The Balanced Hormone Solution

Ep. 75 Why You Can’t Heal What You Can’t See: A Mold Illness Story Every Woman Needs to Hear

• Tracy Rickstrew • Season 1 • Episode 75

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Hey friend,


How many times have you thought:

“Something is wrong… but I can’t put my finger on it.”


Maybe you’re exhausted for no reason.

Maybe your anxiety feels like it came out of nowhere.

Maybe your teenager is struggling with symptoms no one can explain.

Maybe your house feels off, but you can’t explain why.


And yet… every doctor visit ends with:

“Your labs look normal.”


In this week’s episode, we’re going somewhere most women never think to look:

👉 your environment — specifically, mold and mycotoxins.


Today’s conversation is with my friend Emily Tant, a homeschool mom of five whose journey through mold illness is nothing short of wild, heartbreaking, and incredibly hopeful.


🎧 Listen to the full episode: Why You Can’t Heal What You Can’t See


Inside this episode, we break down:


• How mold illness hides in plain sight—and why symptoms rarely look like a stuffy nose or allergies

• The emotional trauma connection and why life events can “switch on” susceptibility

• Why women are often the first to get sick (hint: hormones + stress + toxic load)

• The difference between mold and mycotoxins—and why one is far more dangerous

• What testing actually works for your body and your home

• Real stories from Emily’s family that will make you rethink what “mystery symptoms” really mean

• How to know if your home is a safe place to heal—or the thing keeping you sick

• The hope on the other side of getting answers, clearing your environment, and watching your body finally exhale


This episode isn’t about fear.

It’s about awareness, clarity, and hope—because you deserve to understand what your body has been trying to tell you all along.


Your body isn’t broken.

It’s communicating.

And today, we’re giving you a new language to understand those signals.


In health,

Tracy Erin



Before you go…


✨ Join The Balanced Hormone Solution Today!

If your hormones feel out of control and you don’t know where to start, this program will walk you step-by-step back to energy, peace, and a regulated nervous system.


Inside BHS, you’ll get:


✔️ Functional labs that actually show what’s going on

✔️ A personalized protocol that removes the guesswork

✔️ A 90-day roadmap that stabilizes cortisol, restores insulin balance, and supports sex hormones

✔️ The exact lifestyle strategies that shift your mood, sleep, energy, libido, and weight


You can join right here!


Follow along on Instagram @perimenopause.nurse


You don’t have to do this alone.

Speaker 6:

Welcome to the Balance Hormone Solution Podcast. If you're a woman 35 plus feeling exhausted, struggling to lose weight, and wondering where your libido went, this is for you. I am Tracy Aaron, a functional medicine practitioner who helps women balance their hormones naturally. Without prescriptions, guesswork, or trending Nonsense.'cause here's the truth, your symptoms aren't random. They're signals. And if you know how to listen, you can fix the root cause and start feeling like yourself again. If you're ready for real solutions, let's get to it.

Audio Only - All Participants:

today we have a very special guest, my friend Emily Tant, who is a fellow homeschool mom. She has five children that she is still homeschooling actually all the way through to marriage and even a grand baby now. So, we are going to have an exciting conversation today about the journey through mold illness and, emily has a powerful story to share with us, and I can't wait to dive into the background of how this insidious moment in time comes to wreak havoc in our bodies, whether we're aware of it or not. And we need a tremendous amount of awareness around this concept of mold, which sometimes is unseen. And, uh, let's get to the bottom of that and how we can, how we can learn what resources we have available to us and how we can make it through to the other side. And so, Emily, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Tracy. I'm excited to have a conversation about something. I had a conversation about a lot. It's, it's interesting how once you've been through something. The doors open for other people flock to you and they, they look at you for hope they come to you for answers and when you've been through something as I don't know, is it fair to say traumatic? As in depth, as intense as mold illness. It's something you don't just get over something you don't just forget and you learn so much along the way that it's hard to keep your mouth quiet about it if you see somebody else suffering. I feel like you want to be that that lighthouse. That is sharing information. Look, you don't have to suffer to the depths that I did too. That's how I felt anyway, but, so I'm so glad that you are a resource for your community and for people who come to you and, uh, and want a help on a pathway forward. So let's start at the beginning. Like tell me about,, your journey. Some of this I'll be hearing., I'm familiar with a little bit of your journey, but a lot of this is brand new to me too, so I can't wait. Start wherever you want to start, but just kind of paint the picture for me, like, when did you first realize something was wrong? This was beyond the seasonal cold flu. This was something bigger, deeper. What was that like for you? So. It's interesting because if, if when I talk about my mold journey when I knew it was mold, that is very, that's much more recent, like in the last six or so years. But if I start at the beginning and say your question, when, when did you know something was off? I would go back to high school. Really? I moved to Nashville at 14 and, had really not really any big issues prior to that. We moved into a house and hindsight's everything, moved into a house on a road called Springdale Drive, ironically. And the spring was actually in the house or in, in the yard of the home that we rented for a couple of years. And looking back in that home, the basement had just visible, fuzzy mold growing all on it. Mm-hmm. Had that did not ever, the, the connection was never made that this was impacting health. And so I, it was sometime after that we moved to another house that I don't remember as much of an obvious thing. But needless to say, from, from maybe 16 on, I would just end up at the doctor and not having answers. And it would be something like tightness in my chest and they would say, well, I think it's pleurisy. But there would be, there would never be any. Solution or there would never really even be a, an answer about why or what. As, let me think. We got a little bit down there. A lot of times it was just achiness. Maybe more in college. I would just feel like achy body and shoulders and just tiredness. I remember going to a doctor and they would be like, well, you know, you almost meet all of the, the num, whatever the number of symptoms are for things like chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia, which really is no diagnosis anyway. But but it was along those lines of that kind of, that pathway. Thank, did you have siblings too? Did you grow up with siblings? Uhhuh and, and did anybody else have any symptoms? You know, it's interesting to think back. Uh, different, maybe some different type things, but nothing glaringly obvious. I, we grew up my, we were very kind of crunchy family growing up. We were homeschooled. We didn't eat sugar. My mom baked bread kind of. It's funny now I'm gonna kind of laugh'cause it's trendy now. And so we, but we were always very alternative, kind of, kind of in with medicine, and I was. After I graduated real, I started doing a program, it was Clayton's School of Natural Health. It was like correspondent school because we didn't have, you know, we didn't have the Zoom stuff any back then. And that was, so that was always my passion, was to do that kind of stuff and help people. I found this was probably, uh, this was around age 19, we found a Chinese medicine doctor. In North Carolina who sent a bunch of stuff, and it really helped me, really helped kind of go that path. You and I share another doctor experience. I feel like I've been very blessed to have, definitely over the last 20 years, some people who've kept me from drowning as far as mm-hmm. Symptoms that I look back and know that mold was a part of, that was very, very helpful. I think after I got married I was in a really good, I was super healthy, super great. Moved into a great house, started having babies right away. I, when I was pregnant with my third, I was 25, I guess, something like that, and it was 2001. It was the first time my husband and I had gone on a trip together. And we went to New York City and it happened to be September 10th that we got there and the next day we all, oh wow. You were there in the city. We were. And it's a weird way to relate this to mold, but when you talk about the impact that trauma plays in all aspects of your life, it was, it was awful. I had a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old at home, and I was 17 weeks pregnant and. It was, it was an escape issue. It was, it was scary. It was probably, it was the most traumatizing thing I've ever really gone through. Mm-hmm. And we made it to safety, if you will, so to speak. We couldn't even get outta the city because there were, you know, threats on all the bridges and all the things. And I really, my body, like, even though I had been like, at that point, that was a really good season of health for me. At that moment I felt that I was like. Probably losing the baby, like your body. Just everything was fine. He's great. He's 24 years old, 23 years old now. It's all great. But I do believe that, you know, a lot of people will talk about things like genetics, uh, to mold susceptibility, genetics to those types of things. We always have the genes. We always have the things, and something is gonna pull that trigger and cause an activation, whether it's. Whether it's COVID, whether it's, you know, another stealth infection or something. Or a trauma. And I think the things that that did, even though I wasn't living in mold at that time, I think it set this, I think it set me on a trajectory of dealing with things that were maybe already built up in my body. Yeah. Because there are genetic components that cause 25% of the population to not be able to properly process biotoxins, including mold mycotoxins. And so maybe those things were stored up, maybe. And so at that point, after that it was, it took me a couple of years to kind of go the fear that I was living in and feeling was not normal. And that is certainly a trauma issue, but there's a way that I feel like they intersect and relate. You know, I, again, in my twenties I was like all these pregnancies, you, you nurse for a couple of years, so your hormones are always up and down. And I was, I again, I was super healthy. I felt really great most of the time, but I would have these times where anxiousness, I guess would take over and it would be like, but it would be things, you know, I actually went and talked to a therapist and. I think my faith, like I knew in my head the right things and the right answers, and that God's in control of whatever the things I was anxious over. And I just knew there was something missing. I knew there was something like, this is not a, this is not a rational thing for me to go discuss and get fixed. There's something else going on here. And so, uh, fast forward, we had this house that we lived in when. I had my last baby in it. I, well actually the last two, we lived there for about 14 years and we just kind of had, it was kind of comical. How many different water instances in our home water damage instances from an overflowing toilet that damaged all the downstairs wood floors due to a root growing in the back. And it punctured something and backed up everything to a major refrigerator. We probably, in a se in a couple of years, had about three big things, not including, you know, boys in a, with a bathroom that they would spill water out of the bathtub and those types. And so it was about 14 years ago that. We had some issues and, and again, even 20, I would be working with a homeopathic doctor in California and she helped me a lot with my hormones and dealing with what I thought was only hormonal. Now I'm just like, I think I, I think there was an underlying thing is right, but about, I just remember about 14 years ago. We knew we had some mold issues. We could see some visible mold, and so we hired somebody that we thought was a good person to come check it out. She came to our house, pretty much, gave us a clean bill of health, but I didn't know the, I didn't know the impact that it could or was having on myself and then ultimately some of my kids as well. Right. We continued to live in that house and you know, it would be things like. Waking up with your heart pounding, waking up and just feeling, and, and, and again, that was not necessarily linked to like, I'm thinking about something really scary or really bad, right? It would just be random. And so that's where, I mean, the connection, the emotional, yes, it's in your head, if you will, but there, there was just something bigger. Pain, weird pains, ice pick, shooting pains, vision disturbances, like eye floaters and things like that. But I'm just like, these aren't normal. Heart pal. Like I said, heart palpitations. I look back now, so that was like about 14 years ago. We had kids in that house. All things came to a head more when we moved. Six years ago almost. Exactly. And so a lot of those things that I was just curious about trying to figure out, thankfully we have some really good alternative doctors that were keeping our bodies in the best place they could possibly be from a health standpoint. Mm-hmm. But I do look back and wish I'd known what I know now about just some of the things that were, my kids were dealing with. A couple of them had some learning issues. We had a couple of like late like bedwetting issues. Mm-hmm. Nosebleeds are another big thing. We dealt with not that much, but just things that I chalked up to. This is just how they are. This is just who they are. Right. And the thing is, you're not describing the, the typical symptoms which people usually blame on mold, which is allergy, runny nose, postnasal, drip, cough, that kind of thing. Doesn't sound like you guys even experienced that. No. I will say I, well, one part I will say that is almost like that. Okay. So I think that the, the difference is mold versus the toxins that mold produced. Yes. And so when you have a mycotoxin. That molds different. There's lots of different kinds of molds and they produce a lot of different kinds of mycotoxins and they're just, that they're toxic. And so, we didn't have, we really didn't have that many allergies. I have one son who has some allergies, things that could have been. Like that. He would go through a season where, you know, stuff would bloom and I think things were just, maybe it was too much on his body or whatever and he would, yeah. But no, I like tho those were not my symptoms. Yeah. I will say however, before we moved and again, we had an upstairs that was fully carpeted. I had five kids. When I look back and think about that, the carpet was disgusting. It probably held, God only knows what kind of dirt and dust and toxins, but. I do remember about the month or so before we moved, I was cleaning out, like under our bed. I was cleaning out in the closets and it did stir up dust. I, you know, I mold dust, all of that would kind of, would kind of do it. So the story was we moved to a house at the Great House in downtown Franklin, a hundred and a hundred years old. From the day we moved in and, and, and again, we had experienced in that season, this was 2019, December of 19, a lot of, a lot of hard things. So there was, there was definitely trauma, if you will. My dad died that. The year before and we were closing down a business, there was just a lot. And my brother-in-law was going through cancer treatment and he was 40 and my granddad died the day we moved in here. There was just, it was just a lot of, a lot of family things. And so we move in and the first couple of nights I don't remember which, I would wake up in the middle of the night and, I just like couldn't breathe.

Speaker 2:

So we moved into this new house and it was a hundred years old, and I wanted to have I wanted to make sure that with our home inspection at closing or whatever, that they did some extra mold testing, but I didn't really know what that needed to look like, and they really didn't do a good job because they found nothing. We move in on basically the day after. Thanksgiving and I will backtrack a little bit and say having, I think I said this a little bit ago, but having moved and cleaned out the other house, I was already feeling some things, like probably more of an allergy reaction to dust and mold spores. But when we moved into this house, I couldn't sleep in it and ended up going to my mom's. We got some people that we thought might be better mold people to come look at it and to see what it, if there was, if that was part of it. What we found was there had been a renovation just a month or two prior to us moving in and in one of the master bathroom closets, which was mine, it had a lot of shelving. It was a great, it's a great closet, but they basically. Did the renovation put up MDF particle board in the, in the, in the closet. Didn't seal it. And then come to find out it looked like the people that worked there probably cut the MDF in the closet and then swept it up, threw it down the, the vent in the closet. So every time the he would get, and so I was having a very strong reaction. I mean, it. It's a, it's a horrible substance. I was having a strong reaction to that.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

That was the acute piece. So we had that all ripped out. We had it rebuilt and that helped that acute can't breathe

Speaker 3:

right.

Speaker 2:

I was still getting worse and not feeling well in the house. And so we did do, we found somebody who came about four times and did mold inspection and they would come and they would go, yeah, we found something here. We're gonna fix it. Okay, great. We put an HRV, we, we encapsulated the crawlspace. We did a lot of good things. Yeah, but we were still having issues. And I know this is my health story, but my health story obviously involves my kids. And this is our mold story. But four years ago one of my daughters, all of my kids did the same. Very, uh, rigorous tutorial that our kids are both involved in now, and she struggled with reading and comprehension and had some learning issues, but she had been, this was her third or so year of being involved in this program. And I just remember in January and February they have to write a big thesis paper and my husband would always help her with that. And again, this is the third time she's done it. I just remember him telling me it's like she's just not even an active participant. Like he said, wow, I'm doing this on my own. I just feel like she's blank. And about that time, her teacher would send an email and say, Hey, I need, I need your journal entries, and I'm not getting it. I haven't gotten them. And, and that happened two or three times. And I remember going to her and being like, what's up? Why are you not doing this? And thankfully, God gave me. Enough grace and wisdom to not jump down her throat. Like sometimes I want to do as a mom, Hey, why are you not doing your homework? But I could tell something was off and I, and the second time it happened, she looked at me and she said, mom, when I get those emails, I read my screen and I can't, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do.

Speaker:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

And. After that second time, this is probably, I don't know what time it is or what year, what month. It was like March. I finally was like, something's gotta, something's gotta be checked out. So I went to the garage. Yeah. And pulled out a crowbar and went upstairs. The two of our girls were up in the room, or the upstairs has. Beadboard kind of cute little cubby, very quaint old. And I just started pulling down beadboard, and this is after having maybe two different companies coming out three or four or five times, and it was just all black up there.

Speaker 3:

And let me ask you, would they do like air samples?

Speaker 2:

They did air samples. Yep. Which is, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Which I have mixed. Yeah. I got mixed feelings about that type of mold testing.

Speaker 2:

And then they would investigate, you know, they would look if there were certain areas that I could feel it or smell it or, and so, you know, they found a little bit more than just through air samples, but, but yeah. Yeah. So I ended up doing an army and it ended up being horrible.

Speaker:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

Where I would, actually, let me backtrack just a little bit. So we moved in. She started getting bad, you know, it was a year and a half later, I guess, at the previous home where I told you we had problems. And I was a, had a lot of them. My older daughter at the other house had some issues with, she ran cross country and she developed some exercise induced type asthma.

Speaker:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

And so that would be a symptom. You know, like you might say, well if you're, that seems like more of a respiratory thing that fits. She did have that for a little while and. Then her, uh, freshman year of college, she lived at home, went to Lipscomb, did fine her first semester, and her second semester she basically had to sit out and she got so sick and her symptoms were very similar to mine in that they were just weakness, fatigue, I would say. She was never officially diagnosed'cause we just kind of stopped that going down that route with pots or dysautonomia. Mm-hmm. But it was depressive symptoms and it was, it was pretty severe. And so that was in the winter. And then over the summer we started doing all the things we know to do and she perked up a little bit. But when we moved to this old house we have a front part and a back part and the back house. Is where three of my older kids lived. It's disconnected from the front house just through a little porch, but it is mm-hmm. A and separate building. When she moved here to this house, she got better because she got out of what she was being exposed to and she was in a new. A new space, if you will, because it was a garage apartment and it was all clean and new. So the second daughter who's upstairs in the front house is the one that went downhill,

Speaker 3:

right?

Speaker 2:

So find the mold, do the irmi, it's off the charts. I found a guy and he comes in and I just remember standing on my kitchen at my kitchen counter and saying, I don't know what I need. The next step needs to be, but this is what I, this is my army. Yeah. And he looks at me like we don't see him this bad very often, which was, yeah. Like, I don't know if that's a relief or you know, like, okay, well at least there's a reason. Right. So maybe to say I took out my two daughters who were living in the front house, in that upstairs and myself, and we moved to the back part. And just back to your question about. People thinking that mold issues are, you know, nasal issues or eye issues or respiratory issues. Nine days after I moved that daughter to the back house, and this is obviously before we really had any time to be doing any supplementing and detox and anything else, but nine days later she looked at me and she goes, mom, I can feel my brain working again. And that was. Just shocking to me. Like, wow, thank you God, and oh my word. Yeah. She was

Speaker:

being,

Speaker 2:

and so, you know, it's been a journey. We've done some massive remediation. We have some really great people. I say partners in health, partners in home that I'm so thankful for.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

And we've had to, and we've, we've done it a couple of times. We had to get rid of a ton of stuff.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

We filled up more dumpsters and from a, I think maybe you were talking about the symptoms, the hard parts. I mean, that would be my turning point about, okay, this is the, this is a big piece of the puzzle and so what do we do? It was very hard emotionally, and I think also, you know, because mold toxins, mm-hmm. Impact your brain. Yep. Impact your emotions, affect your hormones, all of those things. You know, brain fog and like, especially with, I'm talking about with my daughter, she couldn't even think to do her journal entries much less, you know? Right. Having to have those issues and deal with creating a plan for how do we fix our home? Yep. Fix our family. Deal with our things. Yeah, so we got rid of the majority of our stuff that we couldn't clean. We cleaned a lot. And then we've had several different remediations, and again, even last year. I think this is why it is so important, even after you have a successful remediation, is staying on top of it and continuing to check and continuing to listen to your body. I mean. Canary for sure.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

My husband's dismay. But you know, last fall, even our hvac, after we had done this whole thing a couple years before, we had two of the worst kinds of mold growing in the hvac. And so, stuff happens and so you just, it's a constant thing to be just watching.

Speaker 3:

How do you know when you're done? How do you know when you quote unquote found it all? Do you keep doing IRMI tests?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You want to get a clean IRMI post remediation? For sure. I also think, I think you listen to your body. I think. For, for sure. Uh, what's also interesting is the daughter that was older, that had the issues that moved out because she was sick and, and got better. My sec, my youngest daughter was up there and really had, had no symptoms until she moved out and until we started detoxing. And so different people hold on to and react differently, number one. And her symptoms were more of like. That came out maybe when she was unmasking, like her body finally felt safe enough. Mm-hmm. And then we had been doing mycotoxin urine tests and hers were nothing. At the beginning, she was not releasing anything. And then, you know, six months later it's like, oh my gosh, these are ridiculously high numbers. But it was finally her body allowing it to herself, you know, her to release and do that. Right. But yeah, I think, you know, within a family, I, I think one of the things that I see a lot. That's really sad and hard is it's easy if you move into a place and then you know, the next week everybody in your family feels sick.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

But often what it is, is you live in an environment and everybody's okay, and then something, either you have a water issue or maybe there was already something there. Right. And then. One or two of the members have something go wrong. They get sick, they have something, a trauma, a surgery, a pregnancy a something that activates and turns that gene on, and then all of a sudden they're sick. And it is because of the toxins in the home, it's finally affecting them. Their trauma bucket was, or their, sorry, their toxic load bucket was full. Yep. Some trauma causes this to overflow and then all of a sudden they're experiencing these symptoms. Then they're married to some guy who's like, I don't know what's wrong with you. It's

Speaker 3:

perfectly fine. It happens all the time.

Speaker 2:

It does. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's easy to feel isolated. It's easy to feel like it's all in your head. It's easy to feel like, well, maybe this is just passing, but when, when you're the only one who's sick in the house, and it's hard.'cause you know how expensive remediation is and how emotional it is to get rid of. Maybe family heirlooms, old pictures, old books, things that you've have an emotional attachment to, and then you gotta go through all this in hopes that you'll get better. I've been there. It's so hard.

Speaker 2:

It is so hard. I have, I, you know, when I'm talking to people who are just like, I just don't even know what to do. Mm-hmm. It costs too much money. I, you know, I'm thankful. We live in a nice house in downtown Franklin and I'm, I'm grateful that we've had the, the means to. Fix the problem. Mm-hmm. But I am so convinced that, well, it's not even that I'm convinced, I'm just, I experienced the healing of it all and knowing that when I'm in that environment, I'm so sick, I would, I would move three hours away to the smallest town and by the cheapest house and put all of my money into making it safe. If that was, if that's what it required me to do. To be, to be Well, exactly. Financially. Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 3:

If you, if you get your health back from mold, you realize there is no price tag too high to pay.

Speaker 2:

Yes. And you hear about people who are healing in tents out somewhere. And Yes. In the desert. In the desert. And it makes, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make common sense. People think it's crazy, but it makes sense when you've experienced that and you say, mm-hmm. It's just worth it. And so, yeah. I think, you know, when you talk about healing. Number one, I think is definitely getting out of exposure. And you, and you want your body to be able to get to a place where you can have amounts of mold exposure. If you go to the coffee shop or you know, or whatever you're gonna, we are, we are in a world where we have to ex to go places and I get that. I would say my li my ability to handle small. Things like that is a lot better, much better than it used to be. But the other piece of the healing deal that I feel like was really, really huge was the nervous system regulation. And that's why I keep talking about like nine 11 and the traumas and, you know, the, just the experience. I mean, goodness, going through a mold issue in your home is traumatic in and of itself. After my daughter, you know, moved out and nine days later felt her brain working that was the beginning of summer or end of the school year. And so over the summer she was doing a lot of, we do a lot of kinesiology muscle testing, knowing what her body needed supplement wise and detoxifying wise. And, but she was able to do it and not continuously being be exposed to the problem. And so that was really helpful and we noticed an improvement at the end of the summer though, she ended up doing lens neurofeedback. And when I tell you at this point she was 16 and you know, sometimes your kids kind of go through. I guess puberty at 12 or 13 and they're, they kind of, their personality changes for a little bit and then it kind of comes back, you know, you're like, oh. It was almost like, I remember my husband and I looking at each other after she went through Lens and like she was back to her old self from five years before. Like, I didn't realize that even the bubbly, happy gone and it was just so life changing. And so for several years I've just, I feel like. The two things I tell everybody I wish I'd known 30 years ago was like, we were always into healthy food. We were always into supplementing, and I'm thankful for that. The only other pieces are environmental what, what you're breathing. Yep. And, and nervous system work. And I think, you know, I've, I've heard someone say. About diet. I think as a culture we're so much better about food. People are talking more about what we put in our bodies, which is so huge, but you know, you can go. How many days without food. Mm-hmm. You mean people can stay fast? We can go that long without eating. We can go Yeah. A few days without water. Right. How long can you go without breathing? You can't.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So when you're living, I mean, it almost after that, the shift was almost like, I would rather eat McDonald's and live in a clean house. Yeah. Seeing the difference that getting out of those, those toxic environments made. Yeah. So anyway, I've, I've been a kind of a. An evangelist for the, the mold piece and also the neurofeedback piece. And the daughter who's now 20, is actually just now starting, she's just been practicing doing Lynn's neurofeedback. She finally, a couple years after she went through it, she goes, that's what I wanna do. It was so helpful and so amazing. It's, that's a cool story in and of itself. But yeah, she's in Nashville treating people because it's so good for everything. Yeah. But I just. Having your body, when your body is stuck in a position of like cell danger response or

Speaker 3:

yes,

Speaker 2:

or fight or flight or freeze it can't heal properly, whether it's, whether it's mold toxicity or anything else. And so I just think it's kind of one of those, like, everybody should do this.

Speaker 3:

How did you know whether or not you could stay in your house? How did, did you think, oh, well maybe we're gonna have to sell this place and move again?

Speaker 2:

Yes. I think, you know, it, it's been a journey and I, I, and I'm, like I said, I don't know that it's ever gonna, we're always gonna have to be checking and, and seeing. Mm-hmm. I think where it came down to it is our building biologist. I. There are, there are really good things about older homes. They breed. Yeah. Part of the problem with mold or the, you know, with

Speaker 3:

Yes. Newer construction. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

newer construction. It's locked

Speaker 3:

in there.

Speaker 2:

We make them airtight. We, we build'em with mold food, you know, sheet rock, and they put all this stuff in it that actually creates more of a problem. And so I think once we got down the path a certain way, we were like. We're probably gonna have to do this in any house that we, we get. Yeah. And we know this house. We know what it has been through. We know what we've done and we know what to watch for. Yes. So that's where we are today. I mean, yeah. I. Yeah. That's a big piece of it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. One of my doctors who helped me the most with my health journey ended up focusing on mold in the end. And one of the things that he said is my main question is, can I get better in this environment? Yeah. Or do I need a new environment? That's, that's the real, that's the bottom line question. Right. And he would say, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Uh, perfect. That's a, that's

Speaker 2:

really smart.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I thought the same thing. Okay. We've looked enough behind every single wall we've been under and on top of and inside everything, and I know what we're dealing with here. So the question is like, can you fix what you're dealing with? Or do you need to start over? But every time you start over, especially in Tennessee, I mean, I cannot. Tell you how many women who have a story that goes something like, and then I moved to Tennessee and got sick. Yes. That was my story and I hear it all the time. It's not because I'm looking for it. There is, there's a, and I have heard. Mold doctors in particular talk about the geographical region, particularly of this Tennessee Valley of how it's a little bit like a fishbowl and how, you know, we've got those three stars on our state flag and we've got the high lands, the Midlands and the lowlands, and here we are in the Midlands and how it's not just because we get more rain than Seattle every single year, although we do, it's, it's the nature of. Our, uh, geography here, it's the rock bed that we build everything on. It's all the moisture, the humidity, the weather that will change in minutes, you know, from sunny and, and then rain all night long, whatever. All these things create a perfect storm, and if you've got these other things happening in your life, all you need is one little tiny trigger and boom. You've got all these genetics turn on and it really does feel like a nightmare begins. But you found a lot of people along the way to, to help you to provide answers, to get you out of the danger zone. Like what do you do now? Do you have air filters in in rooms?

Speaker 2:

We have air filters everywhere We have had, yes. And we just, you know, we've just decided that Eric Davis is gonna come to our house annually and just

Speaker:

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Check. And, and you know, you, you mentioned something about, are you asked about testing? Like the people that came initially, did they do air testing? Yeah, and I think, I think the tricky part about mold in the body and mold in the home is that. We always want one test that gives you all the piece, all the information that you need to know. And that's just not a reality. Like yeah, a urine mycotoxin test is really helpful in a lot of ways. Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

But

Speaker 2:

if you're not releasing, it's not gonna tell you necessarily if you have it, it's a good guide you know, uh, and in your house. When people come in and just put an air sample. I mean, we actually, I have now I have a couple of accounts with different testing labs, I guess. Mm-hmm. And you have an air machine, but there's a ti there's a place for those things.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

But they're not just the only test that you do. And I think that's where when you pick up the phone book and you call a mold place and you don't really have any information about. How they're supposed to be doing it properly or whatever. A lot of people will just come plop their air machines in your living room and it'll be okay. Yeah. And you know, that could change the next day or in four hours, like what's coming through. But what they're not doing and not accounting for is that. It's the mold, whether it's active mold growth or what Right. Might call dead mold. They're still producing mycotoxins and so if you have a wall that's next to your bed, or it doesn't even have to be because we have HVAC systems that pull it, but if you have a wall that has old mold and Yep, it's just sitting there lying dormant, it's still producing and can produce mycotoxins and your air, the air test. Machine is not gonna pick that up. It doesn't test for that. And so that's why having a really good IEP building, biologist, whatever, come in and search. Yeah. And they, not for mold, but they look for clues for mold and then they test. And so looking behind the walls and putting a hole in a wall and then doing an air cassette in the wall or Right. Swabbing it and, and shipping it off. And so it's, yeah. To me it's kind of like. You know, if you have a, a health issue and you go to a Western doctor and they look at you and they're like, Tracy, you look great. You're, you're well. And you're like, okay. And then the next time you go, you know, they do a blood test or an x-ray and then finally they do like a CAT scan or something. Like, there's so many different ways and they're just, yeah, this is the deep way and you wanna make sure that you're going all in and finding all the potential problems. I think, you know, you asked something about. Maybe women who feel stressed or, or whatever. How do you, how do you communicate to them that this could be a, this could be a problem mm-hmm. I think, or, or communicate why this could be a problem. I think one of the interesting things about mold issues or cs, which is a, which is chronic inflammatory response syndrome, is, it's considered a multisystem multi symptom illness. Mm-hmm. So a lot of times when people are just assuming that it's a, you know, like an allergy or a respiratory or whatever, but when you look at people either living in the same home or even an individual with a lot of symptoms that don't seem to go together I think that's where. That's the time to start looking for maybe mold or biotoxin. That's a root cause because it basically is you have, like this one woman I spoke to, just as an example, found mold. Thankfully they were doing something in their basement and people came up and said, you know, she needed to. Get this mold situation fixed before anything else. Okay, so she was 60 years old and she called me and she was. Tears and it was, she was so drastic. It was such a drastic difference. She said, A year and a half ago I was perfectly fine.

Speaker:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

I'm on nine medications. Her kidney were not functioning properly. Her liver was not pump functioning properly. She was, she was on medication for depression. She was having heart issues like it was and, and that would, to me was like the picture of the multi, it affects inflammation. Chronic inflammation affects any and all parts of your body. And so, yeah. I just think it's something that's often overlooked, and it's not to be the person that always says every one of your symptoms is mold, but if you have these things that aren't going away and they're not being helped, any of those body systems can be manifesting a problem with the inflammation that these biotoxins can cause.

Speaker 3:

Right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's so, it's so symptom wide. It's, it's like when people are just looking for the runny nose, they're missing 99% of what mold illness actually can do in the body, and it can masquerade and look like so many different things, which is what ends up keeping men and women on what feels like a rat race, trying to solve an unknown. Problem. It's like, I remember feeling like it's hard to fight a war when you don't know who your enemy is. And so it's almost so relieving when you do find mold as the culprit.'cause at least now you know what you're dealing with, even though it can feel so overwhelming and expensive and emotional and all the things, but now you at least know what you're trying to tackle.

Speaker 2:

I don't know about your, like, about what your thoughts are on this, but, I just think that it's very helpful. I don't know. I seeing the kind of doctors that I see, I, I'm not ever really looking for a diagnosis. It's more of like, this is what you're dealing with and this is maybe what you need in order to help your, help support your body in this.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

I, I don't wanna know maybe what I have. I don't wanna know, oh, well you have rheumatoid arthritis, or you have hypothyroidism, or you have lupus, or you have whatever. What I love, what, what to, to say, to agree with what you're saying. I, I love knowing the why behind it instead of the what?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because even getting a label, I think people will take something like, oh, well you have chronic fatigue syndrome, or you have fibromyalgia, and, and then people just being okay with that and treating the symptoms and not helping the symptoms and not looking for the why behind it. Just kind of makes it feel like you could be just stuck there forever.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm. And

Speaker 2:

hope is that there is hope. And you, if you just keep digging and go, okay, so why do I have these? Why am I having these symptoms? And even if you get a diagnosis, why am I, you know, why am I having these things? And I just think that's, I just think it's vitally important.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Even, even, like, I'm very thankful for functional med doctors who are looking at things like gut health and all of that, which is, which is huge. And like, so. So different than even 10 or 15 years ago. But even at that, why do you have, why is your gut causing problem? What's causing your gut problems and the why? And so it's just always something I think that needs to be in the back of people's minds. Like, if, if I'm not getting better, if this isn't helping, this is just another way and another place to look.

Speaker 3:

Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There are so many symptoms that come from it that I always kind of describe it. You know, we've heard the phrase root cause quite a bit, but the idea is like every body can express disease in an infinite number of ways, but there are really not an infinite number of root causes. Hmm, and it's like mold happens to trigger a large percentage of them, and thereby never neglecting that as a possibility of a root cause, or always being thorough in the examination of that. A possibility at least wanting to rule that out. Because what I find is that by addressing mold in the body, you can quote, unquote, fix so many of those downstream issues. Right? And so it's one of those, like instead of playing Whack-a-Mole with a whole bunch of little diagnoses, it it is, it's so widespread in how it affects the body that really by detoxifying that. Correctly, we can address so many, you bring the body into balance in so many other beautiful ways.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's really interesting. Like, I mean, mold is, you know, I, I feel like I've always addressed it, the mold aspect of it. And in the last couple of years been I, I love Dr. Richie Shoemaker who's more of sirs the whole, you know, there are multiple biotoxins that can cause the same chronic inflammatory response. And so I think it's important to kind of keep those on the. Just in your back pocket as well. If you know somebody remediates their home and is still not getting better. I did do some genetic cheek swab testing and yeah, I have the mold genes have some, some Lyme issues and they definitely go hand in hand. But I think what you said is so true when you get rid of the mold issue or you know, yeah, to know my CDs or endotoxins or whatever that your, it might be in your home. That's causing that chronic response. Yeah, I think that, yeah, all of those other things, including issues like Lyme or other infections, it enables your body to fight those like they weren't able to when it was bombarded with these toxins in it.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. Yes. Yep. It sort of cripples the body from dealing with everything in a way that it could. And if you remove that burden, then it often can handle things like Lyme disease or autoimmunity in a much better, smoother way.

Speaker 2:

And then I think that's the point at which you do, you know, if you're, if you're not, some people get out and they're like clear up just very easily. And some still do need to go back and figure out, maybe do some more work to find. What's, what did the, what did that cause in your body that needs repair and Yeah, and help and, and so, but then you're operating in a clean environment and you're not continuously being in this poison environment. That's, I don't know, it just, it, yeah. It makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Well, is there, is there one thing that you wish you could communicate or you wish that every woman would know about? This, this topic of, of mold issue. Is there one thing you, you would like to communicate to people?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I think that if you, if you are in it and you kind of start, you know that this is part of maybe a problem in your, in your health journey or your families that. You feel hope that, that you're not the only one experiencing it and that other people have done it and there's a lot of support and help in that and just much encouragement because it can feel hopeless. But like you said, once you find that peace and you really start seeing that this could be, you know, that this is helpful. It, it's just, it's amazing. Yeah. If you've not, I would say that for, for someone who maybe is unfamiliar. But deals with a lot of chronic things, I just would say explore it because it could make a huge difference. Mm-hmm. Your health and then in your family's health. I just also hear so many stories of people who kind of fix their house because maybe one person was sick and then all of a sudden these other issues with other family members that they never attributed to are. Helped or resolved, and it's just like, oh, wow.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

This is amazing. And so it's clean air is just, it's, it's so important.

Speaker 3:

Would you recommend people start with the, uh, testing their body or testing their home first?

Speaker 2:

Probably their home. I mean, if you're experiencing severe symptoms, I, I would probably do, do both. I mean. Yeah, and, and test again, testing your body and testing your home. There's many ways, my favorite thing, I feel like that's the easiest if it's your body is, you know, a urine mycotoxin test. Mm-hmm. Again, it can also not always show everything, but the easiest a good screening for SIRS is if you go to surviving mold.com. Uh, Dr. Shoemaker has a VCS test. It's a visual acuity. Test. I don't know if you've ever done that, Tracy. Oh

Speaker 3:

yeah, I have several times.

Speaker 2:

Okay. It's a good, it's$15 and it gives you a screening and then there's cluster symptoms and you kind of, you do this screening, you check off the symptoms, and if you have X of X number of this many, whatever, and I wanna say, don't quote me on this, but like of their patients, it's like 96 or 98% accurate. If you fail it, you're in a. An inflammatory response. And it's just interesting the way that the inflammation affects the optic nerve that is

Speaker:

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Being used in this test. If it's being affected, the other parts of your body are also, and it's just showing that it is a chronic inflammatory issue. That's a good one. Because it's just so simple and cheap and it's one that you can kind of gauge over and do periodically over your healing process as well as Yeah. As well as mycotoxin urine test. But yeah, there's doctors. Here who do good work with herbs you know, sometimes people with SIRS may need to do things like cholestyramine or well call, which are the prescriptions that are on the shoemaker protocol. But at least just start exploring it. It's a lot of information and it can feel overwhelming, but I think information and knowledge is, is a gift. And I just think when we have. Access to that and just going, oh, okay. This is gonna take a lot to think through and figure out, but this is gonna help. And, and I just, I just think there's encouragement there as far as the house goes. You know, if you're an irmi, dust test is a history of everything that's ever gone on in your home. So it's not gonna indicate, oh, I have a, a active water leak or, or whatever. But it's gonna show what is making you sick potentially. Because even if it was, you know, here's my house of a hundred years old, there could have been a, a water leak 50 years ago. That's the wood still has all this dead stuff or this dormant stuff that's releasing particles of the mycotoxins. And so that's gonna pick up and that's gonna show you from a health standpoint. What you're, what you're being exposed to.

Speaker:

Yeah. And

Speaker 2:

so keeping your eyes out, you know, if you're at school or church or your job or whatever, is there other issues that might be affecting you there? But again, if you're, if you can get your home really well taken care of, then your body gets to a point where it can withstand more and.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

In the world where we can't control everything,

Speaker 3:

right?'cause there'd be stories that I would come across on mold survivors, as they call them online. And people couldn't walk into a Walmart or a Target without a mold hit. And then you worry about can you ever go on vacation and stay on a hotel? Stay in a hotel? Or what about renting Airbnbs? You know, you get hyper concerned about all the future environments you might. Encounter.

Speaker 2:

Oh yes. Oh yes. And I just think, I think that's why you just have to a, again, you know, when you mentioned going into a Walmart or a Target, the sensitivities, you know, create stuff like, like multiple chemical sensitivities and mine have gotten so much better with like other, like there was a, a time essential oils and you know, candles. Obviously there's a lot of candles that are toxic and they should bother you, but even, even healthy scented things just super, I was super sensitive to that and that has, that has definitely gone away. But I mean, I have a daughter who you know, she'll be like, okay, I can walk into this building and I feel it, and if I stay here for more than a couple hours, I might get a headache. But even at that, like her, her issues were. We had a, a year with a school several years back when she was kind of at the height of it, she would get a headache every we we homeschool. But it was a one day a week thing. Headache and hers were, kind of like an internal vibration. Mm-hmm. She would just be cheeky. Mm-hmm. And those were her in certain places within about an hour or so. She's like, I feel it. But that being said, once we started cleaning up her body and cleaning up her environment, she was able to go right, wrong, or indifferent. We could debate that whether or not I should send her, but she could go into that environment and be okay. Yes. And so your body is resilient and it is able to handle more of those things as you go. But you, you're still diligent. I mean, I'm going to. A, a dance, uh, convention with my daughter in Orlando and, you know, I'm checking out, there's mold groups. I'm checking out hotels because I have been one of those people that's. Made a hotel reservation and left it because I'm like, Nope, me too here. And I think that's okay. I don't, I just, you know, it's so, it used to stress me out. But I think it's no different than if people go into a restaurant and say, I can't eat gluten. And people are accustomed to dietary restrictions more now than they were a long time ago. It's like, look, this, this place makes me sick. I'm sorry I have to leave. And yes, and that's fine. Exactly. Love, grace, and yeah, a lot of that. So

Speaker 3:

yeah, and, and advocate for yourself at every single turn because$150 a night hotel room is not worth a weeks or months of headaches afterwards. It's happened to me before. Ugh. Situations where I thought, oh, it'll be just fine. You know, I'm not that way anymore. But when I was recovering, I was far more sensitive. Yeah, I can handle a lot more now. But at that sensitive time, during the healing process, it was not worth any, any exposure.

Speaker 2:

And doesn't it also make you wonder like there's definitely more of an acute time of of, of maybe being sick from this? You know, I definitely know that there was, but it also, like when I was just telling my story, it makes you look back years before and wondering about certain situations and going. Oh, maybe that's why, you know, like when you weren't maybe 20 years ago, would you go stay in a hotel and you never thought twice about it? Right. Feel bad. The next day you, it's just not even on your radar. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh gosh, I wish, I wish this wasn't on my radar all the time, but I'm, but I am thankful that it is.

Speaker 3:

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Okay. With that said let me ask you a question that I ask every, every person who I interview on this podcast, which is, what is something that you do for your health every single day?

Speaker 2:

I would say I take a lot of supplements and I do take supplements every day, but I think with the whole, and this is, you know, I'm a mom of five and. A homeschooling mom of five, but now I'm only a homeschooling mom of one. So I have a little bit more time. And I think just being intentional about just going on a drive by myself or running down the street to the coffee shop and getting a coffee or just something little like that. It helps. It just helps me, I don't know, helps feed, I guess people would say feed my soul. I don't know, it just makes it my day a little, a little easier. And then I guess that was two things.

Speaker 3:

I love that it's like, I think of that, those types of things. I love to do those things too. They like grow our mental margin. They, they, they give us space. To, to decompress, to think, to, to not have something else on the to-do list, to not answer somebody's question. Just to be,

Speaker 2:

yeah. And I've, I, I feel like I've enjoyed, I've realized. Like I loved all my homeschooling years, but they're packed. Mm-hmm. They're busy. Mm-hmm. I always was a little bit of a, a little bit afraid of when that slows down, what that's gonna be like and I miss a lot of it, but I also have realizing having that a little bit more of that time, I like more than I thought I would.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

Speaker 2:

Of course. Thank you for, for this. I wanna hear your story. That needs to be next.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we'll do a part two and definitely compare.'cause I feel like we've got a whole lot of overlap. I mean, my story goes back to my earliest memories. Probably college years living in old homes in very northern California where it rained constantly. We Birkenstocks were a thing. I mean they are now, but they were a thing originally back then. And I would have green mold grow on the surface of the cork overnight. And I would put my foot right into that sandal and wear it to school every single day and just thought, oh, how annoying. But I had no concept of what it was doing to my health. And I remember visiting the University health Clinic over and over and over for sinus infections, and I'd never had one in my entire life. And that's really what it was at the beginning. And the difference that you pointed out, which I'm so thankful for, which is there's mold. And then there's mycotoxins and early on life exposures, it was growing this sensitivity to mold. But eventually when my health gave out, it was full on mycotoxin, Sears inflammatory process where everything went haywire. So yes, we'll talk about that part two. Love it. You started an Instagram page to help people find some information. What is that called?

Speaker 2:

It is called, uh, mold Matters. It's mold matters. It's kind of new. I feel like I've spent the last two and a half years, my, my daughter's always kind of laugh or roll their eyes when I'm on the phone when they realize, oh, she's talking about mold and call it a mold ministry. And so I've, it's kind of been operated as just a, Hey, I'm gonna text you 20 different links, or 20, you know, these tests. Or I have like several emails that I, I just kind of. Adjust, depending on who I'm sending it to with all this information. And so the idea is I need to just put it all in one place so it's, it's kind of new and upcoming, but send me a message or whatever. I have a lot of, I don't know, I have a lot of information that's not even up there that I just kind of like to share if people have questions or just need to hear. Yeah. From. From somebody who's gone through it.

Speaker 3:

Yep, yep. You know that saying hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I feel like there is nobody better equipped to handle these types of issues than a mother. Yes, because when we've seen our children suffer from a moldy environment that some a switch turns on in us and we become like the biggest mama bear there ever was. And we become an expert by passion, by necessity, almost overnight. And we research everything. So sharing with others who can benefit from that and just think of all the time that you can help save somebody from having to do the research themselves by getting them the answers right away. So I love what you're doing and that you're helping others through your own journey. So thank you.

Speaker 2:

You're so welcome. No, and thank you. For this and for what you share. It's actually very helpful. So, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Awesome. Well, thanks for, thanks for coming on today, and we'll, we'll do a part two and we'll talk a little bit more about I could happily share my story and, and let's talk about what some practical things are that people can do, because I, I run into so many people who are like, yeah, we'll just take some activated charcoal and we'll be fine. Or we just need some binders and we'll be fine. But it's actually much more complex than that. A

Speaker 2:

lot more complex, but it's not unattainable. And you can That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yep, yep. There, yeah, there's, there's a path forward. So. Alright. Thanks for coming on today and I will see y'all next time in the Balanced Hormone Solution Podcast. Bye.

Speaker 4:

That's it for today's episode of the Balanced Hormone Solution Podcast. If this resonated, don't just listen. Do something about it. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you know another woman who's tired of feeling like a stranger in her own body. Send her this way for more support. Check out the show notes. I've got resources to help you get started. Just remember, your body isn't broken, you just need the right tools. See you next time.