No one likes to think about it, I mean it’s our home. A Place of shelter and comfort, a place of rest. Yet, I think the question, “is your house making you sick” is definitely valid, especially if you have a “mysterious” illness that you can never seem to shake.
Could the culprit be mold?
With over 400,000 species we currently know to exist, mold is really everywhere. Some experts even calling it the silent epidemic. However, not all mold is toxic. In fact, many species of mold are actually extremely beneficial and necessary for life.
On the other hand, we’re definitely coming face to face with the ugly reality that the harmful mold species can wreck upon our lives.
And I know, you don’t think it could ever happen to you.
could mold be making you sick?
I thought the same thing. I mean we live in a newer house built on a sand-hill with absolutely no water that has ever entered it. And we’re talking that we’re absolutely certain we’ve never had any kind of water issue in our house.
Yet time and time again, through struggling with the illness that wrecked me for over a year, I kept testing positive for mold. While mold most likely wasn’t the illness itself, it most definitely was the trigger. That’s exactly what mold is, a trigger. In fact, some believe it is the most powerful trigger, waiting for the perfect storm of stress to send a mass brigade of immunity to blast your body, only to end up with immune malfunction and internal confusion.
Given that I spent 80% of my life inside my house, our home had to be the source. The question was, where?
Don’t get me wrong, this was a battle just as much mentally as internally. We literally were at a loss from where this mold could have come from and why was it causing such harm inside my body.
the symptoms
Mold doesn’t discriminate. It also doesn’t look the same from individual to individual. Given it is a trigger, it comes out in whatever ways your own personal body is most susceptible.
Some of the most common symptoms associated with mold-illness include things like;
- fatigue and weakness
- headaches
- light sensitivity
- poor memory
- difficulty concentrating
- morning stiffness and joint pain
- unusual skin sensations, like tingling and numbness
- shortness of breath
- sinus congestion or chronic cough
- appetite swings
- poor body temperature regulation
- increased urinary frequency
- increased thirst
- red eyes, blurred vision
- night sweats
- mood swings
- sharp pains
- abdominal pain
- diarrhea or bloating
- disorientation
- static shocks
- vertigo or feeling light-headed
- weight gain
Those symptoms are just the tip of the iceberg. Of course given the trigger that mold is, in the end it really causes what experts now know as chronic inflammatory response syndrome. Which means exactly what it says, a chronic inflammation happening all over your body, thus where symptoms arise.
could this be you?
Of course you can see that list of symptoms and think, yes, I have mood swings and weight gain. Let me be clear for one second, all of these symptoms could be related to a number of different conditions. However, if you really are sensitive to mold or reacting to mold you will have many symptoms. Some say upwards of 10-20.
Mold illness, or the chronic inflammatory response syndrome is a multi-system, multi-symptom illness. It’s not just one thing here and there, it tends to be a persistent and yet changing illness with a different host of symptoms nearly ever day.
Regardless, this isn’t a topic to take lightly. Of course, I always like to get to the root cause and in some cases for some people, this would be it.
It definitely was for me.
what was lurking in my washing machine
As my story goes, I continued to take two steps forward and one step back. My health and healing seemed to be a never-ending and yet constant battle of just holding my body in a stable state. In fact, I lived stable, not well, but stable for well over a year until we decided to finally kick the mold problem to the curb.
What we learned, finding the culprit wasn’t going to be as easy as we expected.
Of course, given my deep desire to be well and willing to do just about anything at that point to feel normal again we set off to find one of Iowa’s finest home inspectors. The home inspector came out, talked with us as he inspected literally every nook and cranny in our home. Collecting measurements, air samples and testing the humidity.
He was on our roof, in our attic, crawling on our basement floors and took a flashlight to every corner of our home. For over three hours he inspected our house and in the end we found…
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Our house had no signs of any kind of mold and even our air quality tests came back within the normal limits.
how could this be?
While most would be celebrating the fact that their house was completely safe, I was angry. I wanted to be well, I knew mold was the culprit and we still didn’t have an answer to fix it.
The only ounce of hope that we could find was the home inspector talking through the dangers of front loading washing machines. Especially those around the 2014-2015 models. He told us they were notorious for harboring mold, which of course could spread to clothing.
Our washing machine was our only hope of finding the villain in the story.
listen to the podcast
I’m going to tell you the ending to the story, or what I hope is the happy ending. But for now, I encourage you to check out my latest podcast to learn the in-depth information as to what mold is and more importantly what it’s doing inside our bodies.
It’s fascinating to say the least.
Whether you think you struggle with mold or not, the scary statistic is they estimate over 85% of buildings in America have some elevated levels of mold and if you happen to be one of the 25% of the population who has a genetic variable that doesn’t allow your body to break it down, eventually you could have symptoms.
Trust me, having more information on this subject will be beneficial for everyone.
Don’t forget to come back next week to learn how you can test for mold and how to help your body heal.
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This is about you, your health and ultimately helping you to live with joy! Don’t forget to follow me over on Instagram to see more real life stories as well as on Facebook where I happen to follow-up the podcasts with some personal conversations with you on FB Live!