Hey, You're Gonna Be OK
Hey, hey, I'm Elizabeth Mae, and my functional health practice helps people heal when they’ve exhausted traditional options. I was once stuck, with no one who could figure my health challenges out, but now my team helps you resolve symptoms and restores your health by identifying the root cause. I love talking to people and helping health seekers bridge the gap between fear of an alternative healing model and your end goal of returning to the health you once had! Join me as we explore first-hand stories of healing chronic illness from a root cause approach. Through compassion, empathy, and a whole-system approach, this podcast will empower you to unlock your body's capacity for healing.
Hey, You're Gonna Be OK
Complex Health: Is Mold Your Root Cause?
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In this episode, we are joined by one of our lead practitioners Krista to explore how mold exposure impacts health, especially in children. We discuss symptoms like recurrent illness, eczema, sensory sensitivities, and even anxiety, all tied to immune system disruption caused by mold. We emphasize the importance of looking at environmental factors and restoring gut and immune health for true recovery. Through personal stories and client cases, we highlight why thorough evaluation and targeted interventions are essential for tackling mold-related health issues.
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Website: www.heyheymae.com
Hey, you're gonna be okay. I'm your host, Elizabeth May, and my functional health practice helps people heal when they've exhausted traditional options. When no one can figure your health challenges out, my team helps you resolve symptoms and restores your health. You're listening to my podcast where we'll hear stories of healing chronic illness from a root cause approach.
SPEAKER_01:So we're finishing off our little string of triggering events, kind of the big four infections or issues that I see over and over again in practice that are big root causes for folks with a long chat on mold. So mold's definitely like an overwhelming thing. Um, the thought sometimes of addressing or considering mold in a house can feel like something that's just like huge because there's so much information and there's conflicting information, and just the nature of mold is it does kind of spread and it can be lots of places. So we want to talk practical today. I'm here with Krista. She's one of our lead practitioners, and she has seen clients um who are struggling with mold and other chronic infections. And we're just gonna kind of talk through like, where do we see it? What does mold do to a body? I want you to kind of be able to really think through mold in a practical way. Like, could that be part of your health challenges or your child's health challenges? And always I think mold toxicity doesn't get a really great consideration in the traditional medical sphere. So any conversation we can give to a growing issue, I think we need to do. So, Krista, I know that part of your knowledge around mold comes from personal experience, as it does for me too. But I kind of just want to get into like, you know, where are we seeing it? Where are you even seeing it most with clients that you're um caring for right now? And we'll kind of go from there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. Um, really important topic. Parents are coming to us all the time, their kids are constantly sick. There's a lot of the pans panda symptoms showing up. Um, a lot of you know, a lot of times a lot of auditory processing issues. The kids are asking the same questions over and over and over again. Parents are going, what's going on? Parenting's becoming increasingly hard. We have a lot of tactile sensitivities, they don't like wearing clothes. Um, you know, vestibular stuff too. We have kids climbing all over the furniture, they're bouncing into their parents all the time. Or they're the kids that are hiding behind their parents. They're kind of sucking on their thumbs, they're five years old doing that still. They're um they've got their parents' clothes in their mouth and they're hiding behind their parents. There's a lot of fear-based stuff going on as well with the kids, a lot of OCD behaviors. And so, um, you know, parents end up hearing about mold on a podcast and like this one, and then they're kind of going, oh, well, you know, what is going on? And we always think about mold as being sort of that uh that triggering event. There's a whole lot more going on than just mold.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, a lot of times I feel like we get kiddos who come in for eczema a lot too, that have mold as part of the cocktail, especially more severe eczema or eczema that just like ebbs and flows but won't ever quit and does get more um tricky. Also, kids who come in and I think are really struggling with recurrent illness or just recurrent respiratory things, um, or they're better in the summer. This is my favorite kid. Better in the summer, not great during the school year because unfortunately, a lot of schools are poorly maintained or are just older, and there's more um mold exposure because, of course, mold is coming typically from um water damage buildings. So it's very prevalent in a lot of elementary schools, and we see quite a lot of those sort of um symptom modes. But when we talk about mold being a triggering event and it interacting with the immune system, how are you seeing that immune interaction show up for our kids and adults even with mold exposure?
SPEAKER_02:So, really interesting going back to the school piece is that oftentimes you'll see those kids that actually, you know, when they're out of the mold, even over the weekend, they're totally so it doesn't have to be, well, they're out of moldy school, it's always terrible if there's a lot of other infections taking place within the gut because the mold alters the entire microbiome, right? So we have parasites, we've got a ton of dysbiotic bacterial overgrowth, we've got the endotoxins that are moving out from the bacteria as the bacteria is dying off that are moving into the brain because we've got some leaky gut, leaky brain stuff going on. Um, but also, you know, when the gut is kind of on that cusp of um we've got the guts that are totally a mess, and then we've got the kind of guts where they're out of the school just for the weekend, and all of a sudden they're okay. So that's looking like you know, chronic diarrhea, kind of loose stools during the week, pale-colored stools during the week, and then on the weekends their stools are perfect. So I've seen that happen too. And for those kids, there's that really that that resilience that keeps coming, then you can kind of point back towards the school. Um, but mold disrupts the immune system in so many ways. You know, we think about, we're hearing all the time about mast cell activation syndrome and those mast cells being triggered and actually dumping histamine. We've got the microglia in the brain, which is the brain's immune system. When that microglia gets activated by either the, you know, the mycotoxins or the other the endotoxins from the bacterial overgrowth as the result of mold, we then have them kind of getting on their walkie-talkies and talking to all of the uh mast cells within the body that are then going to degranulate and release histamine. So again, that's how we're seeing, you know, a lot of the sensory issues, auditory issues. We're seeing um, you know, in adults, a lot of the depression, the rage, the constant anxiety, feeling cold all of the time, not being able to regulate body temperature and drinking alcohol and turning red and flushing, having your heart racing. We see people being put on beta blockers when that happens. Uh yeah. Well, any of the anxiety-based disorders really, OCD, all of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think when I do clarity calls and we walk through mental health-related things that could be mold adjacent, I'm always thinking about timeline and has this always been the case for you or was there a shift? Because mold and mycotoxins really can be something that shift those things where you, you know, you're having anxiety secondarily because now there's something new in your environment that's affecting your body that wasn't there before. I do think it's important for us to kind of like define because mold is kind of like this huge topic, but just for base before we get into further episodes that really hash out more specifics around mold and types and how what do we do about it? The mold spore is problem number one. And that's the actual thing that replicates and and is what we what we think of when we think of a moldy building part or wall, or you know, you see all those little spotty spores that create the mold colony, and then the spores release mycotoxins, and that's a gas. That's what's making us sick. Um, and we do definitely have like long discussions all the time and short discussions on clarity calls about why does mold affect some and others not so much. Mycotoxins, because they're gas, have a lot to do with like where they're trapped. So there is mold in our world environment. There's mold outside, but it when it is, it's like stuck inside of a building and there's lots of gas buildup of that mycotoxin, that concentration is where we see more sickness. There are definitely more factors to why it affects one person, not the other. But where there's mold and we have mycotoxins, it's kind of this gateway that just like opens up to a lot of other things, which is why I say it's one of the big four things we're always considering when there's immunocompromise or a dysregulated immune system because it's never just mold. So, kind of launching off from there, what does it never just mold really mean? Because that can feel so overwhelming for folks. But from our perspective, we can come in and look for the main things and kind of work through what we're used to seeing mold dysregulate and put a body back together. But what does that really entail? It's never just mold.
SPEAKER_02:Never just mold because we have to be asking, you know, what took place and to begin with to allow the mold to take hold. Why are to allow the other infections to take hold? The infections aren't just coming in. Um, you know, mold, you think about penicillin, penicillium, which is a type of mold species, that's kind of like having antibiotics in your gut all of the time, right? So we have other factors that can throw the system off. You know, we have lots of antibiotic exposure. There's obviously other toxins in the environment that we're going to be dealing with, but mold is, you know, mycotoxins are one of those toxins. And so when we have, you know, for example, you know, maybe I'll talk about my experience with my daughter for a minute too, if that would help as well. But when we have a case where the parents are like, I have done all the right things, my kids on this perfect diet, um, they've never been on antibiotics. I did all this cleansing and detox work before I even decided to conceive why is my child having all of these issues? And we have to go, okay, where was that? Where was that weak link? Where, you know, what was that triggering event that really caused the system to kind of fall apart?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and mold does, I mean, there's just so many things because there is kind of that like natural antibiotic effect if it's in and around and in the gut, it's going to alter the microbiome, whether that means that it allows yeast to proliferate and there to be more yeast in the gut than what should be there, because that is a naturally occurring helpful part of our guts. Um, and then there's also really just the very literal way that it suppresses the immune system that keeps the immune system from killing pathogens that we're exposed to regularly. You know, we're all exposed to, I mean, E. coli is on like 80-something percent of grocery cart handles in America. Okay, obviously, we all go to the grocery, obviously they all touch that. But our immune system protects us from those pathogens strep. If you've gone to elementary school lunch lately, someone had strep in their system and breathed it on you, but somehow you didn't get it. But when mold is present, you have really like a just a limiting of the immune system being able to keep up um policing the body because the immune system's job really is to know what is self, what's my body, and what's not my self that needs attacked. And when mold is there in the environment, it suppresses the power the immune system has to function. And then we just see this cascade. Like for me, the big four Lyme, EBV, strep, and mold, they all hold, but gosh, mold really is like it can be such a limiting factor because it does so many different um interactions with the body, not just not just mold. There's more to it. So um I would like to hear, I mean, I'm just curious for you to share with our listeners just like what's been your personal interaction with mold. Um, how did you come to know about it? Tell me more about that kind of that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I, you know, I kind of grew mold into that whole framework of lots and lots of rounds of antibiotics, truly. Except you're living in it, you're breathing it all the time. And, you know, even after having been in the functional medicine space for for many years, when I finally gave birth to my daughter, you know, she'd uh gluten-free, dairy-free diet. I had done a lot of work on my own gut as well. And, you know, around one year of age, she ended up with eczema. And so I, you know, I thought I knew exactly what to do. We did some gut work. I ran a GI map, we took care of some parasites that we found, and actually the eczema resolved fairly quickly. Um, went on a low histamine diet to kind of speed up some of the results that we wanted to see right away and get her some more comfort. Then she started going outside and she would rub up against a plant and come in and just be covered in almost these um just oozy her face, her eyes would swell shut, and she was having these really, really, really severe reactions to just what we would call probably contact dermatitis to kind of anything touched outside. And so, you know, once again, I I've got the perfect little remedy for her, and I'm giving it to her, and it worked really well. And we kind of knew okay, if she goes outside, we'll give her this and she'll look scary for a couple of days and then she'll be fine. And then, like most of these mold kiddos, where it's not as simple as removing them from the environment and having their gut just be great, they there's an infection that takes place. So for her, it was really, you know, whether we didn't test, you know, exactly what the infection was, it could have been strep, it could have been RSV. She was absolutely never the same. So here's this two and a half year old talking all the time, couldn't talk anymore. You know, she had took maybe five minutes to get out one single word. There was so much neuroinflammation going on. Um she no longer can handle the blender running. We have to, you know, flush the toilet with her really far away from the bathroom because she can't handle hearing the toilet flush. And so it, yeah, all the sensory issues. She's slamming herself, which at this stage she's getting older now. Now she's almost four, and we're kind of still going, what are we doing? And you know, we don't want to leave our home. And there is actually visibly, you know, visibly mold everywhere. But you don't want to leave your home, you don't want to see it, you know. So um, so you know, we would we we would, you know, rebuild her system or I would rebuild her system and get her really stable. But then an infection or sickness would come in and she would start to flare again. And we were having to be so careful. So hired an inspector. It was, you know, it was no surprise that there actually is mold really everywhere, tons of stacky, tons of ketomium. Those are our more dangerous black moles that we just really never see the environment ever in any any amount. And so we decided to move. However, you know, at that point you think everything's great, right? So here's also this IBS kid can't get us uh, you know, a solid poop out of her to save our lives. And we we moved. And sure enough, her poops were perfect within a couple of days. So that same presentation rules, but the brain stuff lingered on because of the way mold dysregulates the immune system. And that is what that is the hard part of it. And then we have all the dysbiosis that's coming in as a result as well. So the gut has to really um be rebuilt after that exposure too.
SPEAKER_01:And so for clarity's sake, I know the answer. But if I've lived in mold and then I move out, that doesn't just solve all of my internal issues.
SPEAKER_02:For some people, maybe for some lucky, lucky individuals, yeah, and it depends on what you think those real issues are, because you know, we're striving for, you know, it, you know, the clients at least that we work with, we want health, and health means in all areas of your life. I like I want your brain working, and I want you know, your parent to be able to tell you something and you hear it the first time. So um just all the auditory processing stuff to really be on point as well. And so if all you're shooting for is to have your is to not have loose stools, fine. But really to rebuild the whole system takes time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And that is really the kind of the the crux of what we do with clients because there's a lot of mobile exposure. I think I was reading just yesterday, writing the outline one in four buildings have water damage in them in America. Okay, well, that's cool if we think about it only as like, well, one in four houses. But like, you know how like so many buildings we go to every day, or people go to workplaces, or we go to schools. Like, there's many places that we're in. There's plenty of option for exposure and the duration of exposure, the type of molds we're exposed to, how much space or time we have away from that, and our general stress levels and how strong our immune system's able to be in the time we're away. There's just so many factors. And so for us, we're really trying to identify from symptom load if mold is a piece. And then we work um, we work on that body in in in different ways by identifying if we're still actively exposed, if it's a past exposure. And then you're right, we really do kind of work backwards to restore the body of the issues that remain. And for some people, it is. They just want to resolve the eczema, and that's great. And the kid, it'll have runny stools, and I don't know, it'll be fine. That's cool. We can do that if somebody needs to, if you know, we've been in mold for a really long time. It's absolutely possible to be in a pans panda's place from mycotoxins and their contribution to immune system dysregulation. So sometimes we're really like pulling the mold piece out, we're restoring the mold part, and then we're on to restoring the gut and the infections piece, what's been allowed to proliferate because mold was there to disable the body's normal, good protective immune function. It really kind of runs the gimmick. But one of the things I think we see a lot are um, I think there's like a pretty consistent maybe decline, if you will. Like there's usually kind of like a track that things go down. Maybe there's a maybe there's a little cough, maybe there's a runny nose, maybe there's constant postnasal drip. Then there usually tend to be some eczema or some skin challenges or itching, or those histamine issues, which we covered, and they can be at their worst, like a pot's MCAS presentation, or they can be more simple where it's just very itchy by the end of the day and bedtime is hard. And then we move into more GI disruption where there's like that IBS presentation or major candida overgrowth, and then the the at that point the gates open. Other pathogens that are either dormant or being exposed to you can kind of come in and take take root, and that I think is maybe a super simple explanation of how do we go from mold all the way to pans pandas? All of those pieces kind of contribute to get us there, and then we really do kind of have to work backwards out of that place. When it comes to like mold type, I think that's something that's worth talking about. And I'm gonna talk about it on the the next episode too. But what do we know about black mold versus other molds? And what can you kind of share with us about that? Because I know you're on our team, like probably the strongest person when it comes to breaking down varieties and like what matters the most and what does or doesn't really affect us.
SPEAKER_02:So if someone's coming in and their child has issues and clearly has been affected by mold, then we we've got to take care of most of it in the environment. So, you know, people run tests like an ERMI and they're looking at scores and things like that. And I was trained to really look at the different species of mold that we're finding and which ones are more dangerous. But um, we've got a a sick kid in front of us. So we even if we don't find some of those more dangerous molds, we know something has created this presentation. And so I would take them all seriously to be to be honest, if I'm dealing with a child who has um, you know, that's suffering because of mold or mycotoxin exposure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What about when we see kids who maybe aren't like ragingly clear mold? Maybe it's a kid who always seems sick or has a regular respiratory thing, or everyone are they're gonna go down with a couple rounds, or there's a little bit of asthma, but it's not always there. Could that be mold? And and if so, like how? And are they really just sick over and over again? What's the link there? Is there a link?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so a couple of links, you know, partly the immunosuppressive part of it. So they don't have their immune system is not functioning the way it should be, taking care of infections, and also they're reacting to their in their environment the same way that people that, you know, believe that they have seasonal allergies are reacting to their environment. We've got this really imbalanced immune response that's going on, and their body is pegging each little thing, whether it's a dust or pollen or this or that in the environment as being something that it needs that needs to be attacked, and they're launching an immune response. Um, so you know, in the beginning, kids would parents would come to me and go, My child's always sick, they always have a cold. And so I'd give them about two different supplements that were not meant to do any sort of killing work at all, but really. Really just geared towards stabilizing the immune system. And I'd say, okay, go take this for two weeks and then come back to me and tell me if your kid still has a cold. Um, and these are colds where it's not like they're getting sick. This is my kid has had a runny nose for two months. I take it and then the runny nose is gone. So then I have information that's going, okay, this is an immune system issue. What is throwing the immune system off? And so that's when we're kind of we're looking for things like mold.
SPEAKER_01:What about when we have families who come in and we work with so many children and we absolutely work with adults too? But what about when families come in and there's one person that's an issue? I'm thinking of eczema kids specifically, because there's usually one that has a horrible skin and everyone else is fine. What do we what do we make of that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um I like the fine part because I think that, you know, everyone in the family has something going on. Yeah. You know, the dad has severe depression and he's got um, he's also got eczema or something going on, but it's not a big deal. He just itches it sometimes. Um we've got the the other son has bloody noses. Um, the mom has been dealing with seasonal allergies. So it's not actually, if we do some inventory, you know, not everyone is fine. It's just a little bit different. Someone seems like they're a little bit more um, you know, reacting to the mold than others. And obviously, we all come in, you know, different genetics are at play too, and whether or not we're able to detoxify again, you know, a child might also have additional exposure at school or other things to kind of take into consideration. Everyone's microbiome is different too, and what people have been exposed to. Um, most parents that I talk to, and usually I'm talking to moms, when they look through their whole life, they'll realize, oh, I've lived in mold my whole life too. So, okay, so you've lived in mold for 15 years or so, 20 years, 40 years, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01:And you're five years in college. I think that's when the book comes out. They're like, I was so sick in college, I don't know what the deal was. I drank too much. And I'm like, Well, you lived in a dorm that's not well cared for, or old dicky house. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then you have a baby and you're breastfeeding, and you know, mycotoxins travel through breast milk, they're traveling through the placenta, and you're giving your child this beautiful buffet of mycotoxins multiple times a day for a year to three years, depending on you know, we we depending on how long we're breastfeeding. And so that child is being served up your history of of mold, whereas the other family members aren't being exposed to it. So that's kind of a big piece too, I think. Um depending on the you know, mama's mama's history and her toxic load as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The learning yeah, just learning that toxic load transfers, I think, is like an unfortunate or helpful light bulb for a lot of people. Helpful when we're thinking about conceiving before and preparing for conception, we can make a difference in our children's health by working through some of our toxic load and increasing our health overall. And a bummer sometimes when we kind of understand all of this through the lens of I have a sick kid and how did this all happen? It reminds me of a small, um, a very, very small person that you've been working with. And just even thinking through babies and infants, like, what are we gonna see when a when a like, you know, breastfeeding baby is being affected by mold? Maybe there's not eczema, but what things do we see when that's a piece of the puzzle as folks are kind of trying to put together what's going on with their kid?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And the other thing, when we have crawling infants, they're little dustbusters, they're crawling on the ground, they're eating up, you know, mold, you know, mycotoxins settle to the ground. And so they're they're taking all of it up. Whereas we're not, we're not crawling on the ground, are we? So um, you know, we see these are the colicy infants. These are the infants that wake up, they can't make that sleep cycle into the other sleep cycle throughout the night. So they're the ones that are waking up every hour, every two hours until they're three years old. Um, you know, overly um unable to be settled type of infant as well. Again, they're not making a whole lot of great eye contact too. So lots of different things that we're seeing, and you know, people are starting to talk about um, you know, autism spectrum type disorders as well. I know that even with my daughter, um, that was being mentioned because she would leave her preschool. She would hop fences and not even look behind and walk down the, you know, no awareness, properties away. And um, it became an issue for her. And they were like, this something's not right about this. Um we see a lot of food sensitivities with these kids too. So a lot of histamine issues. I I think almost every every client I see, their parents or the parents, when they come in with eczema, they're like, okay, they can't do dairy, they can't do tomatoes. Um they're high in, and sometimes we're trying to help our children. So we're we're giving them a ton of bone broth and thinking we're healing their guts and actually we're exposing them to huge amounts of histamine, and that's also the culprit, too. Um, so a lot of food sensitivities, a lot of like rashes around the mouth when they're eating sorts of things as well. Umtact dermatitis piece. Um, we already mentioned before. Um, and you know, the GI issues as well. Sometimes with kids, multiple multiple cavities because absorption is so impacted that we're seeing that there's a lot of um the enamel. A lot of those uh kids have a lot of breaking on their front teeth as well.
SPEAKER_01:And that oral microbiome is impacted too. Like when you start to learn about bacteria and how we're I think 10 to 1 bacteria to human cells, well, bacteria are so impacted by mold because it can have an antibiotic, so an antibacterial effect on the body. And then fungus loves family, I always say, if there's mold in our environment, that's gonna enable our internal fungal load, which we should all have for yeast in our gut that helps with digestion. But when you're in an environment where there's fungus outside the body and in the body, they kind of encourage one another to party, and you end up with more candida issues. And I think too, in the baby category and young child, we see cyclical vomiting, we see reflux, um, intense reflux. I think about we had mold exposure when my oldest was born, and he was like a projectile vomiter, and he was a happy guy. Um, but he had some lung issues that were never quite clear, but they weren't literally quite clear lungs, um, and just kind of had some struggles with absorption and weight kind of hanging low, but not super unhealthy. And of course, like our diet was really great, and and those things can kind of help to like offset some of that. But the food sensitivity piece too in kids, I think is huge because in the whole functional space, there's so much information. I do always push folks to work one-on-one with a practitioner because that's where magic happens. Taking in information from the fire hose of functional medicine and other info is a lot. But when we see these things all the time, for us, it's really easy to identify and streamline and point you to the next resource, and here's what we need to do next. And I think that's so key too in working through mold because you don't only have the child or also the adults or the other family members whose health we're trying to repair, but you have this whole issue of where the mold actually came from and working through the remediation and even just navigating like who to hire and who to trust and how to test and which tests and when to test and how to know if we need to stay during remediation. There's so much that's overwhelming about that, and it sucks. It does just suck. But moving that people care over to someone who sees it regularly and can guide you through and make shorter work of something that's really complex is so important. But the food sensitivities piece, so many people come in with food sensitivity tests and they're like, well, our so-and-so told us to run these and just see if that's the problem. Well, we see that because that TH2 side of the immune system is so overactive. That inflammatory, reactive, same histamine piece, that side's so busy. Or a kid who has recurrent parasites, that TH2 side isn't policing the parasites well. So these really are all like consequences of mold. And when we remove the mold exposure, we're able to get that inflammatory side to cool it. And we see less food sensitivities, and it's not just a food sensitivity. Um, when you're walking through symptoms too, I was just thinking through clarity calls I've done lately and um having profound weight gain, a quick onset of weight, particularly in women, because there are there's estrogenic properties going on there. And a lot of times there's women are having children, at least for clients that we're seeing. So there's hormone flux, and that can be something that really is notable or weight gain that won't move. Um, and then chronic sinusitis. I think about my own time living in mold. I had a cough that was ongoing. I would get done with the one round of bronchitis, and two weeks later, a new round would be back. I think I ended up having bronchitis seven times in one year, and none of them were like a week long. They were all very long experience and coughing where I couldn't even talk to my kids during the day to like parent. It was just kind of silent life with mom because if she talks, there's gonna be, you know, more coughing, and no amount of ZPAC was touching it because there was mold in the environment, creating more of that issue. So it really can vary by person because even in that instance, that was the same time my oldest was having, you know, the reflux and the projectile vomiting, and at the same time developing food sensitivities and a really reactive response to dairy, mental base, more like rage very quickly, um, more of that kind of neuroinflammation, zero to a hundred kind of behavioral and sensory issues, but it seemed to really, really only peak when there was dairy. When we got out of the mold, the dairy was less of an issue. The body was able to process that, and we weren't seeing that zero to a hundred inflammation spike. So it really is interesting how we see it affect different family members. Um, and oftentimes kids are the canary in the coal mine, if you will, because of body size, because their immune systems are developing and still learning. There's so many reasons that, and they say home a lot too. A lot of times kids are home with sitters or they're home more than mom and dad, because mom and dad leave to go do things and have a physical break from the exposure, but kids a lot of times are there more or they're leaving home where there's mold and going to school or preschool. So many preschools in the basement of old churches. Um, I always laugh a little when I'm doing intakes and I'm like, where does your kid go to preschool? Daycare. And I'm like, but where? Well, like in the daycare facility. Well, where is that in a church? Is it in the basement of church? Has there been water damage? Is the church very old? Is this a modern church? Lady, why are you asking so many questions about my church? We're dealing with my kid's health. It matters. Like, you know, those things are all connected, and there's so many pieces that a skilled practitioner can help someone really quickly identify um whether or not it's really your allergies acting up or it is a mold exposure. So I think hearing all the different ways we talk about Lyme a lot as being like a great masquerad, but Lyme and mold are so similar, symptom-wise, in that they do that and that they're multi-system, um, that it is hard, I think, to tell the difference. And then with mold being immunosuppressive, especially for adults, a lot of times it lets loose past infections that are dormant that the immune system had previously kind of conquered, and and we see those coming out. But I really appreciate you sharing just like your own journey with your daughter because I do think it's a little odd sometimes, and I have to so quickly share. And Clarity calls the like you the pants pandas can be there because of mold, and that sounds like crazy, kind of, but once you start to understand how mold can be the first domino in the line of dominoes, it does start to make more sense how those things are connected. Um yeah, and I think the toxin load thing piece is really important too, just talking about how we share those toxin loads. We do pass things, not just our genetics to our kids, but truly you're growing another person inside of a body, and there is there's toxin transfer, and that piece is important too. What are the things go ahead?
SPEAKER_02:Our you know, our stories about who our children are is something I kind of bring up a lot too, because a lot of parents are like, I just have a really shy child. My child, you know, we talked about the sensory stuff about loud noises and things like that. But you know, we sometimes have an idea of our personality of our child, and it's actually not true. When their brains are inflamed, and this is the same for adults too, that are like, oh, I'm a total introvert, I don't like loud parties. Um, I've just always been kind of depressed, I'm a little bit antisocial. Um is it true? It sometimes isn't. I've seen so many times people heal and they find out they're the life of the party. Their kids are actually super sociable, not shy at all. So that's kind of one of my favorite things to kind of bring up. You know, when we're dealing with toxicity, we are not gonna feel our best and we're not gonna even really be able to like tune into who we are genuinely, like at our heart's core and our child as well.
SPEAKER_01:So I think that's so important too, because it is really like it's a limiting thing all the way around, and it really quiets a human body. And I think about other ways like libido being completely trashed or non-existent, has a whole lot to do with suppression by the body of hormones and all those things that make us more alive or vivaceous really do get suppressed by mold when mold is part of the picture. And you touched earlier on seeing like autism spectrum type symptom load, which is a tricky subject to get into, but that was really um kind of the very solid beginning of me working in pediatrics was training in autism and starting to see lots of bodies that got so much better when we worked on these gut and mold and other factors. But truly, mold does kind of limit in lots of ways that align with autism spectrum disorder or ADHD or OCD or ADD, these very common allergies and asthma talking about the story. How often do we have a story that, like, that kid just deals with allergies in the winter? Well, does he? Or is he in the house so much more and there's more exposure to pathogen load? Or she only deals with issues with asthma when we're at gymnastics. Well, does she? Or is gymnastics a big old building that literally has like water stains down the side and moldy ceiling tiles? You know, that story piece too, even in little blips, it's really important to kind of contemplate because it's not always what we well-meaning people try to figure it out to be. Like there are underlying factors to like why kids aren't thriving and vivaceous, like a kid across the board really should be kind of that life of the party vibe, even if they are personality bent a little more into it.
SPEAKER_02:And it has such a big impact on detox, too, that when we do testing, we see this toxic soup, right? We see tons of metals in the system. Why is it there? You know, we've got clean water, and there's you know, so many sources for heavy metals, but these kids can't detoxify. And so that's a big that's a big part of the mold presentation. Um, there's so much more going on sometimes because of the mold.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Toxic soup is such a good, uh it's such a good visual too. And we think about like the big four, they really are like interlaced for sure when it comes to toxic soup and how it affects detox like Lyme and EBV and strep and mold. They can all party together, um, but they do all kind of create that same situation, which then equates to like a complex case on paper. And what do you do with the complex toxic soup of a thing? How do you food sensitivity tests? Do you GI tests? Do you look for pathogen load? Do we do a metals test? You know, like what is it? It can be multiple layered things, especially when molts in the picture. And working with someone who is aware of all those things is key because it's it's a soup for sure.
SPEAKER_02:So we've got to clean up the environment, you know, let the body kind of come online and do what it is intended to do without that that obstruction.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah. I appreciate you talking about this stuff and kind of sharing your own story and and clients' stories and helping us kind of get a window into what this looks like. And I'm really excited for next week's episode where I really walk through like the who, what, when, where, how of mold and what do we do if we find it and what are options for moving towards a cleaner environment. And then soon I hope we're gonna get to visit with um an indoor air professional who works on remediation and really start to get some practical um tools and non-inflammatory scary explanations of how do we work through that? Because the what do we do about it feels really overwhelming. And even hearing just now, I I know enough of your story to know that you all did move, but gosh, that feels really like overwhelming. Um, and that can be an answer, but walking through what do we do in kind of a chill way is where we're going with this. Um, but I'm glad to have had this intro and understanding like where is it, what does it look like, and and where does it show up. So thanks for doing this.
SPEAKER_02:You're welcome. Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00:I hope you're leaving encouraged, curious, and hopeful. Hey, we're all healing together. You can learn more about my practice, our team, and what it's like to work with us at heyhey may.com. I teach lots on Instagram and answer questions each Monday. My Instagram handle is at Hey Hey Elizabeth May. And my cookbook, Hey Hey Everyday, is available on heyheymei.com and Amazon. Happy healing!