Could Mold Be to Blame for Your Mystery Symptoms?
Mold is a hidden cause behind many chronic illnesses, affecting countless individuals who often do not realize it is the cause of their illness…
Mold is a problem we don’t often think about because the musty basement smell is normal, right? While it is common for basements or other areas exposed to constant moisture to have mold, this can be dangerous to your health. For people with allergies, asthma, or other respiratory conditions, the ramifications can be even more serious.
Many of my patients have been knowingly or unknowingly exposed to mold toxins. It could be the “deeper” root cause of their complex chronic inflammation and mysterious illnesses and it can be difficult for conventional doctors to figure out.
As discussed below, mold toxicity can cause respiratory issues, such as allergies, asthma, and sinus and lung infections, sleep disturbances, nervous system dysregulation, digestive upset, compromised immune system, and mental health problems like anxiety.
Unfortunately, conventional medicine often overlooks mold toxicity, leaving many sufferers without answers or adequate treatment options. They are often lost and don’t know what to do. It can take a long time to finally figure out what is going on with them.
Functional Medicine (FM) testing can serve as the first step to measure the level of toxicity for diagnosis. In my view, a more holistic, systemic, whole body approach is needed to tackle such a complex health condition as discussed below.
Let’s dive into this health issue to look more closely!
What is mold?
Mold, part of the fungi kingdom, is an important part of the natural life cycle of organic material, meant to break things down and return them to the soil to continue to nourish new life. While mold breaks down this organic material, it releases:
Spores are the reproductive cells of fungi that travel to other areas to create more mold. In a closed environment like your house, the spores stay in the air and end up in your lungs as well as other areas of your home, perpetuating the problem.
Mycotoxins are chemicals released by fungi that are meant to protect mold’s growing environment from competition with other organisms like bacteria, by killing them. Some mycotoxins are toxic to mammals, like the mycotoxin Aflatoxin, which grows on spoiled food and is more carcinogenic than many industrial chemicals.
Volatile organic compounds are also released, which account for the smell produced by mold.
To protect your health, it's important to be informed of the causes, signs, and symptoms of mold in your home.
Many mycotoxins compromise the body’s ability to detoxify, leading to the accumulation of toxins. Some of them are even calcinogenic.
These mycotoxins can lead to a wide array of symptoms, including brain fog, memory problems, cognitive impairments, mood swings, numbness, tingling, sensitivity to touch, reactivation of viruses like Epstein-Barr, weight gain, disrupted hormonal function, chronic sinus congestion, cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, impaired digestive function, persistent fatigue, and a general feeling of being unwell.
As these toxins impair the body’s detoxification mechanisms, other toxins such as heavy metals and pesticides begin to accumulate, creating a downward spiral into worsening health.
How does mold enter the body?
If you live or work in a water-damaged building, mold can be anywhere. It can grow behind the walls, underneath the floorboards, or even within the structure of the building. So, mold growth may not be always visible to you!
When mold spores are inhaled, they can create colonies in sinuses, gastrointestinal tracts and the genitourinary system. In immune compromised patients, their lungs are also susceptible to their colonization.
Once they create a colony, they form a “biofilm” to protect themselves from the environment, making it difficult for the fungus to be eradicated easily. Some researchers say that this biofilm causes an autoimmune reaction and immune depletion.
Common Causes of Mold Growth
Mold needs four things to grow and spread: moisture, organic material, heat, and a semi-closed environment. Low light helps mold progress more rapidly as well. Now, think of spaces with excessive moisture in your home, and that’s where mold can end up. That could be in your basement, bathroom, kitchen cabinets, garage, air vents, or anywhere else regularly exposed to moisture. As for organic material, mold can feast on anything from clothes to food to your home’s building materials.
Mold is more common in places with high humidity because it’s easier for the moisture to permeate into places like the wood or drywall. Even if you don’t live in a state with high humidity, like Florida, cooking, showering, and doing laundry can create these conditions, especially if the area is not well-ventilated.
Some other common causes of mold growth are:
Leaks in your roof, windows, or plumbing
Wet clothes drying inside your home
Use of a humidifier
Drainage problems outdoors, like blocked gutters or stagnant water near your exterior walls
Food particles getting trapped in spaces like under the bed or next to the refrigerator
Symptoms and Long-Term Risks of Mold Exposure
Some of the first indicators of mold exposure are respiratory symptoms that mimic a cold, with symptoms like sneezing, congestion, runny nose, coughing, sore throat, wheezing, and headache. Since the mycotoxins and spores released by mold are toxic to humans, they can wreak havoc on all of our body systems. As your mold exposure progresses, it can develop into fatigue, brain fog, rashes, digestive problems, joint pain, loss of motor skills, seizures, hair loss, lightheadedness, tingling in extremities, sensitivity to light, muscle cramps, and more.
Prolonged exposure can lead to the development of chronic conditions or worsening of your existing conditions:
Respiratory infections like pneumonia, COPD, sarcoidosis, bronchitis, and asthma
Allergies and allergic reactions
Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS): Caused by long-term exposure to mold and other biotoxins. It can lead to chronic inflammation throughout the body, resulting in many symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, memory issues, joint pain, and more. CIRS can be difficult to diagnose, as its symptoms mimic other conditions.
Degradation of your joints
Immune overactivation leading to autoimmune conditions
Neurological disorders caused by damage to nerves or brain infection
Kidney and liver disease
Various types of cancer
Organ damage: In extreme cases, prolonged exposure to mold can even cause death.
Addressing mold exposure naturally
1. Detecting Mold in Your Home
The first sign of mold is always smell. Mold can smell musty and wet, sour, earthy, and even meaty in some cases, depending on the type of mold present. Following your nose to the strongest source of the smell is your best bet for locating the source, though sometimes it can be hidden behind a wall, under your carpet, or beneath the bottom of your cabinets, so you may need to move things around to find it.
To visually identify potential sources of mold, look for stains on your walls or ceiling, discolored tile grout, warping of wood or walls, pink, red, or brown streaks, or obvious patches of mold. Patches of mold are typically slimy, fuzzy, spotted, or discolored and increase in size over time.
Don’t stop with just your home; consider any place where you regularly spend time, like your work environment or your car, as a possible exposure source as well.
To detect mold, you can request a home inspection from a local business that tests for mold. If you’d prefer to do it yourself, there are also test kits you can buy online. Test kits are best if you can already see discoloration and want to check if it is mold, whereas an inspection is better if you want to find mold that may be hiding in your walls or under your floor.
2. Reducing exposure to mold-harboring food
To begin to treat a mold illness, it’s important that you avoid coming into contact with more mold since your immune system is already on high alert, producing inflammation. There are some foods that are more prone to mold than others. To help with your recovery, you should:
Avoid mold, minimizing exposure to mold-harboring foods, such as Alcoholic beverages, dried fruit, nuts, and dairyTry to eat your food soon after it is cooked so there is no chance of mold development
Buy your food from the freshest source possible
Store your food properly by sealing it and keeping it cold
Fill your diet with antioxidant-containing foods to combat inflammation
3. Detoxification treatments
The following are some examples of effective treatments for eliminating mold toxicity from the body.
Supplementation with antioxidants serves as a master detoxifier that helps draw out, bind to, and transport compounds across cell membranes so they can be properly flushed out of your body.
Supporting your liver is important because it is your body's primary detoxifying organ. In my practice, I use Japanese acupuncture and herbal medicine.
Detox binders are molecules that help trap compounds to excrete them from the bodily systems.
Supporting regular bowel movements is critical because bowels are the primary mechanism for removing toxins for good.
Detox-supporting therapies can help, like far-infrared sauna therapy, IV vitamin therapy, or dry brushing.
Conclusion
At Love & Compassion, my focus is to treat your body as a whole rather than just the symptoms, uniquely customizing therapies to meet your need for such complex issues.
As a Japanese style acupuncture and herbalist, I treat your organs so that they are activated to facilitate detoxification. They include the large intestine, the liver, the gallbladder, the lungs, the kidneys, and the lymphatic system. My overall focus here is to strengthen the innate immune system, so as to activate the body’s natural healing processes, for defense and prevention of recurrence.
Mold related illnesses often affects the nervous system, causing sleep issues, anxiety, and depression. Dealing with this issue can be extremely frustrating, especially since it may take a while to figure out what is going on in your body. Supporting your mental health during this time is absolutely critical.
For this purpose, I incorporate my Energy Soul Therapy to create calmness of the mind and a positive mindset, which are absolutely necessary to eliminate this vicious culprit.
Here is my strategy for combating illnesses caused by mold toxicity:
Boost gut health: Your gut is a key player in detoxification, immunity, and just about every other facet of your health
Support detoxification pathways: Detoxify the colon, the liver, the kidneys and the skin.
Strengthen homeostasis: For optimal organ function.
Support rest and relaxation: Getting quality sleep is key to restoring your immune system and detoxification pathways.
Strengthen the immune system
Address underlying infections: Like candida overgrowth, parasites, bacterial and viral colonies.
Body-Soul Medicine: Mold toxicity can be highly dysregulating physically, mentally, and emotionally, so it’s crucial to keep stress levels in check and create mindful lifestyle.
Do you need help in taking back control of your health and wellness? Book a free 15 min phone consultation online today!
References
1. https://eden.cce.cornell.edu/files/2019/07/CUmold-factsht.pdf
2. https://www.rupahealth.com/post/common-causes-of-mold-illness-where-mold-hides-and-how-it-grows
3. https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/7287/
4. https://www.healthline.com/health/mold-in-house#symptoms-of-exposure
Mika Ichihara, M.S., L.Ac., B.Phar., LLM, LLB, is the integrative master practitioner and founder of Love & Compassion Integrative Health. She has practiced integrative health and healing for over two decades. She has helped thousands of patients from all over the world with her unique integrative treatments and spiritual teaching of the East and the West.
Her services include Japanese acupuncture, herbal medicine, Energy Soul Therapy, spiritual healing/reading, and Feng Shui as well as teaching meditation, Reiki/energy healing and Universal Qabalah. Services and teaching available in Charlotte, NC, New York City and online.
Disclaimer: This article “Mold Toxicity: a hidden and overlooked culprit behind many chronic illnesses - Could Mold Be to Blame for Your Mystery Symptoms?” was originally created and published by Mika Ichihara under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Mika Ichihara, M.S., L.Ac., LL.M., B.Phar., Founder and Owner of Love & Compassion Integrative Health. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution and author bio.