Are you tired of feeling tired all the time? Do you have some mystery symptoms that just won’t go away? Listen, I hear ya. I recently have had some weird health symptoms and finally got to my root cause. I’m here to share my story of my Mold Toxicity experience and how I’ve been healing. If I can help one person, then that’s important enough for me to share.
My Mold Toxicity Story
Before I go into all the details of what mold toxicity is, let me tell you all about my story. So, if you’ve been following me for a while, then you know we took six years to build our new home. We obtained our certificate of occupancy from the county in 2019 but took two more years to actually finish the inside of our home. We were so excited to be almost finished, so we ended up living in our guest bedroom for the next two years, while we finished everything up. Looking back, I noticed I started having some weird symptoms back in 2019.
In 2021, a few of my friends and I were in Virginia at a hotel for a homesteading conference and we all started coughing when we got back to the hotel the first night. We all looked at each other and said “check the air filter”. It’s so nice to have friends that are like minded. Sure enough, the hotel room a/c unit was loaded with black mold. We took video and pictures and went down to the front desk to express our concern and asked to be moved to another room. They immediately moved us and didn’t charge us for our stay due to the inconvenience. We were checking out the next morning, so we didn’t want to make a big about it. I became worse than my friends the next day and had to have one of my friends drive my truck when we were heading home. I’m now understanding why I was worse than them.
Here’s a clip from the hotel room where we found the mold.
What Were My Mold Toxicity Symptoms
So, I got back home and started developing neurological issues such as anxiety, racing heart, brain fog, dizziness, ear popping and headaches. I have/had psoriasis, puffiness, random bruising, joint pain and exhaustion as well. I’m not an anxious person so that was a clue for me. I’m also a very clean eater and cook from scratch so I knew something wasn’t right. I see a holistic doctor a few times a year so I’m always taking homeopathic remedies. The thing is, my doctor doesn’t specialize in mold so she never caught it. I’d feel great after being on her remedies but then my symptoms just kept coming back. Even traditional Western doctors discounted me. Something was definitely wrong I thought. These symptoms are not normal to have. Random weird things going on in the body don’t just happen for no reason.
I have spent the last year researching and studying about mold toxicity. After the hotel incident, that was my first clue to start figuring this out. I knew I had to get to the bottom of this. I’m a researcher by nature so I read and searched daily until one day, I figured it out. I knew I had mold toxicity.
Join Our Simple Living Community
How Did I know
One day when I was cleaning our guest bathroom (the room where we lived for two years), I noticed black marks on the a/c vent. I showed my husband and he said it was nothing and to just clean it. That didn’t sit well with me so that was a clue. In July, we had a leak coming from our air handler, which is kept in an attic space. It sits above our half bath. My husband wakes me up in the middle of the night and that was my second clue. I told Bill we needed to get the house checked for mold. Something wasn’t right. Meanwhile, Bill had vertigo (another symptom) pretty bad last December and he had a small bout of it recently too.
I decided to take a mold toxicity and a mycotoxin test and guess what? I was off the chart in water damage building mold, Aspergillus. We immediately called our a/c company and they came out right away. They confirmed what I already new and got to work and started remediating the damage. We found out that the guest bathroom never had a damper installed in that vent back when we were building. Living here in Florida, all that moisture started coming inside probably several years ago, even while we finishing building our new home.
Testing
Once I tested my body and we had the a/c handler and vents remediated, I still wanted to test a few areas in our home to make sure we got everything. There’s no point starting to detox if you are still in the moldy environment. I waited 2 weeks and purchased gravity plates and a swab kit. In about a week, I received the results back. They sent a report back that stated we have black mold in our washing machine, master shower and our office air handler. Since this testing, we also hired a local mold inspector to do yet another evaluation. We are still waiting on those results.
What is Mold Toxicity?
Mold is everywhere. We breathe it in all day long, I’m sure. It can grow on wood, paper or carpet. I’m talking about water damage building mold. Black mold is very toxic. It can happen in a new home or even an older home. Maybe you have had a pipe leak under your sink and thought you got it all cleaned up. Look at my situation. We just built a new home and the damper was never put on when the a/c company did the final.
Black mold is a fungus that looks black. It grows on surfaces that have had water damage, like a basement or air conditioning handler. Sometimes you might not even see it or smell it. Wallpaper is a great place where mold hides. When there are warm/hot temperatures, moisture makes it spread. The two most common black mold is Aspergillus and Stachybotrys.
Our bodies inhale the mold through the vents and even through your washing machine. It gets into our nose, causing sinus infections, and our lungs. One of my other biggest clues when I was trying to figure all this out was that my family kept telling me I had a smoker’s cough. I don’t smoke. I had a cough here and there but I never really paid attention until they said something to me. It would go away and then come back in a few months. I was taking my homemade Elderberry Syrup, which made me feel better. Because we never removed the mold from our home, the cough just kept coming back.
Treatment and Healing
So, I started a protocol in August, first, preparing my detox pathways so I could then get the mold out of my body. I’m currently still healing. I take binders, eat a clean diet and do very little exercise right now. Exercise is not allowed right now, so I actually walk very slowly in my garden. I haven’t even felt like being out there, honestly.
The good thing is that mold toxicity is very treatable if you get on top of it. I apparently have been affected for several years now and never in my dreams would have guessed it was from black mold.
Pin For Later
How Have I Coped
Well, I’m sure you are wondering how I am coping through all of this. Honestly, it’s a lot. Most of your friends and family think you are crazy. Seriously, they think you are making this up. I’m sorry, but my body test results and my home being inspected found mold, so yeah, it’s a real thing. The neurological symptoms are the worst for me. I have moments of just dizziness and exhaustion. The joint and nerve pain was rough but is starting to subside.
The first and most important step in my healing journey is relying on God. I can’t get through this or anything, without HIM. I pray daily and have grown deeper in my relationship with God. Here are a few books that I’ve been reading that I highly recommend if you are struggling with any health related illnesses. The first one is Tired of Trying and the other one is Healing is a Choice. Both are phenomenal!
Stay tuned as this is the first of many blog posts about mold toxicity. I’ll be sharing more of what I am taking to heal and everything else that’s been going on. It’s been crazy but I have hope that I will be healed.
Do You Have Mystery Symptoms
Have you been to your doctor and have mystery symptoms that you aren’t healing from? I’m so passionate about getting the word out now about mold toxicity and I’m excited to share about the Mold, Mycotoxin and Chronic Illness Summit. I can’t wait to learn so much more than I already have learned. You’ll hear from over 40 experts such as Dave Asprey (Bullet Proof Coffee), Dr. Steven Gundry, Dr. Amy Meyers, J.J. Virgin, Izabella Wentz and so much more!
I’m still on my healing journey and I hope you’ll join me at this summit. I hear all the time from people that have so many symptoms and they are probably being misdiagnosed. Mold toxicity is a real thing. We all won’t have the same symptoms but if you’ve exhausted all your attempts at the doctor, this summit is for you! If you are tired of trying to figure it all out, this summit is for you!
Stay Tuned
My goal is to keep you updated on my healing process. I’m just now wanting to talk about it, honestly. It’s a lot to process just with myself. As I said above, family and friends will discount you. So, I really haven’t felt like talking about it much. Now that I am starting to see some improvements, I want to help as many people as I can. This is a big deal in our health as humans. I just wonder how many people are on tons of prescriptions for all of their symptoms, but in reality, they could just get checked for mold. Stay tuned and I’ll try to update weekly as I can. I’ll be sharing the supplements I’m taking, how we tested, how we cleaned, how we are moving forward, who all got infected and more.
Thanks for publishing this. It’s an easy way for readers like me to send a non confrontational but informative piece to those family and friends that are less informed about the danger of mold. I would have loved it if you had links to the exact mold toxicity test that told you your personal levels and the home kits that you used afterwards. We are walking this journey too. We are a family of 8 and my kids have all of these symptoms increasing. The first time I suspected mold toxicity was when I experienced unexplained vertigo and anxiety after the birth of our 4th baby, the first one we have had since moving to our home in VA. Everyone else has had sporadic (pun… intended? Lol) symptoms but I’m finally putting the bigger picture together.
Anyway- thank you for writing this. I wish you all the best as we journey toward healing!!
Hi Stef, I do understand the remarks you get from family and friends. They either discount the entire situation or think you are crazy. I’m so glad you found this post helpful. I am seeing a functional doctor that specializes in mold toxicity. Let me see if I can get the links to the testing I had done. I will be putting together more posts on my journey. Please don’t feel alone. I didn’t have anyone else to turn to so I just researched and researched until i figured it out. If I can help one person or family recover, then I’m here for it. Stay tuned as I’m writing my second follow-up right now. Hope to have it sent out in my newsletter in a few days. Prayers for complete healing and for wisdom to find someone near you that specializes in mold. I do know this. If we don’t remove ourselves from the moldy environment, our symptoms will not go away and can possibly get worse.