Episode 87 - Treating Mold Illness in Canada with Dr. Corey Deacon

Corey Deacon, CFMP, MSc, DNM, BCN, FAARFM, ABAAHP, QEEG-D(cand.) is more than a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner. He is a patient advocate who will listen to each symptom and every concern with the patience of a trusted friend. With an extensive knowledge bank of hands-on experience, Corey shares his confidence and capabilities to power an actionable change in his patient's overall wellness. Corey Deacon co-founded Neurvana Naturopathic Medicine in September 2016 and has served as Medical Director since. His competencies include conditions and symptoms that are affected or caused by the central nervous and immune systems, from post-concussion syndrome to autoimmune disorders and an array of ailments in between.

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Transcript

Kealy Severson: 0:06

Welcome to our podcast. My name is Kealy Severson and I'm here with my co-host, Erik Johnson and Alicia Swamy and we are Exposing Mold. Today we are here with Corey Deacon, owner of Neurvana Health.Welcome, Corey.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 1:27

Hi, thanks for having me.

Kealy Severson: 1:28

So, Corey, thank you so much for joining us. I understand that you are a provider of functional medicine in Canada and you treat mold illness, can you share with us how you came to specialize in mold illness in your clinic?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 1:58

Yeah, so I have a little bit of a most of it as a personal story. When I was in university, I started developing a lot of brain related problems. So brain fog, concentration problems, forgetfulness, word retrieval issues, started developing anxiety, depression and significant amounts of fatigue. And I had in the years prior had had a lot of sub concussive injuries and you know, kind of chalked that up to like maybe some concussions that were catching up to me. I was always blown away by conventional medicine not even looking at what was going on. It's it's like oh, it's University. Here's some medication. I remember thinking like this a little bit crazy. Like I've never had anxiety. I don't have problems with school. I'm a great learner. That sounds stressing me out. It's is there something else going on, right? So yeah, I ended up slowly over time, kind of unraveling these kind of multi layers of problems. And it actually turned out that I had a tick by in Nicaragua a couple years before this all started happening and I got really ill about four or five days after. They thought it was Dengue fever, sickest I've ever been, it's crazy I was hallucinating, my fever was so high. I got through that didn't really think anything of it. And yeah, over time, this is kind of like these chronic symptoms just kept getting worse and I eventually learned that, you know, infections can cause chronic inflammatory response syndrome. So I went through treatment approaches to kind of get that better and then it kind of became something that I, you know, eventually got my doctorate got trained in and started learning that Oh, mold can also do this as well. And I moved to Calgary shortly after I was finishing my doctorate. And there was a lot of floods actually, in Calgary in 2013, 2014. Massive amount of the city flooded because the river or the floodplain flooded out, which happens every 100 years or so. It was really quite terrible and all these people that you're seeing, like in the Calgary area had had some exposure to mold. And yeah, so I you know, I just dug deeper, you know, I had training through Dr. Shoemaker and Dr. Heyman and just, you know, continue to learn more and more each day about it. And, you know, now we've gotten to the point where we know water damage buildings are not just mold of either. There's bacterial problems, there's actinomyces problems, there's endotoxin problems that can happen in this water damage building. So we see all flavors of that and because of our specialty clinic, we usually don't see people until I've seen an average of 8 to 12 doctors. So I would say probably about 50 to 80% of my patient population is chronic inflammatory response syndrome and specifically related to mold or water damage building illness. So, yeah, I'd say it's just been interesting to see how pervasive it is and how common it is to see.

Kealy Severson: 5:11

When you were in university, do you think that you were in a bad building or a bad dorm?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 5:15

Oh, definitely. And and when I and when I moved to Calgary as well, I was in a basement suite that was like a raised legal basement suite. Without a doubt I'd had mold exposure. I'd had it also earlier in my childhood, as well, my parents basement flooded, probably seven or eight times, lived down there. And you know, it's so tragic, because a lot of like insurance companies, their goal is to do as little remediation as possible, right? So I remember multiple times where it wasn't even recommended that we removed the carpet. Right? That was all of the things that compounded and that's the important thing to know, with things like mold and water damage building exposure is that makes you more susceptible to like post concussion syndrome. And I've seen so much of that to where people actually come in after concussion, they're not getting better and you dig deeper you see, like, you know, quantitative RNA sequencing, you're seeing, Oh, you've had a past exposure to mold or you're having a current exposure. So your innate immune system can't recalibrate for your brain to actually repair. So yeah, I really think that, that with the concussions with the infection, I got the babesia infection I got in Nicaragua. I think that the mold exposure was what made me susceptible to all of that, right. I think had that not been the case, I probably wouldn't have had any problems on any of those other issues so.

Alicia Swamy: 6:45

What's really interesting in your bio, is that you're using quantitative EEG. And Erik has a little story for you about this method, because it's actually an old school method that was used in the 80s and so we'd love to hear Erik's story, and then maybe we can transition over to how you've started adapting to that, and using that in your own practice to help people.

Erik Johnson: 7:08

Yeah, that was actually a technique used by Dr. David J. Goldstein, in San Francisco, who was testing Dr. Paul Cheney's chronic fatigue syndrome patients, and said their brain electrical activity mapping was literally off the charts like somebody hit him in the head with a sledgehammer and this was part of the evidence that helped to establish the credibility of Dr. Cheney's chronic fatigue syndrome as a discrete entity.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 7:36

Amazing.

Erik Johnson: 7:36

Yeah. Dr. Cheney, after seeing the results of these QuEEG scans, said that the real answer to chronic fatigue syndrome, it's all in the head, it's in the brain, it's right there.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 7:48

It's in the brain, it's in the mitochondria. It's in the electrical chemical function of the brain.

Erik Johnson: 7:55

So it's interesting to hear that this Absolutely. old, reliable technology is still being applied.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 8:01

and becoming more and more and more reliable. It's actually really, really cool. Both three and a half years ago, mainly due to the the Human Connectome Project. That's, that's currently underway and being very well funded by the NIH is we adapted a method that was called the reta, which actually allows us to isolate activity from deeper cortical layers. So you can see, you know, down into areas of the cingulate, you can see into limbic regions like the amygdala, the hippocampus, which previously weren't able to see you were only able to really like see what was going on on the surface. Then about three and a half years ago, we adopted something called SW Loretta, which was a standardized weighted Loretta, which now actually allows you to see down all the way down into sub cortical regions like the cerebellum, the thalamus, and sub thalamus the amygdala, all these different regions and the communication between all these different areas as well as the power. And so we actually use this as a kind of surrogate into some of the structural changes that can happen in the brain after things like mold exposure, so we're able to kind of get a fingerprint of how the brain has been affected, we know that the cerebellum tends to enlarge which can cause a lot of cognitive issues, it can cause headaches, it can cause dizziness and disorientation as well as weakness, balance and coordination problems. And then we can start seeing actually some indications of structural atrophy in basal ganglia areas, which are also common with with water damage building exposure. So it's just gotten to a whole new level now.

Kealy Severson: 9:47

Can you tell if there's permanent damage?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 9:52

Permanence, a bit of a misnomer. Do you mean like, irreversible like forever irreversible or?

Kealy Severson: 10:00

I guess my permanent, I mean, like, are you comparing scans to see how sick someone is and then through treatment rescanning, when they're healthier to see if the same changes of like damage are showing on the scans? Or if you ever see things that yes, have consistently shown to be irreversible.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 10:21

Yeah, so there's a very important concept in the brand to be understood with regards to when we when we use the term damage. And when we're doing functional assessments like EEG. The brain is a very, like, there's a structural component, and there's a functional component. So we have synaptic connections, and glial connections that build the brain out in terms of structure, organize it all. And then we have the function of that, which is kind of like what synapses are turned on, where and when. And they did both of those, they're kind of like structures the foundation for how the brain can function. So if you've had damage, like so to speak, so atrophy or microscopic enlargement, or you have ventricular enlargement or some of these, these more severe structural problems, it will affect function because the function automatically now can't be engaged properly. So it's a little bit like a computer software versus hardware problem where if we have like, you know, say, brand new windows 11, but we're trying to run it on a 2002 CPU tower, we're going to have a lot of problems, and we can tweak the software all we want. But if the hardware is not repaired, it's going to limit how much function we can access. Right. And that includes cognitive, behavioral and affectiv so emotional function. The damage piece, like there's been this idea for a long time that if the brain has been damaged, like it's been there's atrophy, or there's enlargement, that it's not reversible. And we actually know now, there are tons of techniques that can reverse these problems. But this is one thing that I see with people, especially with like mold illness being one example, post COVID, the newest kid on the block for it, but where we have this hardware problem where it's like all of a sudden our hardware has been reverted back to, there's less framework or foundation within it. So it can't sustain the psychology the brand properly. It's actually a lot of it's repairable, especially after mold illness. But this is one of the reasons why people get stuck where it's like, okay, I knew I had mold, I got away from the mold, I bind it, I detox, I did all these things, yet, I'm still having problems. And a lot of times it's because the problem went on for so long, due to the cell danger response and hyper metabolism and inflammation these structural areas got affected and those actually in some cases need to be rebuilt or shrunk back down to size. Things like hyperbaric oxygen, peptide therapies, photobiomodulation therapy, IV, laser, IV photobiomodulation therapies, those are things that can start actually driving mitochondrial function back up, getting energy resources back up, and then the glial cells go oh, we can rebuild the synapses now. So when we look at these, we are looking at those indirect markers for structural problems. We do use MRI a lot, though, as well, quantitative MRI and neuro quant to really confirm that okay, if we are seeing a functional problem, is it structural? Like is it a damage associated pattern, but we do see those reverse like whether or not it is just a functional issue, or it is a structural problem, we do see those reverse, we do see the brain being able to readapt normal levels of functioning again so.

Kealy Severson: 13:49

Do you ever see increased volume that just cannot go back down to size no matter what?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 13:55

I actually haven't seen a case of of like cerebellar, enlarge manager or pallidum enlargement, stuff like that. I actually haven't seen a case that we can't get improvements in. Now, sometimes you can't get it back to normal, right? Where like the quote unquote, where normal volume metrics should be, there or sometimes you fall a little bit short of that. And so that would be kind of what you were speaking to earlier is like, is there any, you know, do you ever see things on be able to be reversed or the damage persist? I think that we always see improvements. It's just how far gone is it and with the therapies we have approved and available right now it's like how far can we get back towards that normal state? But there are more and more you know, therapies coming online now we we started to investigate IV laser protocols utilizing UVA with red and infrared lasers and an IV catheter with photosensitizing agents that see seems to be moving the needle even further for people that were that were falling a little bit short of full recovery. So, yeah, there's I mean, there are some cases where you do fall a bit short, but I've always seen improvement to be able to be had.

Kealy Severson: 15:13

Now, given your symptoms of brain fog, and brain symptoms that you kind of described in university. I'm curious if when you we encounter a moldy building or accidentally get reexposed, if you have any flaring of those symptoms, or if you encounter those symptoms upon an exposure?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 15:36

Yeah, so I used to. Nowadays I don't notice it much. I really what I what I have found and this is if you actually take a look at Dr. Naviaux 's research on cell danger response is that the healthier that your mitochondria function is, the less you notice that stuff. So I even up until about two or three years ago, I would absolutely notice it almost as soon as I would go into building, usually brain fog, watery eyes, I feel a little bit disoriented. Not quite to the point of dizziness, but almost like I'm always on a boat. Now I don't notice it as much, I have to spend a long time in a place like you know, a few weeks usually. So if I'm, you know, on vacation, I was in Costa Rica a few months ago and there's a place I was staying at I started sort of feeling it by the end of the trip. But you know, the nice thing is I can get on a binder and recover quite quickly these days. But it didn't used to be that way. It used to be almost immediately.

Erik Johnson: 16:44

Just like me over several years, I built up tolerance until I go freely into places that used to knock me flat in seconds.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 16:54

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's an empowering thing. Yeah.

Alicia Swamy: 16:58

What's interesting about Erik's story is that he just practiced avoidance. You know, he didn't do any special therapies, or, you know, everything that is out there these days, he just simply utilized his own senses to navigate through his environments to reduce exposure, and over time reduction in exposure or no exposure at all, really allowed his body to heal to the point where he's like you now Corey, where he can, you know, withstand a place that may be bad, but you know, he could feel it, but it won't be so killer as it was before where it would knock them out. So that's where Kealy and I aspire to be. We aspire to be where you two are.

Erik Johnson: 17:41

Yeah, absolutely no choice in the matter, because there were no mold doctors back then.

Alicia Swamy: 17:46

Right. Yeah, there were no treatments, it was all a new thing. And he kind of had to figure things out on his own. And I'll let Eric tell the story because it's super amazing. He actually utilized his biological warfare training from the Army to heal himself, and you're gonna get a kick out of this one.

Erik Johnson: 18:06

Well, when I realized that certain buildings and contaminants from those buildings were affecting me on the level of a biological warfare agent, which I was trained for an army, my military instruction, my drilling kicked in, and I responded to it exactly as if it were a biological warfare agent. Use my senses to detect and evacuate and then decontaminate to make sure I wasn't carrying it home with me. And that made all the difference in the world.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 18:35

Yeah, that's that's incredible. It's interesting that you say biological warfare it's I mean, that's exactly what what it is, right? It's all those agents and inflammagens, and VOCs and mVOCs that are released by these microbes are exactly what they do andthey affect the the mitochondria detect them in the cellular level as biological warfare agent, right? They're bred, they're evolved to detect biological agents that that induce damage and toxicity and infection and so that's that's interesting and that and that is there's something to be said about that because if you can avoid it to a significant degree for a long enough period of time. Yeah, absolutely. You can you can get better that that really is the like basic principle it's really all you need. The trouble is in modern day living is a lot of people don't have the option to be able to you know, move and leave and you know uproot themselves constantly and you know, avoid workplaces and stuff like that obviously COVID has been a bit better of a gift that way not having to be in the office for some folk but yeah, it's that's admirable man that's awesome.

Erik Johnson: 19:51

Well, something to consider for people who say, Well, I can't afford to do this, is consider that some of the high priced mold experts costs so much money, that for the amount that you pay for your first appointment, you could probably buy a van or a cargo trailer or someplace to use as a refuge and get off cheaper than their treatments would be.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 20:12

Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then just have to do it for a long enough time and eventually things are better.

Erik Johnson: 20:19

Yeah, yeah. So this really is an option for people who are misguided and thinking they have new options.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 20:26

Right, right. Yeah, that's a good that's a great point. Yeah and that is the reality, the body knows how to heal, it prefers, it prefers to go into a healing regenerative state, you just have to get things out of the way. Right. What's in the way that's preventing that response from from kicking in? Yeah.

Erik Johnson: 20:43

So what can you tell us about Dr. Shoemaker's direction and actinomycetes?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 20:47

With regards to actinomycetes?

Erik Johnson: 20:50

Yeah, he seems to have detracted from his focus on toxic mold and mycotoxins and gone so completely into bacteria into filamentous aacteria, actinomycetes that is almost as if he's lost interest in toxic mold.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 21:04

Yeah, so what like recent updates that have been about two years ago, when they when they started actually, like testing for actinomyces, they just started finding that there was more far more people being affected by actinomycetes than mold and mycotoxins. And one of the reasons for it is actinomycetes can grow at a lot lower humidity. So there's a lower saturation requirement for these bacteria to proliferate. And it really just comes down to are very cheap building materials that we use like that. They're just pre inoculated with a ton of these bacteria. I haven't gotten a recent update from him on it. I had populations that they were looking at found that only about 17% of people with chronic inflammatory response syndrome were being affected by mold or mycotoxins. And the you know, other there was I think it was like 48% was actinomycetes, and then around 10%, with endotoxins. So I think he I think there is there's so little information available on actinomycetes. In human health, that he's really gone that direction now to just like learn as much as much as they can about it. This is actually it's kind of interesting, because in our practice as well, when we're doing quantitative EEG, we have markers for hypo metabolism. We have and then we have markers for innate immune dysfunction, and then we have like you were talking about, as Dr. Goldstein, was his was his name that day. Yeah, yeah. And looking at chronic fatigue populations where you get the slowing in brainwaves, you get all this excess Delta, like the brand's wanting to go asleep, go to sleep, even though it's awake. Not that really points to an acute inflammatory scenario. And that's exactly what we see in mold illnesses and acute mold toxicity, you'll see slowing of the brainwaves. When you aren't seeing that, you'll see the opposite, where you'll actually you'll actually have less slow waves and then you should have, and you get this excess alpha, which is actually a sign of hypo metabolism. And what Dr. Shoemaker and Dr. McMahon and a lot of these other guys have learned is that that is one of the primary culprits for molecular hypo metabolism, where the mitochondria decide that they're not going to bring, they're not going to release translocation, they're not going to express translocation, they're not going to bring anything into the mitochondria anymore. So now now you're forced to burn glucose through glycolysis and the amount of yield of ATP, and these mitochondria stay stuck in that state, as long as they're detecting inflammatories that are from actinomycetes. Now the same thing can happen from mold, but an acute mold that tends to be far more of an inflammatory problem rather than a hypo metabolism problem. So I think in the correlation with Dr. Naviaux s research and the cell danger response, which is really a mitochondrial central centralized problem, they've started seeing that okay, well, there is like this hypo metabolism component is way more important than the acute inflammatory component in these active population. But I think it's very important to note that mold is very much still affecting, you know, 1-2 out of 10 people around worldwide, right.

Erik Johnson: 24:31

So it's interesting that you reference Dr. Robert Naviaux , because he works for it with the open medicine Foundation and he's not talking about mycotoxins or actinomycetes.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 24:43

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's looking at a foundational problem underlying certain certain diseases and disorders and so Dr. Jimmy Ryan, Dr. Shoemaker have been looking at QRNA sequencing from, you know, of course serves and mold and acting those patients and looking at the gene products that are that are released by white blood cells and seeing the crossover with regards to the cell danger response. So they're the ones that are really shifting on that path. But Dr. Naviaux then been very hyper focused on just what is the cell danger response, what is it doing? And what arethe products that are being produced in that and and ultimately, how is that affecting the body's disease state?

Erik Johnson: 25:32

So it's kind of strange because Dr. Ron Davis and all the researchers at Stanford that the Open Medicine Foundation keep seeing that they haven't got a clue. They don't even know where to start looking. And yet here, we've got some excellent culprits. So why isn't Dr. Naviaux telling him about it? I've actually asked him that.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 25:52

Oh, okay. Okay. What did he have to say?

Erik Johnson: 25:55

He just kind of walked away actually. Interesting. Yeah, I thought he could really do us all a service, if he were to tell Dr. Ron Davis, to look specifically into some of these clues that we've had evidence for for a very long time.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 26:11

I wonder if there's maybe some financial interest there.

Erik Johnson: 26:14

Dr. Davis did state that their reluctance to move into mold right now is for lack of funding that they would need to hire somebody to look into it and that would be so expensive that right now, it's prohibitive. But there's already good evidence out there done by many researchers, and they could avail themselves of this at any time.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 26:34

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's interesting. I mean, of course, there's going to be a vested interest for, for some folks with regards to insurance coverage, and even building material problems, and you know, it you can open a pretty big can of worms. If if all of a sudden that, you know, starts being revealed, right.

Erik Johnson: 26:56

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But from a research standpoint, in order to understand the etiology of the disease, these are directions that we have to go.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 27:06

I agree. I agree. I agree completely. But the thing that I've learned about research is you don't always necessarily get to run free with research, there are a lot of hoops, there are a lot of people to answer to. And there's a lot of vested interest in an industrial vested interest. So it's not as easy as it as it sounds to. And I think that's important for people to understand. You and I are saying the research isn't perfect, and it's not all lining up that there's a lot of parties that do interfere with that so.

Erik Johnson: 27:41

That's true, but at the same time, but if that impediment is directly hindering the path that one needs to go in, well, then that becomes an unacceptable block. So I'm curious as to you know, you talked about insurance with Dr. Shoemaker shifted from presenting CIRS as primarily a mold and mycotoxin illness to primarily not being mold or mycotoxins, how is this affecting people who got their CIRS diagnosis based on mold testing?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 28:15

So that I mean, that's a great question. I am not in the United States. So our healthcare system works completely different. We don't even have for instance, we don't even have an acceptable CIRS diagnosis in Canada. Like that. That's just not something that is even really looked at as being an accepted diagnosis. It is a diagnostic code. But most of the time, it's completely ignored by primary health care network. So we like in our clinic, we don't we have zero subsidisation. And our insurance coverage is very minimal as it is. So it's, we have a very different system than the United States. So I am not too sure to be able to answer your question on that.

Kealy Severson: 29:03

Oh, what about within your own practice, like before the two years ago, when the actinomycetes came to say, hey, surprise, there's bacteria in a wet building, too. Who would have ever thought?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 29:17

Yeah, yeah.

Kealy Severson: 29:20

So before that two years ago, the diagnosis was then made on mold and mycotoxins. So you know, assuming patient care takes probably a few years to your clinic. I mean, I'm sure people what from six months to five years, I'm sure they're spending if they're chronically ill, depending on I guess, if they're getting results or not. You know, what are you seeing in your clinical observations when you had to change your treatment protocol from treating mold and mycotoxins to treating everyone like they overdosed on antibiotics?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 29:55

Yeah, so the the changes really came again, more more mitochondrial centered, rather than detox centered. In terms of initial steps, the issue here that the thing was actinides that didn't really change was was building remediation aside from having to do more small particle remediation. It did actually help us a lot because we, you know, we'd be running we'd be we'd clean something up in a house, we would get filters running, we would have the ERMI and HERTSMI retesting, done. And it's like, Okay, we're good to go. Why are you not getting better, right? Or why are you plateauing? Because that was that was a really common problem was like people plateauing. And then when we were able to access, accidentals definitely started saying, Ah, bacteria levels are elevated as well. So I think it's become the avoidance principle has become more important, where we're taking things even more seriously than we were previously in regards to, you know, this vacating houses that have bacterial problems, because they're, they're a lot harder to get under control. But we were isolating that have found improved outcomes, and less of this plateauing of symptoms over time. And then utilizing things like photobiomodulation therapies that we weren't using as much before, with with mold illness patients. So it has changed things a bit.

Erik Johnson: 31:32

It's kind of stunning for me to hear Dr. Shoemaker say that we found out that there's more besides mold, making people sick in buildings, when actually back in the indoor air quality literature of the early 1980s. It was all about bacteria and chemicals. In fact, that was the blame. In fact, the blame for bacteria like Legionnaires disease was so intense that they actually failed to discover toxic mold until 1986 because they were so focused on bacteria. So now let's say that there's more than mold. If Dr. Shoemaker were to come back with that, you know, very same attitude, he would not discover toxic mold, because he would be too busy saying, well, there's more than mold.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 32:21

Finding out it's a vicious circle.

Erik Johnson: 32:24

Yea, so actually when we look back on the development of the toxic mold phenomenon, we find that this specific type of Theseus producing toxic molds are so deadly, that they were very well worth discovering, well worth knowing about.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 32:42

Totally, just the left people being affected by them than some of these other agents, I think is the main, the main point of it.

Erik Johnson: 32:52

I suspect is what's going on is that Dr. Shoemaker's, GENIE test is uncovering what is known in the literature, and not some new mechanisms that are still unknown, waiting to be discovered because just anecdotally, when you look at how many people are complaining about toxic mold now, and pointing at it, and successfully identifying it, by feel alone, it's clear that their perceptions are saying there is something really specific about this toxic mold. And we're finding it even right through a wall using our senses. Yeah, and the failure of doctors to correlate their test results to what we perceive is a good strong indication that there's something that they don't know about yet.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 33:34

And without a doubt, I'm very certain that there's more, there always seems to be.

Kealy Severson: 33:42

Do you have patients that are so sensitive that they can walk into a room and say, This table has been contaminated from a mold exposure, and I have to take it out. Do you tell them like no, that's actually bacteria because that's what CIRS really is like, what do you tell them? Like just wipe it off with an antibiotic wipe or an antibacterial wipe? Like can't people just use antibacterial wipes to decon their stuff if it's all bacteria?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 34:09

Yeah, and that that absolutely can be done it you just always have to keep in mind.

Kealy Severson: 34:15

So the thing with hypersensitivity is like when someone's reacting to an item no matter what it's been cleaned with it actually can't be cleaned. Like that's what defines the hypersensitive mold injured population is they become so reactive to residual contamination or mold hiding somewhere that hasn't been properly resolved, that it actually can't be cleaned? No, no amount of cleaning can wipe it off. So I'm so I guess I'm kind of saying like if it was really just actinomycetes that was the mechanism primarily CIRS. In theory, we'd be able to take antibacterial wipes, to our furniture to our clothes, but that's not the reality of the hypersensitive population. I don't know if you're seeing this in Canada, but in the States, we see patients who will literally have to put their stuff in storage for a couple of years to then revisit it and see if they are still reacting to it. Or if they can take it out. They try ammonia, they try bleach, they try alcohol wipes, they try literally every substance under the sun, borax, EC3 you name it, people are trying it. And what's differentiating them from just like, someone who might have a stomach ache from a mold exposure or a headache for mold exposure is these people are so hypersensitive that they will react to things that can't be cleaned. And so do you see that in your clinic and if you do, do you like tell them, Hey, this is contamination? Or do you tell them, trying to take an antibacterial wipe? Or do you tell them like, Oh, you just have MCAS is because like, because maybe you don't realize they're reacting to contamination?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 35:51

Yeah. So the problem with going anti microbial approach is you kill things, but you don't clean up the small particles. And the small particle, non living inflammatory ones are a major component. And that includes mold, right? That includes cell wall fragments, and and everything else from more than bacteria, fungal hyphal fragments, right, so you can't just kill it and expect it's not be contaminated anymore, if that makes sense. Right? Because these small particles from the cell bursting, you have all these protein, all this protein matter and phospholipid matter and everything else that acts as an inflammatory in in the body. So if you have somebody that is they're reacting to some item, a couch, some you know, especially if it's like a couch or a mattress or something, you have to get rid of it. There's no way to clean that stuff. Right? Table shelves, it depends. It depends on how much microbial absorption you have in there. But I mean, generally, it's I don't really tell them like whether it's mold or bacteria or not, it doesn't really matter. It's something that is triggering a response in the limbic system is going, Whoa, something's going on here. Right. I don't like this. So in most cases, it just needs to be turfed. Right. But I always I always have, especially people that are very sensitive. I try to really encourage them to trust that, right? Because I think a lot of times people have been told not to trust themselves. Right? We've disempowered people as being their own own intuitive healers.

Kealy Severson: 37:31

Don't you think we're kind of also doing that when we tell them it's like a limbic system response, instead of saying it's actually like an immune system injury, because it's essentially telling people that it's in their head. And if you can retrain your limbic system and react less, you just prove that it's in your head instead of an actual physiological immune response.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 37:49

Well, and if you can do that, then great, then that proves it's the limbic response, right? But if you can't do that, then it's not.

Kealy Severson: 37:54

But in real life in the patient population, they do that. And maybe they're slightly less reactive with stress, but their Fibro pain is still there. And they still have MCS, but they think that those are separate conditions, because they think they treated the limbic system. And then they go on to think that these other conditions are not related to their mold hypersensitivity, when it indefinitely is, and then they use those conditions forever thinking that it's something else and it's not.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 38:21

Yeah, if you're sensing, mold, it is a limbic system sensory response. So if we're going to be honest with people and educate them, it is the brain that it's sensing, right, like the sensory organs or sensing, it still can be an immune response. Absolutely. Because we have inflammatory receptors in the amygdala, right? So the amygdala is meant to tell you something's not right. And that is within a given environment, you have to kind of figure that out for yourself. But even if it is an immune response, if you're sensing it, it's a limbic system sensory process, right?

Kealy Severson: 39:00

If something can trigger one part of your brain, it can trigger probably any part of your brain, especially when it's through the nervous system. So I guesss I do not agree that it's primarily a limbic system response that might be like secondary part of secondary but it's treated as primary and stated as primary.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 39:22

I mean, it can be but that if that was the case, it would be wrong. So the wrong way to label it.

Kealy Severson: 39:30

That's exactly my point. I think it's a wrong way to label it.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 39:33

But it is sometimes the limbic system response, and that's important to understand.

Kealy Severson: 39:38

I mean, that's what energy vampires teach, right? Like the doctors who talk about energy vampires, like that's what they say. But if there is an unknown mechanism of mold injury, like we all just agreed that there probably is like we really can't say that for sure.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 39:53

We can because treatment proves diagnosis. So when everybody when somebody simply It's completely resolved. Right? And they stay that way that supports diagnosis.

Kealy Severson: 40:08

But you already said re exposure can trigger a hypersensitive so. So if it didn't heal the immune system to prevent the retrigger, then it didn't cure. So it's not a cure.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 40:21

In that case, yes. If you are re exposed and you get symptoms, then yes.

Kealy Severson: 40:28

Well, doesn't that disprove the whole entire idea then because people are continuously re exposed to contamination?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 40:37

What all I'm saying is not everybody who does go and get reexpose get sick again, or gets a sensory

Erik Johnson: 40:44

They've built better tolerance. reaction.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 40:46

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Erik Johnson: 40:48

But this is where Dr. Robert Naviaux and Dr. Ron Davis really need to have a talk, because Dr. Davis' nano needle results indicate that there's a cellular response, that there's a dour response to the downregulation to the mitochondria by some age to the blood, completely independent of what's going on in the brain. So therefore, that cuts the limbic theory, right out of the deal.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 41:10

Yes, in in hypersensitivity to mold, yes, but not but not everybody.

Erik Johnson: 41:15

We don't, we don't need to have a brain at all, you can chop off somebody's heads. And if you have their cells in vitro, responding to this agent, that there is a systemic downregulation of the mitochondria that's affecting the body, regardless of what your thoughts are your fight or flight response, or limbic retraining or anything else.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 41:35

You have a cellular threat response, you have a cellular threat response.

Erik Johnson: 41:39

No brain, no mind body as all.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 41:40

As opposed to a mind body at all, a centralized threat response. Exactly, exactly. But there but there is bilateral communication as well, right? Where that is the response is evaluated differently.

Erik Johnson: 41:53

But if we want to find out what that agent is, we can go looking in the brain for limbic response. I think Dr. Davis is really on to something here because if you can find this agent in the blood, I mean, no brain involved, then you know, what's downregulating cellular ATP response.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 42:11

Right, right. And while and the other fact matter is also is that every almost every cell in the brain has mitochondria. So you have you have a threat response in the brain cells as well.

Erik Johnson: 42:22

Right. But we've already ruled that out. That's, that's out of the deal. So once once we find out there's an intracellular response to this agent, and we can reproduce this in vitro, we can kind of set aside whatever relevance the the your fight or flight response has, because we're looking for the specific agents that's turning off our mitochondria.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 42:44

But I'm saying it's happening in brain cells as well. Not not like not like specifically like your astrocytes, right? We know, there's aspects of leakage that occurs when this happens, right? Aquaporin gets leaked into the blood, and now you have water transport.

Kealy Severson: 42:58

But there's not going to be any cells that are immune to poison that's poisoning that cytotoxic. So every cell is going to be affected. So it really doesn't matter where they are. It matters, like what's happening.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 43:12

Totally.

Alicia Swamy: 43:13

I think we can agree to disagree. I hope we haven't thrown the heat on you too much today, Corey.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 43:20

Now, this is good, because, you know, well, and this is how I mean, this is how we gain understanding.

Erik Johnson: 43:25

Well, there's there's enough evidence for the brain retraining to see that there is some kind of effect going on here. Because people are getting improvement in their condition by downregulating their emotional response. But at the same time, if we want to find out what's doing this, we've got to do what Dr. Davis says, and look why this agent in the blood is capable of shutting off our cellular full production of ATP, regardless of what the brain is doing.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 43:55

Well, and what and that's the that's also the good point, because you need to look at the most the deepest, foundational cause, right? Because if you're just treating surface symptoms there, it's going to Well, it's going to be limited. And it isn't going to be longitudinal, either.

Erik Johnson: 44:13

There's a lot of people who are counting on the validation of mold testing, and the properties of mold to substantiate their case of illness so that their relatives, their doctors will believe them. But now by saying well, we don't think it's mold, it's kind of toxic soup or anything, everything. They're deprived of having that validation.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 44:34

Well and there was severe limitations and a lot of cases with with like, you know, quantitative DNA, quantitative PCR DNA sequencing and whatnot in ERMI and HERTSMI and you're not picking up like the toxic soup side of it, right. You're trying you're trying to find the microbes, but it's limited. Those techniques are limited. So yeah, I mean, if you're if you're looking for me anything to be fully validated doesn't always happen so.

Erik Johnson: 45:03

Yeah, aren't doctors in the position of having to say to their patients? Yeah, we thought it was toxic mold. But that was entirely wrong. We need to revisit your case completely.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 45:15

So I'm, like I said, in Canada, we're revisiting it to the best of our ability with testing, but it's just driven us towards more of a approach to avoidance and just being far more serious with avoidance.

Erik Johnson: 45:30

So if you believe that a chronic inflammatory response syndrome patient actually does have a toxic mold problems, say from Stachybotrys yeah, or Trichoderma, or Fusarium, Chaetomium, and trichothecene producer, do you tell them to say, CIRS, or do you instruct them to say, well, you should just call it mold illness?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 45:50

Yeah, I mean, we generally say with with regards to CIRS, if there if there's been neuropeptide, dysregulation, like the, and I'm sure you guys are familiar with the diagnostic criteria anyway. But if there's been neuropeptide dysfunction, with innate immune dysfunction, then you call it CIRS, if there hasn't been neuropeptide dysfunction or dysregulation, then you call it mold illness. And at the end of the day, avoidance is essential. Right?

Erik Johnson: 46:19

That's true. I will totally agree with that, mold avoidance is essential.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 46:23

So it almost doesn't matter what we call it it. But obviously, for insurance purposes and stuff that does on our end, because of our the way our healthcare system works, it just the coverage piece and insurance and just it almost if people actually come into Canada, and they have a CIRS diagnosis, they're almost looked at like they're a psychiatric case.

Erik Johnson: 46:45

Yeah, for sure.

Alicia Swamy: 46:46

So here in the US, even though we're you know, a little bit more progressive. It's just insane.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 46:54

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's so you're kind of here like, Okay, well, doesn't matter what we call it at this point. We know, we know you're toxic.

Erik Johnson: 47:04

I got into a bit of an argument with Dr. Shoemaker about that, because I told them, If I had lingering effects from brown recluse spider bite, I would call it spider bite illness.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 47:13

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean, why make it complex? Right? Exactly. Call a spade a spade. Yeah, that just creates more confusion and patient populations see it.

Erik Johnson: 47:29

Yeah. I would hate to go in and say, Well, I have CIRS. And the doctor go, oh, toxic soup illness. Kind of anything and everything.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 47:36

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Well, and yeah, they tried to explain, CIRS too right. Yeah. Give me your elevator pitch. Break it down. Yeah, yeah.

Alicia Swamy: 47:48

So how is Canada dealing with the whole mold thing? Are you seeing inspectors and remote remediators doing a good job? Like what? What's going on in the whole ecosystem of mold and people getting sick from it?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 48:03

It's horrendous to say, quite frankly, we have the one company here in Calgary that I would say does an okay job. But it's difficult again, because insurance companies don't want it as a problem. Right? Government doesn't want to admit its problem. No one wants to admit anything. Right? Builders, contractors, everybody just denies it. So it's really difficult to get to get any sort of remediation done. It's really it's really up to the individual to figure out situations where, you know, whether it's, you know, purchasing a trailer and, you know, dragging it out somewhere to a slot that they can stay in live obviously, really difficult where we're at in Canada with the with the weather fluctuations, but yeah, it's horrendous, and there's yeah, there's just no there's no accountability anywhere. You know, if you're not if you're not surpassing that EPA Standard, which you don't see a lot this like molds for trap testing and stuff. I mean, if that's not off the charts, and essentially, there's no coverage is like almost no help. There's been a few lawsuits that have had carried through up here and have been successful, but it's very far and few. So.

Alicia Swamy: 49:26

Wow, that's, that's sad to hear, cuz it's just, it's exploding out here. And even us being more advanced. We're still seeing so much just crap in the industry, really, to be quite frank here with mold testing and remediation, and, you know, I just couldn't imagine in Canada, it's probably a lot worse and are you seeing a lot more patients coming in to your practice? Like, are you just getting a higher volume of people coming in with this type of illness?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 49:56

Yes because I think that So some of the toxic peptides that were people were being exposed to through what, you know, things like the recent vaccination changes and COVID were the tipping point for people. And and again, you know, it's this big focus on post COVID. But I really think it's a lot of it is these people have been exposed for a long time in a low grade way. And it was the straw that broke the camel's back. So yeah, we're seeing a lot more of it. And it's interesting, because I think with like public medicine, you would think it would be in the government's best interest to actually, like, realize this and put some things in place for prevention. Right, it's going to cost them less in the long run. But yeah, it's not. It's it's not being accepted. So, yeah.

Alicia Swamy: 50:51

Well, thank you, Dr. G. Can Cory We appreciate you coming on and being such an awesome, awesome guest here and I know we're, we're tough over here, man. We're tough as nails. We love to debate and we love to get these conversations going because it's so important to have these conversations with each other, especially people who are trying to help mold sick patients from you know, Canada to, to the US. We have a big listenership in Australia too. It's a big issue in Australia, in the UK. And so it's just it's a growing problem. And we definitely need to work together to try to figure some things out. It's really nice to hear you as a physician, you know, pursuing the idea of mold avoidance and that being just number one, for a lot of people just avoiding, you know, the bad stuff.

Dr. Corey Deacon: 51:37

And listening to yourself, right. Like, that's the biggest thing like listening to your body. It's your body saying something's not right. It probably isn't.

Alicia Swamy: 51:46

We are 100% in alignment with you on that. Yeah, that's something that we talked about as well. All right, Corey. So if anyone is listening from Canada, which we do have a lot of listeners from Canada, where can they consult with you?

Dr. Corey Deacon: 54:46

Yeah, so our website www.neurvanahealth.com is our clinical website and then we do have offer like clinician and patient training programs as well. All through this like if people want to like understand the inner workings of this more, what the research shows and everything, and that's diverseinresearch.com. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, and thank you to all of our listeners. We appreciate you and we'll see you next time.