Within a few months of living here, I began to experience unexplained weight gain. I thought it was my diet, and started every more restrictive diets and fasting protocols – all to no avail. In fact, probably made it worse.
Hormone imbalance, under-active thyroid, sluggish liver and stressed adrenals all began to show up.
It took me 2.5yrs to figure out what was going on, and only then because myself and younger children (the only members of the family who were home at the time) all fell sick with dry coughs and fevers, after I had cleaned mold off the walls. That’s when I started to investigate mold illness, and join the dots!
We weren’t in a position to move house immediately, given our rural area and lack of available rentals, so I committed to making the best of a bad situation.
In the world of mold illness, there’s this running theme about long-term strict avoidance of mold. Many people move out of their moldy home, and basically toss out all their belongings, and start over again.
But that wasn’t possible for me, in our current location and situation
And the thought of spending the rest of my life, or even the next five years, constantly worrying about whether there’s mold in the bathroom or air-conditioning unit, of every building I step inside, is not something I’m down with.
Too stressful and too unattainable. In my situation, rather than seeking to control outside forces (mold & fungi), I have instead chosen to focus on my inner terrain, and resilience to withstand the outside forces (not just mold and fungi, but all the toxins we’re bombarded with on a daily basis.
This approach has covered a) Increasing nutrition and b) decreasing stress.
A) I’ve been taking 20-40mls of fulvic acid per day, which acts as a binder against some mycotoxins (toxins produced by mold). There’s not a lot of research on this, and what has been done has focused on mycotoxins in livestock feed, nevertheless, it does show binding activity of humic & fulvic acids, and I definitely notice that mold flares subside quickly if I dose on fulvic.
Fulvic also contains 70+ minerals & trace elements to support immune functioning and detoxification pathways. It binds to heavy metals at a rate of 5 – 100x higher than clays (bentonite, etc). This is the brand I use, and it’s very high quality (They are in Australia, but do also ship internationally. Use code ‘radical’ for 33% off the 3mth and 6mth supply products, which makes it very cost-effective)
Also, taking beef liver and oyster capsules, for zinc, Vitamin A and copper (plus many more), all of which help to build the ‘inner armor’ against toxins coming in (including mycotoxins)..
B) Stress lowers our defence system. We all know it. I was trying to do too much, selling products, selling on eBay, trying to grow a following on five different platforms. I had to whittle back a lot of those things. If I stay up too late, I’m vulnerable. It’s not coincidence that my symptoms are more noticeable when I haven’t had enough sleep.
In addition, I do try to minimise spore numbers in the house, via keeping windows open as much as comfortably possible, and keeping on top of house-dust, vacuuming regularly with HEPA vacuum.