and I have the woman or the children come to me, and they say, "We're really sick. We don't know what's going on." It turns out that mold is part of their puzzle, and then dad comes in or spouse comes in and is like, "Well, how is it possibly in the house? It doesn't make sense because I feel fine." So for a long time, I didn't honestly have an answer to this. And I like kinda laughed.
**Unknown:** I was like, "I don't know." I was like, "Is it because men like ignore their symptoms? I don't really know." And there is actually a legitimate reason why this happens, and the reason is blood volume and blood constituents. So females have a lower blood volume than men. Females also have lower oxygen-bearing red blood cells, and they also have lower amounts of iron because of menstrual cycles and losing iron through the menstrual cycle.
**Unknown:** So with that being said, between the lower oxygen in the blood, the lower amount of red blood cells, and the lack of iron, females and small children tend to be more symptomatic in a toxic environment than men, especially adult men. So again, if you're having this dynamic in the family because I feel fine, this isn't possible, so on and so forth, is now you actually understand why, and you also have facts to bring to the table to say, no, we should get the house tested because you easily are flying by with no symptoms. So another big one too is all mold and fungus is bad. So some of you that have taken probiotics, uh, or have like explored, you know, taking specialized probiotics, you may have noticed that there is something called Saccharomyces in some of these probiotics nowadays.
**Unknown:** Saccharomyces is technically a fungus, a yeast, so this is actually a beneficial yeast. Same thing goes for some of the molds that show up in the in curing meats. So a lot of your like salamis and prosciuttos, they actually have beneficial fungus on them and molds on them that can be beneficial to the gut and the microbiome. And the other thing too is Candida is a native organism to our gut.
**Unknown:** It is not-- It doesn't come out of nowhere. It's in us. But it becomes problematic when we feed it. And if that's because we feed it with antibiotics, if it's because we feed it with sugar, that's when Candida becomes a problem.
**Unknown:** But nobody's gonna be Candida free because Candida technically is supposed to be part of our gastrointestinal system. So for the women listening, this is really important for you guys. Uh, the last time I talked aboutAbout a moldy vagina I had a standing ovation at a female event, which I thought was kind of comical. But one of the big things that you have to understand about mold is we talked earlier, for those of you that have been listening the whole time, about the foods that are associated with mold.
**Unknown:** And we talked about it's part of the growing process. Peanuts grow with alpha toxins. There are all different types of mycotoxins. One of them is called deoxy, uh, rubratoxin.
**Unknown:** That is going to be a mycotoxin that's on a lot of your corn, your soy, your wheat, all of that. So the other thing that grows with susceptibility to fungus and mold is cotton. So what are your tampons made of? Cotton.
**Unknown:** So when I first started using one of our technologies called the bioresonance, I remember seeing, uh, different types of molds come up in the vaginal tract. And I was like, "What the heck is this about? Like, this is bizarre." And what I realized is that it was exposure from molds that are on cotton in the tampons that women are using on a monthly basis. So if you have chronic yeast infections, or even I should say bacterial vaginosis, because they're very tied together, but if you're having these chronic yeast issues and nothing is getting it better, then you might need to think about is it the fact that it keeps coming back because of the tampon use.
**Unknown:** And, you know, organic tampons can definitely be a better option, but it's actually better to find an alternative. One of the things I recommend is the Thinx underwear. It's T-H-I-N-X. So that's a really great alternative, um, instead of using the tampons.
**Unknown:** So, um, your, your allergy to mold means nothing. So one of the things I, I always laugh because when people do my consultations, they're always like, "What is all these questions she's asking?" So I ask people, I'm like, "Have you been exposed to mold that you know of?" "Oh, no. Absolutely not. No possible way." "Do you eat foods like this, this, and this?" "No, no.
**Unknown:** I steer away from... I haven't eaten that in years." "Uh, do you use tampons?" "No, no, no." And it's like, "No possible way. I've never been exposed to molds." And then I'll be like, "Oh, are you allergic to penicillin or amoxicillin?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been allergic to penicillin since I was five." I'm like, "Well, you've been moldy since you're five then." So the thing about it is, again, penicillin, amoxicillin, ampicillin, these antibiotics are made from penicillium mold.
**Unknown:** So if you have had toxic mold in your body very, very early on, then you will develop an allergy to penicillin or any of these antibiotics. So the only way you develop the allergy to mold or dust or penicillin is because you have that toxicity in your body. And the same thing goes if you have an allergy to peanuts, you might actually have an allergy to mold because there is that very specific alpha toxin that is on peanuts. So it's important to understand that some of these allergy type reactions, these environmental allergies, they might not be like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm allergic to this tree and that grass and this flower." It might be the mold on these different things.
**Unknown:** So overall, one thing too is you might be thinking, well, at five years old, how the heck do you get mold exposure? So number one is the exposure can come if mom has had mold toxicity in her body, but there is a lot of different types of molds and fungi that are in vaccines as well. So that is definitely can be part of the puzzle. So the big one is, is that mold is gonna affect everybody the same way.
**Unknown:** So we've already talked about this, but one of the biggest culprits for hormonal issues that cannot improve is mold toxicity. And one of the most common diagnoses or conditions is polycystic ovarian syndrome. And the reason being is because the mold compromises the pancreas, which compromises the ability to regulate sugar, 'cause one of the known things with, uh, polycystic ovarian syndrome is insulin resistance. So the fungus mold affects the insulin, which then causes insulin resistance, which then starts to create a cascade of issues with the hormones.
**Unknown:** Testosterone goes through the roof, and now you have polycystic ovarian syndrome. So there is a huge connection there, and if you have had polycystic ovarian syndrome and you have not been checked for mold, it's time to do that. The other thing is obviously more well known is sinus issues, but chronic inflammatory pain syndromes like rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, you need to get checked for mold because mold can affect your joints, it can affect your lymph nodes, which can cause inflammation, and it can also affect your neurological system, which can make you have more, like, fibromyalgia s- uh, symptoms. So gut issues.
**Unknown:** Fungal invasion, mold invasion of the gut, this is so typical with bloating, belly distension, real sensitivity to carbohydrates and sugars. It just makes you very uncomfortable, very full, very bloated. These are very, very common signs when it comes to mold potentially affecting your gastrointestinal system. Uh, constipation is also a big one too that I didn't mention.
**Unknown:** So thyroid issues, I mentioned this before. It's not about the thyroid, it's about did the mold get into your sinuses and all the lymph nodes that's now affecting your thyroid? Are we also dealing with histamine issues? So the best is when I have people that comes to me, and they're talking about their mast cell activation syndrome.
**Unknown:** This like drives me nuts that this is even like a diagnosis. Mast cell activation syndrome. Why is your mast cells being activated? It's because you're having histamine issues, which can very much be tied to toxicity from fungus or mold.
**Unknown:** Again, neurological issues and vascular neurological issues. If you have fungal invasion of your blood vessels, you will easily start to have issues with your blood pressure, which will cause you to not have proper blood flow into your brain and out of your brain. And then this is going to cause you to have brain fog, memory issues that can even develop into something more serious down the line. So mold does not have the same face, it does not look the same, uh, person to person, and it doesn't look the same family member to family memberWhen I think back to the mold and like saying earlier that I think I was like, well, I know I was exposed to like my whole life.
**Unknown:** I think about it, I'm like, I had sinus issues. My mom had skin rashes. She used to get like fungal issues like on her belly and under her armpits. My dad had these like big rashes under his eyes that his sometimes his eyes would shut.
**Unknown:** My brother had swollen lymph nodes that eventually turned into a lot of precancerous cells on his skin. So everybody had a different manifestation. It wasn't the same across the board despite our genetics and also despite living in the same house. So this is a big one too I mentioned.
**Unknown:** One of the things that I mentioned is that Fry Labs did a recent study on five hundred nom-- MS patients, multiple sclerosis patients, and what they found is that there was antibodies to this thing called chiton, chiton, however you say it, which is actually not normally found in humans, but they were finding the antibodies to it in humans. This is a fungus. So what we're finding is that fungal invasion of the nervous system is actually a huge tie to multiple sclerosis in over five hundred patients. The other factor here is that the fungus invaded the veins of the neck, which caused the brain to have the inability to drag stuff out, which then caused to further neurological degeneration.
**Unknown:** So it's very, very important to understand that it's not just kill the mold, kill the mold, kill the mold, bind it, bind it, bind it. It's about getting the lymph nodes to work again, getting the vascular system to work again. We need to fix these issues so that we can actually promote better drainage away from the brain. So the other big one is mold is never the only problem.
**Unknown:** I work with so many different people, and unfortunately, mold fungus is a huge part of the puzzle for so many people, and it's because so much of it comes from the food that we eat, the beverages that we drink on a day-to-day basis like coffee, some people wine. But I'm never necessarily seeing that mold lives alone. It usually is living amongst other types of fungi. It's usually living with other types of bacteria, and the big one is toxins.
**Unknown:** It definitely has an affinity to bind up with different types of heavy metals, mercury, aluminum, cadmium, chemicals that come from plastics, chemicals that come from food like pesticides and herbicides. So there are so many other factors to consider to make sure that you can actually get better. So I've said this already. It's not a just about killing the infection.
**Unknown:** It's about considering how well are your tonsils working, if you even have them. Are your lymph nodes working? Are you sweating? Are you ha-- do you have fibrocystic breasts because all your lymph nodes of your armpits are blocked?
**Unknown:** Do you have swollen lymph nodes in your groin because those lymph pathways are blocked? Are you missing an appendix, which is another immune system organ? Is your spleen inflamed? All of these pathways have to be supported to be successful on getting rid of this infection.
**Unknown:** So again, don't just necessarily think that these antifungals are going to be the end all be all. It's about the bigger picture of how well your body's ability to flush the bad stuff out works. So this is a patient, um, that I had, thirty-five years old, struggling with weight loss, diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, also diagnosed with endometriosis, which is excess lining around the uterus, also had brain fog and memory loss. So turns out that this-- as a child, this person had tons of ear infections, was on a ton of antibiotics in the penicillin family, um, also had a lot of sinus issues, vaginal yeast infections, and stomach aches.
**Unknown:** So we're talking penicillin, mold exposure, sinus issues, probability of mold exposure, yeast infections, fungus, maybe yeast, maybe fungus, maybe mold. We don't know yet 'cause we have to do testing. So as we get into it, there's a lot of other pieces of the puzzle that unfold. So number one, patient's shaky and light-headed without eating.
**Unknown:** So this makes me think there's something wrong with the pancreas, and like I said before, polycystic ovarian syndrome is very, very tied to having problems with blood sugar and insulin. So okay, now we know there's a pancreatic issue. Patient also said, "I don't sweat. I work out.
**Unknown:** I kinda just like sweat a little bit on my cheeks, but I don't really sweat." So now we know lymphatic system is not really detoxing, not really working very well. In addition, fibrocystic breasts. So that's another sign to me that the lymph nodes of the armpit and breast are not necessarily detoxing, and they're clogged and gunked up, potentially with some type of toxin. Another piece, mild headaches, neck pain.
**Unknown:** So when people tell me they have neck pain, I ask them, you know, "Have you done ther-- physical therapy, chiropractic? What have you done?" And if they tell me, "Oh, I've done chiropractic. I've done physical therapy. Nothing works.
**Unknown:** Nothing works." Then I proceed to examine their lymph nodes, and I usually find that their glands are huge and their lymph nodes are swollen. So their neck pain is not physical. It's actually due to sw-swollen lymphatic chains. So now we have doesn't sweat, fibrocystic breasts, neck pain due to lymph.
**Unknown:** So there's clearly a massive, massive lymph issue. Also reveals that had an allergy to penicillin, I think around like ten years old. So now we know that w-- it could have been the antibiotics, could have been environmental, but there's enough toxicity from the mold that now there's an allergy to the penicillin. Also started to have fainting spells around the period.
**Unknown:** So now we know that there is neurological involvement because the fainting spells are due to the vagus nerve. Brain fog, concentration, another neurological link.Vaginal dysbiosis, swollen glands in the groin. So aka fungus in the vaginal tract. Can't get rid of it because those lymph nodes are also not working in the groin.
**Unknown:** And then on top of it, there's pain at the bottom of the sternum, which is right where the pancreas lives, which is associated with the blood sugar. So moral of the story is, is that this patient ended up having things going on in the gut. Part of what was going on in the gut was fungus from mold exposure, and the other big one was parasitic infections. So we had parasites as well as fungus that was affecting the pancreas, throwing off the blood sugar, and then because the fungus was not just from the antibiotics, it was also in the environment of her job that she was at for fifteen years, then that was another sign that that's why all the mold was going in through the respiratory system and then getting into the lymph nodes.
**Unknown:** So this was causing massive lymphatic congestion, which was then leading to the brain fog. It was also leading to the abnormalities with the menstrual cycle, and it was also not allowing the body to eradicate the, the toxicity out of the neck area, out of the groin. So there was a huge snowball effect that happened for this person, but again, this wasn't just about, oh, let's use antifungals to clear up the mold issue or, or better yet, let's not just like leave your job and then your problem is solved. It's more so we need to get these detox pathways working better again so that your body can actually be equipped to filter the bad stuff out.
**Unknown:** So I think that's really, really significant too, is that just because you figure out, "Oh, the mold is in my apartment, I'm gonna move out", does not necessarily mean that your health problems will be solved because sometimes your body needs support with flushing it actually out. So if you haven't figured this out yet, I'm here to tell you, you don't know what you don't know. It's impossible for you guys to piece all of this together by, you know, researching on Google or following bloggers and everything else. And also too, it's impossible for you to know what's going on with your body if you haven't done better testing, if you haven't been able to be evaluated for, you know, do you have other infections in your gut?
**Unknown:** Do you have, you know, uh, mold issues? Do you have lymph node issues? You have to piece all of this together to really figure out, you know, what is the culprit as to why your body is not healing. And I think a big thing too is that we need to also stop accepting our new normal and blaming it on like aging and bad genes because so many of us are literally just thinking like, "Well, I feel like crap.
**Unknown:** I don't sweat, my sinuses are clogged, I'm super tired, you know, I can't lose weight", and we're just like, "Well, it's just, you know, this is it for me. This is my normal now. I just gotta adapt to it." Which is not the case. It's really just about getting better information about your body.
**Unknown:** But you know, this is all about education, and when you actually get your testing and you figure out like what's been the root cause all along, that's when this becomes a true breakthrough experience. So I really hope that you guys can, you know, get to the bottom of your health and, and experience that for yourselves, and obviously the most important is for you guys to, you know, get better. That's what we're all here for, is like we wanna feel good. Um, there's so much freaking working against us nowadays.
**Unknown:** So there is hope, I promise. So, uh, so keep your eyes out. We're gonna touch on a variety of different things. Uh, today was really the intro.
**Unknown:** Uh, I know it's an intro, but we went through so much. But um, if you're looking for anything more about mold in reference to very specific conditions, you can also check out our website 'cause we have a ton of podcasts that I've done on mold as well. I know one of the most popular podcasts is, um, how mold is related to testosterone decline, which is obviously something that not a lot, a lot of men are aware of. Uh, so definitely check that out there.
**Unknown:** Um, thank you guys for being with me. All right, guys. I hope you have an amazing night. I hope you enjoyed, and I will see you next week.
**Unknown:** Thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com.
**Unknown:** All night, no sleep. 'Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming. Wide awake, that's okay.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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