HOW TO RECOGNIZE AND TREAT MOLD SICKNESS

These are some of my favorite passages in “Break The Mold: 5 Tools to Conquer Mold and Take Back Your Health” by Dr. Jill Crista

 

— I wish I had known about mold when it really counted.

I missed mold—in my patients, in my family, in myself, and in my own home. I didn’t know how to recognize it, and I underestimated the damage it could do.

I wrote this book to myself, 15 years in the past. I needed this book back then. If I would’ve had it, I may have been able to save patients and loved ones from harm—from months of lost health, life, money, and joy.

I’ve learned a lot. I’ve got mold’s number now. I want to arm you with what I’ve learned; with the knowledge and tools you need to conquer the mold in your life. You’ll be equipped with proven tools to fight mold and win.  

You need mold solutions. This book has them.

Why else? You want to get better. You want a list of symptoms and cures. Of course. Hey, I’m an impatient learner so I get it. If that’s you, flip forward to PART 2—The 5 Tools. Check out the solutions.

But then I suggest you spend some time here in PART 1—Dirty Rotten Mold to gain a full understanding of mold. Learn what makes it tick and how to truly defeat mold so it never comes back. As one of the oldest living creatures on the planet, mold is an adept survivor. It has a tendency to come back again and again and again. You need to learn its weaknesses to conquer mold for good.

I’ve been there. I’ve not only worked with mold-sick patients as their doctor, I’ve been a mold-sick patient myself. I became an expert on mold the hard way, grinding through the day-to-day issues of dealing with the toxic effects of mold. I empathize with you if you’re finding this book as a victim of mold sickness yourself.

As a doctor, I worked with a fair number of patients with chronic fatigue and illnesses that nobody could figure out. That’s how I came to mold illness. I’m a naturopathic doctor, which means I’ve been trained to find and treat the cause of “dis-ease.” Why is that important? Because usually once the cause of “dis-ease” is removed, people get better. It can be quite elegant and simple. The body has an innate drive to heal. The tricky part is identifying the cause. Sleuthing out the cause is a large part of being a doctor.

Typically, using naturopathic principles to work with the body rather than against it is pretty effective. But I had this small group of “stuck” patients who didn’t respond to the usual things in the usual ways. These patients weren’t getting better. Not much changed from appointment to appointment, despite their hard work. Honestly, I was surprised they had enough faith in me to keep coming back.

Then one of those patients found toxic mold in his house—toxic black mold. And I wondered if that might be part of the reason he wasn’t getting better despite being 110% dedicated to his treatment plan. I wondered if that might be the reason the others were still sick. I didn’t know because I frankly wasn’t familiar with all the facets of mold sickness.

I hit the books and was shocked to find that mold was definitely the reason he wasn’t responding. The same was true for many of my other “stuck” patients. I was astounded. Even though I found a ton of research on molds, mold toxins, and how they harm living beings, I didn’t have a grasp of this in practice. Why? The reason is simple—lack of human studies.

The many research studies about molds and mold toxins (called mycotoxins) are related to animals and animal feed. People in charge of feeding livestock know about the risks. They’ve even developed mold mitigation techniques to keep their animals healthy.

But there’s been little funding to bring this research forward to humans and human impacts. With no definitive lab tests and no vetted treatment protocols from human research, doctors treating real human patients were destined to miss mold just like I did.

Little has changed in the decades since I became aware of mold and mold toxin illness. We now have better lab testing, but still very few human trials to test treatments. Even so, we can learn from the animals because many of the same rules apply to humans as animals. And we can learn from our elders.

Using my knowledge of science, historical treatments, and teachings from mentors, I developed methods to address mold in my “stuck” patients . . . and they improved.

— Killing mold is sort of like trying to clean a bear cage while the bear is still inside. You wait until it falls asleep, then tiptoe in to mop up the place, as quietly as possible with the least disruption . . and you never, ever “poke the bear.”

I’ve seen in practice that once mold knows it’s the target of your assault, it will dig in its heels and try to defend its territory, which it has now claimed as YOU. I’ve seen reactions such as raging sweet cravings, digestive bloating, terrible ear ringing, sleep problems for nights on end, and worsening fungal infections, to name a few. Stick to it as long as it’s not too hard. These are temporary annoyances. I know, they may be extremely annoying, but they mean you’re on the right track. Don’t be afraid to seek medical help from your doctor during the FIGHT phase, as you may need a little extra help.

It’s said that the best defense is a strong offense—totally true in mold sickness. To rid yourself of mold inhabitation, you have to make your body completely inhospitable. You have to kill mold two ways: whole-body and nasal. Nasal antifungals are targeted treatments that knock out the colonies residing in your sinuses. Whereas, whole-body antifungals clean up the gut and kill any mold that scatters when you hit the sinuses with your offensive. It’s best to have whole-body antifungals on board before beginning any nasal treatment.

To Win Against Mold, Use Whole-Body AND Nasal Antifungals Don’t Use One Without The Other

Herbs are incredible allies for this. Prescription antifungal medications usually have only one or two ways to hit mold. Not so for herbs. A single antifungal herb has many, many different weapons to kill mold. Not only does this make herbs effective mold killers, it also reduces mold’s ability to revive itself.

Mold is smart. If you only have one weapon, it’ll find a work-around to survive despite the treatment. This is called resistance. If antifungal drugs are needed, they can be combined with select herbs for a full assault, with the added benefit of reduced drug resistance.

Herbs usually also contain compounds that reduce side effects from dying mold. Many antifungal herbs kill mold and clean up mycotoxin spillage, and protect the liver, and repair the gut, and so on. I like using herbs because they have a low harm ratio compared to their efficacy.

WHOLE-BODY ANTIFUNGALS

To fully recover, treat your whole body with antifungal therapies. The people who don’t get better leave this piece out. Even though they’ve left the sick environment and completed nasal treatment, the mold comes back.

There’s a misconception that you have to have an active fungal infection in order to take these herbs. False. The truth is that even though colonization is not infection, mold colonies continuously seed mold spores and spit out mycotoxins. You can be sick from mold without having a fungal infection. And if you’re sick from mold, you need antifungals for your whole body so those spores don’t find a place to take root.

How long do you take whole-body antifungals? Until you are sure there are no more mycotoxins in your system—plus one more month for insurance. Mycotoxins come from mold spores. If you’ve killed all the mold spores and detoxed the mycotoxins, there shouldn’t be any more mycotoxins on your labs. If there are, you either didn’t do AVOIDANCE fully, or there’s still surviving mold somewhere inside your body.

The plants I discuss are safe enough to take long-term. For instance, Pau D’Arco and Holy Basil are enjoyed as morning tea in many cultures. With my patients, I rotate herbs every month or so to make sure mold isn’t figuring out a work-around. This also ensures that we aren’t taxing the body or creating nutritional deficiencies.

I’ve listed treatments in order of intensity and potential to create side effects, from least to most. Don’t mistake intensity with efficacy. Intensity has to do with the other actions a plant has that are not related to mold. The least-intense plants can kill more mold by being able to be taken more frequently. You’re in this for the long haul. Often I will use something less intense continuously and do bursts of more intense plants for shorter durations, for example, daily Pau D’Arco tea with bursts of Oil of Oregano three days per week. This is where the art of medicine comes in. Again, I recommend seeing a mold-literate doctor to discern what to do and when.

** A how-to, whole-body antifungal herbs information is included in this book!

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