Our family moved here to Spokane, WA from Portland,Oregon area to specifically escape mold expecting that the weather was going to be like it was 50 years ago when my husband remembered it being dry and sunny almost all the time.
I have had to follow the most restricted anti-candida diet for years and years and when I realised that I was still having severe mold symptoms despite following the diet I expected we needed to have our house examined for mold. We had the ARMI dust samples done from Emsl and it came out as having a 397 count of Eurotium mold. I was put in touch with a toxicologist,who suggested that we still needed to contact an industrial hygienist to do a more thorough testing and get more specifics about what other type of mold that might be hidden as my symptoms were severe compared to the rest of my family.
According to the industrial hygienist and some googling I did it seemed that most of the mold was coming from our dirt crawl space and that my husband could fix the problem by overlapping 6ml plastic,laying piping and installing some type of fan underneath to draw the air out and then do a deep cleaning of the house. My husband will be starting this procedure after he finishes some other minor projects first so he won’t have to crawl unnecessarily on the plastic in the future. In the meantime I have been sleeping in a tent for at least a month and wearing safety glasses and a mask when I’m in the house and going to use a sauna to keep me going till we get everything taken care of as far as the house mold is concerned.
After discussing any other possibilities of further hidden mold the industrial hygienist said that doing thermal imaging which the toxicologist recommended would really soak us for a lot of money. He thought we should try taking of crawl space and see what happens.
Now we are trying to figure out where to go for a biotoxin inflammatory illness specialist for our biotoxin inflammatory symptoms as we realised I have been exposed for several past years in other water-damaged homes and we never made the connection before. But we live 1300 miles from the closest mold-recognised doctor and we do not want to switch doctors in the future in case we have to move to the desert. Since it will be very costly we also want to make sure the treatment will be worth it. We are not even sure if just going to a mold specialisr will be adequate to overcome our health issues while still living in a very moldy climate. Our circumstances do not permit a move currently. For the past two or three months we tormented over the dreaded possibility of thinking we didn’t have any choice but to have to move to the desert and desert our family and lose our house just because of our or mostly my mold poisoning.
We are now risking the possibility that a mold specialist treatment’s will allow us to live here a longer and also improve our quality of life beyond a survival level. I have contacted a couple of local doctor’s possibilities but haven’t heard back . At the same time I question that a local doctor is knowlegeable enough on how to treat biotoxin illness. I certainly cannot imagine living another year here in this location without some radical medical intervention. Since the crawl space will take at least two weeks to take care of and hopefully summer or late spring will be here it may be hard to tell what intervention is actually working. Thankyou for letting me share. I wish I had discovered this blog site sooner.
Questions:
- Where can I find a good doctor? The closest biotoxin specialist is in Santa Barbara but that is still 1300 miles away and is also in a very humid climate so we could probably never move there.
- Does any doctor know how to interpret mold poisoning blood test results? I left a message for ‘real labs’ but have not heard back from them as well.
- Do scratch tests do more harm than good? That is all my local M.D. could do for me. I am wondering if any other allergies like pollen may have masked or made my symptoms worse.
- Has anyone ever had vcs screen testing done through Dr. Shoemaker and how did you get any definitive results for failed eye screen testing or tested positive for biotoxin inflammatory illness and how has this screen testing been of help to you?
- Has anyone ever tried craniobiotics treatment or homeopathic treatment for biotoxin inflammatory illness? There is a specialist who does this hwo is in driving distance and done some and I have heard amazing testimonies but still find myself somewhat sceptical.
- Has anyone overcome mold -poisoning or biotoxin inflammatory illness while remaining in a high humidity climate? If so, what did you do and would you recommend that to others?
- I am wondering how much of my mold issues are from transporting non-porous items from previous homes and can non-porous items such as paintings be tested for mold?
- Do any of the biotoxin specialists also do any dietary treatment?
6 comments
As told in “Mold Warriors”, I devised a strategy of “Extreme Avoidance” which allowed me to remain in areas which would otherwise be over my tolerance level.
By establishing a “safe zone” and ensuring that contaminated objects STAY OUT, I was able to lower my exposure without resorting to living in the GodForSaken Desert.
Not that I wouldn’t rather LIVE in the GFD, if I could, but there just ain’t no payin’ jobs out there.
Thanks, Eric for responding and I really had to laugh when you expressed in words our feelings as well about the possibility of moving to the desert. I am assuming that you are referring to the book “Mold Warriors” and I ordered from the library but have’t got it yet. It was hard to locate in the stores. Now I wish I had it already. Now we have a new daughter-in-law who’s father has a water-damaged home where we visited to celebrate her university graduation and I felt sick for a couple of days after. It is a touchy situation as they have a very enjoyable place otherwise. Not sure how to deal with this or if I should say something?
I went to your link but ran out of time as I am at the library but will check it out as soon as possible. Thanks again.
There is a Dr. Klinghardt in Washington, extremely knowledgeable and 30 years experience in neurotoxins, as well as treating biotoxins/Lyme Disease, from what I’ve seen. I’ve thought of moving there to be treated myself! But he has the Sophia Health Institute in Woodinville, WA, and a new one in Seattle area, as far as I know.
I live in a humid climate and cannot tolerate it at all. I become extremely ill, with the ANS dysfunction and body temperature is all over the place.
I looked into Dr. Shoemaker’s protocol a lot too. He no longer sees patients, but will do a phone consult (expensive though), and I think he will work with the patient’s doctor to provide the protocol, tests involved, assistance if necessary (for fees I’m sure).
I know Dr. Klinghardt’s office will do the same with patients. They actually have patients spend a week there or something like that. And then they work with the patient’s doctor as well. Although the Sophia Institute has a lot of the supportive procedures available.
Anyway, I’m still looking myself. I was in a rental home with toxic mold AND a slow carbon-monoxide leak for about 5 years. My body’s been ravaged, and I had seizures with over 70 hard hits to the head. So brain injury too. To make things worse, the legal system was corrupt here and let my landlord retaliate against me. And the ER let me have a stroke/small stroke, then seize strangely and finally full-body convulse on the bed in the open ER room, for over 2 hours without even doing anything! Then finally some young doctor-wanna be came over and actually yelled at me, “You’re doing this yourself!”. I now have proof of the toxic mold (from testing the mold itself). I also took the VCS test and tested positive. I also have neurotoxins (heavy metals) in addition to the biotoxins and had a heart attack the ER neglected to tell me about from lack of oxygen. I have heart damage from it all as well as adrenal damage and the entire “biotoxin pathway” Dr. Shoemaker describes. I will die soon if not treated. So, if you find anyone or any way to get treatment, I’d really appreciate sharing whatever info or ideas you might have come across.
Thanks!
Kimberly in Ohio
I googled Sophia institute and got info on various NDs who trained with Shoemaker and Klinghardt. One is a Dr Alena Zweben at 206-853-6807 in Seattle. I just called and left a message and she does have a web site.
how do I treat mold illness when I live in New york City’s humid climate