Mold, mold, mold. Ahhh, that terrible, invisible, frightening thing.
Mold is a big problem, even if you don't have Lyme. And when you do, it's a double whammy of neurotoxins. But take heart, there are plenty of things you can do to make your house safer and healthier that are pretty cheap. (And of course, there are things you can do that are not very cheap)
My LLND told me that I should get my house checked out since many of my symptoms appear to be more mold than Lyme. ! We started out with a vision test for $15 that you can do entirely online, she said this would give us a good indicator as far as how moldy my body has become, and based on those tests we would consider how to treat or further testing that costs more than $15. And here it is: http://www.chronicneurotoxins.com/. The premise is that certain biotoxins affect your vision in a very specific way and this vision test can be an indicator about the biotoxin level harbored by your body. I failed it miserably, and so she ordered a C4a lab test - this is an indicator for the mycotoxin load my body's carrying. (Mold spores themselves whether dead or alive are an allergen, but the living spores also spray out what's called a mycotoxin - this is the big, bad thing that sticks in your body and tries to decompose you). We're still waiting on the C4a results, but based on the mold testing we did on the house (which came back positive for the most poisonous and the second most poisonous mold), my doctor put me on Difflucan, an anti-fungal to get started on some sort of mold-clearing.
So the issue with mold is that it's a neurotoxin - like Lyme. And my doctor put it really plainly as far as the importance and urgency of clearing the mold - both from my house and my body. She said that Lyme wants you alive, it wants to disable you a little bit so that it can thrive - but Lyme needs you alive; mold doesn't. Mold wants to kill you and decompose your body into nothing.
We were able to get our house professionally remediated and we found the source of the problem - leaky basement and leaky pipes. Getting those fixed is the big picture, but there are lots of other little things we're doing to ensure we have a healthy house. (This two-pronged approach is best - eliminate the source that's causing the mold and eliminate the mold stuffs already sprayed into the air.)
Dehumidifiers are essential for damp areas like basements, as well as real HEPA filters in air purifiers (careful with this, lots of air purifiers have really sneaky wording so you have to be sure that you're getting one that truly captures mold spores, as small at .2 microns in size).
Aside from those, a new thing I discovered is Thieves essential oil, the air inspector said that she's seen it work wonders - she's seen spaces go from 25,000 particles of mold per square meter down to the normal 400 particles per square meter, after only spraying Thieves Household Cleaner on mold 2x/day for 2 months! I found the recipe and made my own and have it running in an essential oil diffuser 24/7 (bonus - it smells kind of like cinnamon and spice, perfect for autumn!). I also learned that getting a German made vacuum with a closed system and HEPA filter will be an item to save up for. Normal vacuums, even ones with 'HEPA' filters recycles the air, but the German made vacuums are actually better at cleaning the air than air purifiers - the air that comes out is cleaner than the air that goes in!
Cleaning is also essential - we are now spending much more of our time sweeping, vacuuming, and dusting because dust is the perfect little thing for mold to attach itself to, it's great at riding the dust. At this point, we're still cleaning out the hyphal parts (dead mold spore pieces that are still an allergen).
But now, I can breathe again! I'm still sicker and it will probably take a while for the mycotoxins already present in my body to get cleared out, but we'll get there. One day at a time. Just imagine how much healthier I'm going to be when my body is free of mold and can focus more on executing that Lyme! (Also I feel extra scatter-brained today, so sorry if this post didn't make very much sense, you know how that goes)
