07. Understanding Mold: Myths, Realities, and Treatment Options

Alright, so here's one I get asked constantly: Do I really need to throw out all my belongings if there's mold in my house?

If that question's been keeping you up at night, or if you're stuck wondering whether dealing with mold means going bankrupt and starting over, take a deep breath. This episode's for you.

I brought back Mike Schrantz, one of the most networked indoor environmental professionals in the country. He's what I call a "doctor of houses and buildings." And we got into the real, practical reality of what mold remediation actually looks like. Not the fear-based stuff you find all over social media. The truth.

Here's what we talked about:

What to actually expect from a mold inspection and report. Mike breaks down why "normal" looks different depending on where you live, and how outdoor mold is different from indoor sources.

The four categories of remediation: surface cleaning, air quality, contents (furniture, clothing, papers), and deeper structural issues. Not everything requires ripping down walls.

Why the contents question brings up the most emotion. This is where people panic about throwing everything away. Mike explains what "clean enough" actually means and why treating mold like plutonium creates unnecessary fear.

The truth about mycotoxins. They have short half-lives. Normal laundering removes them from fabrics. You can clean furniture without throwing it away. And no, you probably don't need to get rid of everything.

Why the fear itself might be doing more harm than the actual exposure. We talk about the emotional toll, the financial strain, and why so many people end up spending tens of thousands on things they didn't need to do.

Bottom line: Most situations don't require moving out or going bankrupt. There are sequential steps you can take. And clarity itself can be medicine.

If you're dealing with mold concerns, chronic illness, or wondering if your environment is making you sick, this conversation will help you move forward with less overwhelm and more confidence. 

Next steps: Visit RootSeekHealth.com to take our free health quiz or schedule a discovery call.

Connect with us:

Root Seek Health: https://rootseekhealth.com/
Dr. Mark Su's Podcast: Functional Medicine Reality Podcast

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Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

Dr. Mark Su 0:09

I'm Dr. Mark Su and welcome to the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast. Join me and our community weekly as we bring you unfiltered health from inflammation to longevity, real stories, real people, real solutions. Experience real life health changes from both patients and practitioners, and learn how to turn cutting-edge information into real results in your own life so you can feel better, live longer, live healthier, and be confident and clear in your healthcare choices. Let's get real and get results. Hey, welcome friends. I'm Dr. Mark Su. This is the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast, where we're all about truth telling and creating clarity to help you live your best life. We're here today again with IEP Extraordinaire Mike Schantz. So thanks for joining us. And uh yeah, let's jump in. Let's just jump right in, shall we? Sounds good to me, Mark. Let's do it. Yeah. So today, at the setting stage, we're going to get a little more into the weeds from what you and I talked about in our first session, right? And if you're a person who's ever had an experience before, or maybe you're in the middle of it right now, where you're asking yourself, oh crap, do I really need to throw out all my belongings, rip up my all my floors, move homes if there's mold that's suspected or identified in your home? So if that's you, and especially if you felt taken aback, stuck in paralysis, it's okay. Take a deep breath. You're in the right place. And this episode's for you. Or just as well, if you know someone who's in that dilemma, then do them a favor. We invite you to pass this episode on to them and they'll thank you for it. Before we get started, so just a brief recap because we introduced each other and Mike in particular to this podcast community, just the last session. So, just what we accomplished last session, last podcast was we introduced Mike and I's relationship, how we've known each other, where we stand in the sort of community practitioner dynamic in helping people get better faster. We summarized the history of mold-related illness, validated that it's a thing. Again, we'll refer you back to that session, but the conventional diagnosis in the occupational health world in particular is called sook building syndrome. So we're talking about water damage buildings, we're talking about sick buildings, and a lot of this stuff doesn't affect everyone the same. It's not always obvious to the naked eye, but there are definite ramifications and even we'd say dangers of being exposed to those kinds of environments, especially more intense exposures and with sicker buildings and for longer periods of time. We then covered the topic about the dangers of binary thinking in addressing the environmental mold. And that's where Mike got into a lot more detail about in response to the question of how clean is clean enough? And is it really a black and white, it's all or nothing? Like you got to be in a quote unquote mold-free home or mold-free workplace. Again, we're not going to go through all that, but we'll refer you back to that session if you haven't caught it before. And we started to get into the meaningful conversations around the gray zones and the controversies of how clean is clean enough. And ultimately we landed with just saying simply it's not black and white. So for those of you in a patient setting or in a client setting in that position, those shoes, if you're facing those kinds of situations now or you have, or you very well may in the future, we're often responding, whether as the doctor of houses or doctor of buildings as in Mike's shoe or doctor of people in my shoe or the equivalent, we are apt to be asking our clients and patients, well, as far as how far you take it, how sick are you? How sick is your environment? What are the estimated costs in money, time, and effort for the given situation? How much do you and your fam, you and or your family, have in available resources with time, cost, and effort to meet those needs? And commonly, it doesn't necessarily need to be an instantaneous or full commitment response of all or nothing. There are sequential steps that can be taken, like in a stage work process. And that's what we're going to get into a bit today. All right. So we set the stage there. Um, this is like a two-part graph if you will from last time, this time. So, Mike, let me shut up here and shift it over to you. So here's uh here's the leadoff question. As a doctor of houses and buildings, with your meaningful, as I said last time, I perceive you to be the most networked IEP in the country. I mean, as I say, nothing minimal to you, nothing negative to you, but uh, who really knows it all, right? And how do we gauge who's the brightest or the smartest, et cetera? But when you're the most networked or in that crowd, you have the full scale and spectrum of awareness, understanding, the trends and different schools of thought, et cetera. So as a doctor of houses and buildings, in working with the doctors of people, when they refer patients to you to evaluate their homes, let's just start off with what are some common expectations, if any, that you're common you're commonly presented with because of a doctor's messaging to the patients about what they should expect from you.

 Mike Schrantz 5:01

Yeah, and it varies. For many of the clients that come to me initially, their expectation is that mold is an issue and that you're going to find it. And that it's easy to find. And in some cases, it is. We follow the evidence, just like you do in your clinical workup with patients. There's probably a cluster of evidence that says, oh, yeah, this is where it's at, or maybe it is black and white. But there's that expectation that we're going to have to figure out where the sources are. And therein lies the challenge is we talked about this in the previous podcast, but what is normal? What's normal, Mark, in your home? I don't mean mold growing on a wall. No one's going to say that mold growing on your wall because of a window leak is normal. It might be common that it happens, but it's not what we would expect as a normal, acceptable thing in a living space.

 Mike Schrantz, Dr. Mark Su 5:50

Yeah.

 Mike Schrantz 5:51

But what's normal background levels in your home might look different, will look different than my house, normal backgrounds. And I'm in Arizona, so I'm West Coast, you're East Coast. And that difference in dynamic can help us. So going back to it, it gets tricky. And the biggest question we all we always get, it doesn't really even matter the situation. Contents come up all the time, especially this issue of do we have to throw them away or not.

Dr. Mark Su 6:17

Yes, it's a good, it's yeah, I love that you touched on that. For me anyway, that was a real meaningful point that we touched on last time was normal versus common. Yeah. And then unfortunately, it's also relative, it can be relative to where you're at in the country or at least even in your. I know you've, I think you and I've talked about, I know with our co-colleague who's our local IEP from our same organization, there's conversations around if you're home, if you're living somewhere where you're right off of a lake or there's a ton of trees all over your community, that's different than the extreme example of you living more in an arid environment.

 Mike Schrantz 6:50

No doubt. And it's maybe for those that listening, there might be okay, and behind that. Like they get it, but there might be a what about all that. For the IEP, for the indoor environmental professional, the issue is that we the expectation is that we're also, I should, we should add an S at the end, right? Is that you're going to be able to separate indoor influence, meaning there's a source somewhere in the home or under the home, like in a crawl space, et cetera, et cetera, versus outside or out or the exterior of the home. And the reason that's important, because as you can imagine, if the concern is hidden mold in the house, it could lead to remediation, ripping down walls, things of that nature. Whereas if it's an exterior source, because you live in a deep wooded area surrounded by trees and a crick in the back, creek or crick, it depends on which side of the country you're from, is that now it's more about how do I minimize the topic that will come up at that point is how do I minimize outdoor influence? And you're not ripping down walls and you're not doing the same thing you do. So I only bring up, and I think Mark, you're in our points about where you live is relative and it matters, is because what's normal in one home, you can't post it on a social media group and get in the opinion of somebody who only knows what it looks like in the complete opposite type of a geographic or climate area and expect it to look the same. There are literally molds that are normal background where you live, Mark, that would be from the outside. Whereas if we found them in our home, it would be a strong indicator of an indoor source.

Dr. Mark Su 8:22

So let me back up on that just to understand you or just to clarify. That's something that when I years ago, when this was new to me, newer, new whatever, that was like an epiphany or eyes open, eyes wide open kind of learning point for me. Hey, so how often do you find you you inferred if I understood you that a number of clients you work with understand that topic that there could be mulch from outside, but I wouldn't assume that. How often do you come across that with clients?

 Mike Schrantz 8:48

Maybe the industry has changed, Mark, from 10 years ago, but I would say 80 to 90 percent, probably closer to 90%, get it, but there's still confusion within the minutia of that comment because I'll give you one sample of a thousand.

Outdoor Vs Indoor Mold Reality

Dr. Mark Su 9:01

But when you say get it, like I'm assuming you still had to introduce that topic or educate them on that.

 Mike Schrantz 9:06

No. Oh, really? And maybe it's bias, right? Maybe by the time they read things or get adversed from whatever the reason is, maybe it's just the evolution of the patient. I believe that the patients are going to lead this industry, period, because of the they're forcing up. This is a whole other topic, but they're smart, they're learning. And here's the problem with the this topic of how many patients already know this or not is somebody will say, Well, I get that there's outdoor influence and that that will be on my home. And then I would say something like, Yeah, we're just looking for things that are elevated or maybe atypical in your home. And they go, Yeah, exactly. I know, for example, I'm not supposed to have any stacky botchers in my home, which is for those of you who may be familiar, stacky botcher shatarum is like a Tom Cruise celebrity mold. Everybody knows it. If you don't know that mold, you may you've heard black toxic, and stacky was one of the molds that they associated that term. It's not the only mold that's toxic, it's not the only one that's black. At the end of the day, here's my point. And then they'll say a comment like that, oh, but I'm not supposed to have any stacky. I'm like, wait a second, time out. We find stacky outside in in in appreciable quantities all the time. You're gonna have a little bit of stacky in the house, and that's where I do, I have to clarify, Mark, 95% of the time that they're always off in their understanding, understandably, because they don't do this for a living.

Dr. Mark Su 10:21

So this is cool. This is actually, this is what we intend to do. This we kind of frame this out to a degree, but we're this is there's a lot of rawness with what we're doing. And so I'm learning right here in the moment. You're telling me 80 plus estimate, 80 plus percent of clients you start to work with at this day and age have a familiarity and awareness of the topic that, hey, yeah, there's going to be mold outside that could be affecting my scores inside. They have that general awareness. It's not a new topic. Yet you're saying the reality of it with the results scoring in the report, the reality of it still isn't necessarily hit home. And so you still have some room, and we talked about this last time, where you have to deconstruct assumptions, conclusions, and whatever that they may have made. Or I don't know if that's easier or harder for you, where if it's a totally new principle to them, then you know there it's a clean slate to work with. Whereas if they already had some awareness and then they believe they understand something, then you have to kind of deconstruct it. Is that even harder?

 Mike Schrantz 11:14

First of all, you're you knocked it out of the park in terms of what how you understood what I said. And second of all, what an interesting question you just posed. It depends, right? You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Like it depends on the individual if they're open-minded. Here's the problem I find. When someone is not, it's not their first rodeo, they've been dealing with this health and exposure issue for 10, 15, 20, sometimes even longer years. I find, to maybe your point, or at least legitimate question, that those are more challenging clients to work with and explain things because their mind is mostly set in an assumption that they've made, probably for their own survival or feeling or sense of understanding to make them feel for whatever the reason is, that's a whole other topic in of itself. Is that I end up spending the first 20 to 30 minutes deconstructing their knowledge with facts, with science, not some bar napkin, this is Mike's opinion thing. And then we rebuild that foundation and we readdress their situation. And along the way, that person, this is the goal anyway, and it happens a lot, does not happen every single time. Yeah, is that they will go, Oh, okay, I didn't realize that part. And I'm like, Yeah, and that's important because your previous assumption literally had you going 90 degrees different from where you would have gone here. The difference between you throwing something away and not throwing something away, the difference between you worrying about something and not worrying about something, these are significant assumptions.

Dr. Mark Su 12:43

Yeah. No, I love that because that I think it first of all, those aha moments, like I'm sure you and I are the same, those are gold moments, like professionally and personally. When you can see that the person gets it, or when we get something for the first time and our eyes are open, right? Oh, the screen's cracked. Oh, life's different now.

 Mike Schrantz, Dr. Mark Su 13:00

Yeah, right. Yeah.

 Mike Schrantz 13:00

Whenever I feel like I can connect with the client, that's the whole point. They've reached out to me because they want guidance and education. And it doesn't always mean, yeah, I can tell them, I know darn well when a client reaches out to me, I'll be able to educate them on 20 to 30 new points or whatever. But they have they're coming to the table with 50 to 100 questions. And and it's and anytime I see the light bulb pop, I feel like I'm not just helping out that patient or that client. I feel like I'm helping out the industry because that person is now going to go out and give good information when they share that, if they share that with their friends and their family.

Dr. Mark Su 13:32

Yeah, it's hard, right? Because it's one to on the one-to-one basis, a slow process in the big picture, but you got to start somewhere, right? And I think uh that's a major point in what we're trying to accomplish in the sort of the sublime or the underlying less obvious of what we're trying to do these podcasts is the reality. Yeah, we're talking about the reality of matters, but ultimately in for those who might end up working with Root Seek, which can include you and I, the it's you and I both know many clients, patients, and friends and family who have worked with either a doctor of people or a doctor of houses and buildings, either one, and they feel like they're not listened to. They feel like the they're being talked over and just talk into. It's a unilateral kind of one-way, like high high road, take my my uh what is it to be the highway? My way or the highway, thank you. Thank you. And so I'm fairly confident from our conversations before that we're similar, where hey, we're not saying it's easy, okay, with that deconstructing. Okay. And we got to do our part to be open-minded about constantly learning, also, right? Including learning from the clients or patients right in front of us. I think that's where we get most of our learning, right?

 Mike Schrantz, Dr. Mark Su 14:37

A lot of it.

Dr. Mark Su 14:37

The reality, speaking of reality, right?

 Mike Schrantz 14:39

Nothing else is the catalyst to help you learn. It's, oh, that's a good point. Now I'm researching it.

Deconstructing Assumptions With Science

Dr. Mark Su 14:43

Yeah, absolutely. And in but yet in the meanwhile, if we're working with a more challenging situation where we're pretty confident that what there's a misunderstanding there, rather than just like bully over in that conversation or that mindset or that relationship, there are times, I'm sure you and I both, where it's a gentler, slower progressing conversation because that conclusion interpretation is so solid, so entrenched that we have to establish relationship trust and then work on it and find and that find a place to meet as a compromise. Okay, we can agree on this. We may not disagree, we may not agree on that, but let's just start with where we can come to agreement and then be sure, do our best to help keep moving the needle one way or the other. And then if we get to a point where one or both of our mindsets change and we come to a new aha moment, then boom, now we've got a lot more breakthrough to to explore.

 Mike Schrantz 15:35

Yeah. Yeah, agreed. Said uh it does take me 20 or minutes or so to do exactly what you said, the trust, the understanding, and most importantly, that they feel heard. And it's legitimate, it's sincere. It's not like uh in time, I've given you five minutes and it's I acted like I listened. It will repeat, apply, and show where what maybe even an aspect of what they said checks out by the science, but where it doesn't, I'll try to offer a soft landing of awareness. Because I always remind people that I'm here to help. I'm not here to have an ego trip. Like if I can't serve you, if anything else, that could harm me by way of reputation, whether I like that or not. And so there is an honest, sincere effort of letting that person feel heard. And maybe, Mark, you were talking about expectations and whatnot earlier before we primed the first question here. Was that for me, uh, it's about them feeling heard. And I get, Mark, I don't know about you, but I get a lot of the whole husband-wife scenarios with the with I feel bad for the husbands, but there is that protector, just general, the classic fold the arms, quiet off to the side, listening, but not letting you know with no uncertainty that they don't really buy into all this just yet. And those end up being, if I'm being honest with you, some of my favorite situations to deal with. I hear you. I hear you into them, and I know I'm gonna do with truth and love and gratitude. Like I'm not, it's not a hey, you in the corner. It's let's talk about why it's off. You're feeling that way, right? For a reason. Why is it? This is crazy. We have to do all this. You're right. This doesn't sound crazy. Well, part of it bugs you. And we end up getting into it, and you find out that the thing that person felt was crazy, the words that he's using make sense. And it's like, oh yeah, I agree. That's crazy. We're not talking about doing that. Now they feel heard. I only say that because so many people feel lost because they feel like they're talking to a wall.

Dr. Mark Su 17:21

Yeah, and we talked last time about how commonly physiologically, women, it's more they are commonly sicker for legitimate reasons than the guys. So there's there's support for a ref, there's some explanation on some level for why that might happen more often too. And I, and by the way, I was the patient in the in the family.

 Mike Schrantz 17:39

So I know what I it's and we might know the numbers, but just it's the irony is I was the one that was going through all the stuff. I was the one dealing with the PTSD, the overwhelm. And I can appreciate at least a little bit. Like you said in a recent little gratitude session, is maybe I'm not been in that person's exact walk, but I've been through that challenge through my mind and my head and doubting and all these feelings anyway.

Dr. Mark Su 18:04

Another time I'll have to ask you how how your wife responded in those that historically keep us back on track, Mark. Come on. Okay, so moving from initial expectations from a practitioner who's referring a patient or client to you, right? Do you come across any particular uh expectations that you are either outright told or perceived from the client about the report you create and the ramifications of those reports?

 Mike Schrantz 18:26

In a couple different ways. First of all, a lot of clinicians who are burst will say make sure that the inspector doesn't just list a report with findings, but recommendations. If there's something that needs to get remediated, if there's something that needs to be cleaned, make sure that they write a step-by-step protocol, which means that you're literally, as the IEP, writing a hand-holding steps to help the mold remediation company, which is not the mold inspector, it should be a third party in an ideal situation, a separate company will come in there. So they'll ask that. They will let the patient know that the other that's a fair, that's a fair expectation, though, am I right? Very much because we get I do a lot of report reviews from around the world. And what I will tell you is that there are a lot of inspectors that will write their finding, never mind the topic of the quality of their findings, but let's just say they'll have a report with the findings. And then when you get to the recommendations, let's say they did find some areas of concern, it'll be like, we found an issue here, work with a mold remediation company, follow these best practices. And the client's not aware that is very it's a 50,000-foot recommendation. There are so many best practices, there are so many right and wrong ways that the industry supports that they could misinterpret. You need somebody to hand hold the right best practices.

Dr. Mark Su 19:45

So that was gonna that was gonna be my clarifying question. I've never experienced that. You're saying there are times people can get reports that don't detail a recommendation on how to address it.

 Mike Schrantz 19:53

You're spoiled. You got a good one near you that doesn't do that. But there are a lot of people, yeah, that will just because they don't. The onus, right? They don't want the responsibility. It's if I imagine this scenario, this mold inspector that's not doing medically important assessments, we call them pump jockeys. That's not necessarily meant to be a complete slight, it's more to describe this idea that someone comes into your house for 45 minutes, charges you accordingly for some very limited assessment and very limited sampling, and then they don't write a recommendation because that's going to take more time. And then they might be liable. They'll take liability by writing out a prescription, so to speak, of the remeat, just like you'd write someone who gets a prescription for medication. It's the same concept. They don't want that liability. So they'll just not include that.

Dr. Mark Su 20:38

That's what I was just getting ready to ask you. Do you think it's not to we're not trying to throw people on the bus, but just observationally or just perception? How much of what percent of the time do you think it's they don't still want to take the time, they're still getting paid, versus B, they don't want the liability, or C, they may not be familiar with it or something else?

What Good Reports Should Include

 Mike Schrantz 20:54

Probably B and a combination of B and they don't know, and they're and literally, so they're not getting put pay paid. Really, what it in my experience, it's the observation of they're not getting paid for it, which is a simple solution, just offer to do it for an additional fee. And if they then if they don't want if the that gets into deeper topics of what the patient should be expecting and things of that nature, which is your previous question, and also the liability. I've talked to people in this industry where they're like, I just don't like writing it because then it's if they can sue me, because what if I have them open up a wall and there was nothing there? And then they're like, I didn't have to open up this wall and I'm gonna sue you. Gets in that, and to me, be honest with you, that again, my opinion, my experience, that's coming from a place of fear, not necessarily a place of, wait a second, if I knew the industry enough, I'd know that's not realistic because the expectations is there might be low density, non-visible mold growth behind there. And at the end of the day, if you wrote the report that says I found evidence of a problem behind the wall, there's ways to solve those concerns. Unfortunately, the client often gets the short end of the stick.

Dr. Mark Su 21:56

So let me ask you, how often have you, how many times have you known, not even personal experience, but maybe that too, an IEP to be accused or brought to court or something over these kind of scenarios?

 Mike Schrantz 22:07

Not often. I can't think of any relating to this topic. I have gone to court before. Uh, unfortunately, the client didn't realize I was voice recording them and caught them in a lie, but I think it is a just a fear, right? Because it's a mold is a uh litigious word in certain communities. And sure. And so there's this feeling, there's this fear that they just don't want it. You I don't get paid enough. It's a vibe. I don't have insurance. Like I carry insurance, and people don't carry insurance because they can't afford it. So the good news is that there are a lot of resources. You're aware of some of them with ICI that really educates the client patient that this is what you need to expect before you ever pick up the phone call for a mold inspector or mold remediation company. These are the things that you need to have in place.

Dr. Mark Su 22:55

Yeah. It sounds like most it sounds like a lot of the liability stuff is more the fear of as opposed to that it it happens often enough.

 Mike Schrantz 23:02

There is there a one-off somewhere, some outlier on the curve of what's norm. I'm sure there is, but I'm pretty well connected relative to a single IEP versus and who all I know. And we're like a bunch of people who can gossip too. And we don't, I don't ever hear anything about that. The stuff I hear about is not about this topic. Okay.

Liability Fears And Industry Gaps

Dr. Mark Su 23:22

Okay, cool. So if we let's if you're okay, let's let's transition to we're talking about your experiences with doctors of people, practitioners of patient people, humans, bringing people to you as clients to test their home or work environments, flipping it just a little bit. If I can now, we've roughly touched on this, but I don't recall if I've actually given you details on this. If I can now give you just like a general overview on how I explain to how I prep patients for what to expect out of a report. And I'd just love to get your feedback on that, and then we'll dive into, as our last piece, like dive into a question off of that. All right. All right. So if I'm speaking, let's just say if you're listening here and we're working with you through RootSeek or otherwise, and and we've I and we've gotten to a point where there is meaningful suspicion that there is a sick environment that you're living or working, let's just say living in, and you're anticipating having an IP like Mike check out your place and write up a report. Before you even have that person come, usually what I'm verbalizing, messaging to people is so you're gonna get a detailed report. There is a, I do make comment about there is a just difference between air sampling and dust sampling. We're not gonna get into detail about that here and here now in this podcast, but the IPs have some licensed practices that they need to follow that are air sampling. The practitioners in this mold illness space are familiar with dust sampling. There is a, they're not one and the same, so don't get hung up on those details. But beyond that, when you get a report back, um, there's gonna be identification of look, the person doesn't have Mike or whoever does not have x-ray glasses to know what's behind walls, whatever. Okay. So they're not, they can't say with meaningful certainty in most cases what's really behind there, but they're gonna identify what they see on the outside or evidence of such, just like we're doing a physical exam in a person, right? Except this is like a physical exam of the environment. That's how I think about it. And so then when they come out with a report about what needs to be done, in my mind, it it basically is separated into four categories. Number one, what needs to be cleaned in terms of surfaces, what can or needs to be done in surface cleaning, which could very well be done as a DIY with in with recommendations on what kind of solutions to use, et cetera. Number two, air cleaning. So that may involve central air or air conditioner units or whatever the case may be, but air filtering and air cleaning. Thirdly, contents and assets. So that could be fabrics, clothing, furniture. It could be papers. I commonly will talk about how our local IP, our co our mutual colleague, has we've had several cases in the past where she would infer gently to people that there's a lot of excess, we won't say hoarding, but a lot of excess papers and books and stuff. And that's just very ripe for a moisture and not only dust water material and such water damage. And then fourthly, the deeper structures, right? Which is that's the one that I in my mind people are the people are getting like nervous about having to go looking for molds. Okay, what's behind the walls? So that's that. But what I then pivot into is saying, look, it's normal that a lot of people, stereotypically for me, might be more often than guys, but it's normal that people are thinking worst case scenario. Oh my God, what might be found? What might be found? What if? Lots of work, lots of money, lots of time, people in our house, things are torn upside down. Do we have to move out temporarily? Where's that going? Like it's a never-ending pit, that kind of stuff. But then I try to stop and just say, it doesn't have to be that way. So this is where my therapist voice, the my therapist, literally her voice from years over time, is but that we don't know that. Or it doesn't have to be that way. What if, think about the opposite. What if it's the opposite? Like you find there isn't anything meaningful, or it's just surface stuff, right? And so that, and then secondly, lastly, I will say to people, not only do you not have to worry about, you don't have to project that and catastrophize that, but again, back to our comment from the first session, there's opportunity to take things sequentially. It doesn't have to be all or nothing per se. It's not a commitment to a full-scale remediation, even if there is some more meaningful stuff going on. I try to give people a bigger picture of possibilities, categorization, breaking it down into these four categories of what might need to be done for remediation treatment, and then also that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. So, my question to you is having said that, I've never asked you this, but I'm open, full trance, full, don't worry about offending me or anything. Like, how does that land for you? If I said, if I now having explained to you that that's why I tell patients, if patients were seeing you on a recurrent basis and you saw the next 20 people who I prepped them that way, how does that land for you? How does that work for you? Is that helpful? Is it not helpful? Are there big that's that's gonna land me in some difficult positions because of what you worded this way or that way?

 Mike Schrantz 28:00

No, you hit on the talking points. You basically are talking about this idea of what is this whole assessment and remediation cleaning thing all about? And the big points to keep it real simple is you assess the building. That's step one. Yeah, there's details within all that. We've been talking about some of those details. You do a visual, you look at historic issues, like we had this water leak here a couple of years ago, and you don't ignore it just because the moisture is gone. You come up with a you sample where sampling is beneficial. A lot of times, sampling is used to help locate a source in a particular area. You use the word deeper structure, so wall cavity, for example, something like that. We do something to identify something there, or sampling can be in the living spaces. Mark was talking about earlier about this whole idea of dust sampling versus air sampling, which we'll talk about in another podcast, or at least reference something because that that's two hours right there. But the point is that those samples can help us understand questions like what is your exposure? Somebody doing a swab sample on your grout line in your master shower is not a good indicator of your exposure. But sampling the air and especially the surfaces can be a better indicator of that exposure. Then the next part, which is what you were really asking about, is you get into the topic of remediation and cleaning. What needs to be remediated? Physically removed, ripped out, so that they can access that damaged material versus what things need to need to be cleaned. Cleaning the air, cleaning the surfaces, cleaning the HVAC system that you mentioned earlier. And then, of course, other subtopics within that, which is like how did it become a problem in the first place? When we think about moisture is the catalyst for a lot of things, for off-gassing of chemicals, for production of mold growth and bacteria growth. So are we fixing the root causes? So, yeah, if you're prepping your patients and giving them like a baseball field size idea of what the different things may look like, to me, that actually makes my job easier because at the end of the day, it boils down to their knowledge of who I am and their trust in me. If they don't know who I am and they don't really trust me, and then I start getting into the weeds with all these wonderful things we do to be forensic, to be honest with you, half the time, Mark, but people don't call me back until six months later if they didn't solve the problem within that time frame. They it's just it's a lot. So they need to be aware that diagnosing a home is the same feeling of a significant process as diagnosing the body. When someone comes into RootSeek, it there's you guys have such a great platform to help manage and deal with all sorts of complexities, simplicities, speeds, cadences of situations, but it's not a one-stop shop. You're not stopping at your local QT one time and then off you go. It's a process. And when people hear about that process, it can be overwhelming. QT must be something local to you.

 Mike Schrantz, Dr. Mark Su 30:39

We have Circle Ks, QTs, little gas stations, things of that nature. I've seen Circle K. Yeah, Circle K. I was I it was risky when I said it because I'm like, do they have that on the East Coast?

Dr. Mark Su 30:48

Yeah, no, and I didn't grow up with it in the Midwest either. Oh, okay. I should have said a gas station. All right, there you go. Given those four categories, first of all, do is there another major category that I don't I'm not thinking of and I've never mentioned patients that you know really is on your docket?

 Mike Schrantz 31:01

I think you did mention contents, and I just want to tell you that I'm eager looking, waiting to talk about the top, the grades of the content cleaning. But honestly, that's the big thing. Yeah, people bring up other things like their workplace, other sources of exposure, other areas, their cars. Those things come up. Those are low-hanging fruit issues that come up. Maybe it's not your house that's causing the exposure, maybe it's your workplace and things of that nature, and also lifestyle. Lifestyle will come into play a lot of times. And one example, again, of a thousand would be like are you an equestrian writer? Play with livestock. Do you uh you have a bunch of cows nearby? Do you have chickens in the backyard? A lot of them with all their feces and all their waste products, if you will, that you're tracking into the home. As an IEP, I have to be aware of these things because it's going to affect your indoor environment. And you're trying to ask me is can you identify where this issue is coming from that you are picking up with your sampling so that remove it so I can get better?

Dr. Mark Su 32:00

Yeah, got it. Yep, great, great. Thanks for that. Thanks for educating me. Yeah. So in terms of your reports for remediation cleaning, like categories of within a home or whatever building, those four are suffice to say fair to say that's a pretty, that's a relatively complete set of categories.

How Doctors Prep Patients For Reports

 Mike Schrantz 32:18

Yes. As it pertains to this example, like we're going to talk about chemical exposures and how to deal with address off-gassing or other topics like how to improve the overall indoor air quality. These are separate chapters in this discussion. Hey, maybe get rid of carpet, maybe add mechanical ventilation. Does your house need a dehumidifier? Yeah, within the context of a water moisture issue, you've covered the major points.

Dr. Mark Su 32:43

And so just as a very brief one-off, when you mentioned like the off-gassing topic, which some people in the podcast community will have familiarity with that topic, does that not fall into one of those four categories for you? Like it does it not fall into like content material, like furniture that's off-gassing. Do you think of that? Does it not fall into the air quality topic? Because you're thinking about air in terms of, you're assuming that I'm asking about air in terms of water damage or bacterial mold phenomena or whatever, whereas you're thinking about the gassing as like a slightly different topic, even though it's carried through the air?

 Mike Schrantz 33:12

I will say that it would be different in terms of a what we might recommend within one of the steps of recommendations. So just that out like remediation cleaning would look different if you're dealing with IKEA furniture that's off-gassing in the middle of your living room versus a mold problem in a wall in the living room. Both will have recommendations. One of the four, but they'll be way different with what we do.

Dr. Mark Su 33:38

So it's more that it's more that the treatment of these off-gassing phenomena might are different than talking about, say, mold or bacteria matters?

 Mike Schrantz 33:45

Exactly.

Dr. Mark Su 33:46

Yeah. Okay. So the big piece today, right? Then so among those four categories, it may not be the easiest thing to answer here, but like we don't do easy, right? Which among those four categories, which one would you argue is across the board is the uh it might be the greatest priority to address for any given patient? If you yeah, let me leave it at that.

 Mike Schrantz 34:08

Can I tell you the one that brings up the most emotions from dealing with content?

Dr. Mark Su 34:13

Yeah. Yeah, you alluded to that just like three minutes ago. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us your experiences there or what what are common things that you are what are your experiences with people, the emotional piece behind it? And then secondly, how do you respond? And what do you recommend to people regarding that category of needing to remediation?

 Mike Schrantz 34:28

Yeah, sure. For those of you listening right now, if you're familiar, this that we're bringing up this important topic of contents and this issue of hearing, hey, are my contents, are they contaminated? Do I have to throw them away? Can I clean them? And I'm seguing into this topic by using this example because virtually every 95%, if not more, of the clients that I work with will have legitimate questions about contents. That is to say, what to do with them. Not necessarily a non-porous content, like a glass table or a finished wood piece of furniture that you can wipe down. And or a lot of people say what's porous, what's non-porous. We use these terms, porosity. Porous would be an example if you had a glass of water and you drip water onto the item and the water would soak in. So, like your bedding, your mattresses or your linens, those are porous, right?

Dr. Mark Su 35:18

But yes, you're talking about like how much stuff can hold what we call germs or fumes or whatever the case, versus they're like solid structures that are almost like impenetrable.

Four Buckets: Surfaces, Air, Contents, Structure

 Mike Schrantz 35:26

Right. Because the right, because the porous items ultimately have more surface area and more surface area at a microscopic level can hold way more contaminants, and that can make it more difficult to clean by way of the quantity present and also the surfaces, because you're not looking at those at a microscopic level, you're cleaning them at a macro level and hoping that best. So there's this topic, right? About it's the porous items. And and I'm gonna do my best of saying what this issue is. And the issue is how clean does something have to get to, right? Or it's not considered to be a threat to your health. And I'll start off with a very disappointing baseline. We don't have an exact quantity for you. 14 spores on this item is okay, 15 spores, you're gonna have a reaction, your arms might fall off. It's more of an issue of does it reflect normal background? Because your immune system, and I'm not trying to play doctor here, Mark, but trying to offer some big picture thoughts, is that you're probably balanced within what the normal out, the average individual is balanced with their normal outdoor exterior exposure. And don't be the person right now that says, I live in the swamps in Georgia. That doesn't count. I'm talking about an average outdoor environment. And when and in that environment, you're gonna have normal background, you're gonna literally have mold spores. We'll pick on mold because we always do, mycotoxins, which can come from mold, which have short half-life, so they break down, which is good news for everybody. Bacteria, we have that too. You're gonna have those same species from the outside landing on that pillow that your great-grandma sewed for you, or on that photo album that your mom that no one has anymore because everyone's got phones, but we used to have the nice photo albums, and sometimes my mom would get fancy and actually put cloth and material on because that's how I roll. And there's this thought that these porous items have to be thrown away because they're porous, they're difficult to clean, but then that implies there's a metric. What is what makes it difficult? Because you did a pre-post test and there was a quantity, a concentration that was still remained. What was that concentration? I got news for you, Mark. I can't find a study like that. I think what's happening is, in fact, I would argue quite a bit that the issue is fear. When people know that they have content, so staying on focus on contents, when they know that their bucket's full, we've heard this term, Mark, in my immune system. I got all this stuff, I can only deal with so much, my bucket gets full, and that's when I react. I have a symptomatic response or whatnot. Okay, I get makes sense. Is that we want to lower that bucket that not fill it up so quickly? And one way we do that is by minimizing exposure. And so this is where it matters. So somebody like Mrs. Smith, I always, and it could be Mr. Smith, I was a Mr. Smith when I had my health issue, would go online and read what the quote unquote experts would say, or God help you, if you go on AI, and have it help you with a response, is that they would say, get rid of it, throw it out. And Mark, there's two problems with that. Is the first problem is that it's an assumption, and maybe it's right. Maybe you had really moldy furniture that was in a basement for years and it just is inundated with so much smells, VOCs, contaminants, that it would literally be easier to throw it away than even attempt to clean that thing. No argument. We recommend throwing out contents a lot, but here's the other thing it does that assumption, what I have found, Mark, haven't done a study on it, just listening to the people's explanations of what their understanding on mold exposure is and contamination to help me with what I'm about to share with you, end up treating mold like it's plutonium, in so much that any amount is too much. I can't have any amount. And it's like, wait a second, I hear you, I hear what you're telling me, but you realize that as you explained your concern, I'm talking to this hypothetical client right now, that you're breathing in the same mold and mycotoxins that you were worried that were settled that you couldn't remove from your pillow or your porous item. What about that? What about the stuff that settled on your shirt right now? As you're listening to this podcast, listening to my voice, have fun with that. You got stuff settling on your shirt, on your clothing. What about that? It's gonna be some of the same species that can grow in water damaged buildings that can produce that okra toxin A, that gliotoxin that maybe some of you are familiar with. These are mycotoxins, for those of you who are not familiar. And yet we don't do, we don't throw that stuff away. We don't get rid of it. We live on Earth, we're gonna have backgrounds. So that's what the issue is. I will tell you that. The goal shouldn't be zero contamination on a content, Mark. And we'll talk about how to clean that up. It should be normal background levels. And when we assume that we have to throw everything out, it sets it in my experience, Mark, it sets the stage for a snowball effect where they end up applying the thought of well, I have to do it for that. That must mean I have to do it for everything else. New car, new home, bankruptcy, divorce. Those latter two can be on the more extreme end, but they happen enough to where it's worth mentioning.

Dr. Mark Su 40:30

So what do you so how do you guide that hypothetical client in front of you with this topic?

Off‑Gassing And Non‑Mold Exposures

 Mike Schrantz 40:35

Two things come up. First of all, mycotoxins is the big one. Again, this is the chemical metabolite that molds can produce these mycotoxins. Yeah, essentially toxins from the fungus. Thank you. And those mycotoxins have short half-lives. If you had a mold exposure from an item from an area, and your bedding was impacted, legitimate from that, and it was just mycotoxins. Most mycotoxins, look it up. Go do yourself a favor and go on Google Scholar and do some research and look up half-lifes from published papers and studies that will show that the half-life for mycotoxins in many settings are of the order of minutes, hours, days, sometimes weeks, seldom longer than that, could be, but in most a vast majority of situations, less than a month. In fact, more arguably, less than a week or two. And so why does that matter? If you're worried about the mycotoxin that theoretically you can't remove from an item, which by the way brings up another irony of then what's the concern if you can't remove it? Is give it a couple of weeks, give it a month, put it in storage for a little bit, let it break down, and all of a sudden now your mycotoxin concern is not an issue. The other concern, Mark, is the actual structure of the mold. Think about the mold spore, the mold fragment, is how do we remove that? A lot of techniques that are out available today, like anything that's a linen or a clothing can be laundered. There's a study that's out, it's been out for a long time. I discussed it on episode 19 on my podcast, iepradio.com, that discusses how normal laundering, not with pneumonia or pneumonia, wow, ammonia, not with not with vinegar, not with borax, just good old-fashioned laundry detergent. You got some of that free and clear that you guys are listening to, you got that on your shelf. Great, use it. That will physically remove not just the mold and the mycotoxin. And just keep this on mind. That study that I'm talking about, they actually had mold that they inoculated. They actually grew it in the actual materials, synthetic and organic linens, so that we could see how it would work. We're not, you and I on this particular topic aren't talking about mold growth. We're talking about cell contamination, far easier to remove because it's not ingrained, it's not rooted in the matrix of the material. It's not growing like roots of a tree into it. So that's important. But then you have the structures in a mattress or in a sofa. Can't throw that in a washing machine, can we? And so it's okay, fine. Ask yourself this question. You're asking me how we work with people to get through these things. What's the value of the sofa? We just bought it last year. It's an $8,000 sofa. We really don't want to get rid of it if we don't have to. Okay. Take that sofa outside, beat it with a stick like mom used to do. Don't damage it. HEPA vacuum it. If it's a nice, warm, sunny day, you can let Mother Nature help out a little bit. UV light can be beneficial, though it is more anecdotal at this point than heavily researched. Keep it outside and then you can resample that $8,000 sofa, if that's what your situation looks like, and verify with evidence that there's not a huge concentration of contamination on this sofa. If it's the same exact situation except it is a 15-year-old sofa that you probably wouldn't give to the salvation army because it's old and just it's seen better days. You had kids that's gotten destroyed. Get a new sofa. And for those people that are in the tough situations of, yeah, we can't afford it, okay, I hear you. There are so many DIY options for cleaning, and there's things that you can put, like a sofa cover on it to minimize the future potential. Don't even know that it's going to be the case unless you guys are doing cannonballs on the sofa. You should be able to clean it up and then put a protective cover, very affordable, on that sofa to minimize exposure dealing with your own treatment and recovery. In other words, there are solutions for cleaning items and contents that are a far cry away from throwing things away.

Dr. Mark Su 44:25

That's cool. Yeah. So if I hear you right, um, just processing all this. You've the question of what, and we can revisit this, we could revisit a different angle of that another time, but the question of what of these four categories, services, air, contents, deeper structures in a home might have the biggest impact and therefore on this person's health and therefore prioritization of addressing. You said for starters, just thinking about from a patient's perspective, not necessarily about the topic of impact in terms of symptomatology, but certainly emotional, which has its own layer. We talked about that last session as well, that whole mind, body, and emotional connection that often happens even on a subconscious level. The biggest emotional impact piece is the contents. And in summary, I'm hearing you say overall, it's not, it's the far uncommon to rare situation that people really need to be throwing out lots and lots of stuff.

 Mike Schrantz 45:18

Let's say it's impossible. That's more uncommon, and you're right. It's not impossible.

Dr. Mark Su 45:23

Yeah, it's not impossible, but what we what you and I hear in the practitioner community, email forums and or from patients, clients directly, or likely would easily read online through whatever forums and or just AI or whatever else about you got to get out, you got to throw all this stuff away. That's far extreme and quite uncommonly, it's quite commonly unnecessary.

The Contents Question And Emotions

 Mike Schrantz 45:48

And I would thank you for saying it that way, Mark. And yes, and I would argue that everything that you just described and the emotional, mental, what roller coaster that the individual experiences, I find has more detrimental effects as an observer, as an IEP being a part of a person's project and what their journey is, detrimental to them than the cost to remediate a wall, the deeper structure, the cost to remediate a kitchen sink. I'm not saying that those are nothing issues. I'm saying that the other stuff, the stuff we've been talking about, has lasting implications. It implies a sense of I can't do anything. I I no matter what I do, I have to get rid of everything. How will we ever find a new home? And meanwhile, your spouse is hanging on by a thread. Sound familiar? And trying to be supportive, maybe, but maybe don't feel you don't feel that way because they're like thinking you're just going crazy. Why? Because the industry, and I don't mean to include you or me in this, but there's too many people in this industry that either naively or intentionally, maybe ignorantly, give bad information. Of course I could tell you, throw everything out, buy a new home. And if it cost you a dollar to do that and we had unlimited resources, why not? Just press the reset button. That's the fun thing. When I used to play video games, I just pressed the reset button if I didn't like how things were going. You know, people can't do that. And that's the problem is that the doctors and IAPs who have influence make it sound like it's gospel, it's fact. It's it is duh. You're dumb if you don't do this. And what they're not adding is this context that you and I have been scraping the surfaces of and diving deeper into. Yes, I think that's the biggest issue in this industry, but I understand it can be overwhelming to have to the prospect of having to remediate a wall or a crawl space. This guy came out to my house and said I had to refix my crawl space, and I got an estimate it was going to be $30,000. That hits pretty hard too.

Dr. Mark Su 47:47

Yeah. So I love your yeah, I love your response. Again, summarizing that is I was I didn't want you to take it as in a wrong way of, oh, we didn't actually answer the question. So I'm glad you didn't. I don't perceive that you did. No. I framed the question more as tangibly of those four categories, which one has the most impact on a person's symptoms? And I'm thinking inherently direct impact of, let's just say, like you said, mold and the myco or fungal toxins that the molds make. And I'm thinking the kind of duh answer that I would think is if a person has meaningful, deeper structure issues behind walls and it's just a mess back there, but you could keep, and you've we've talked about this before, you could clean your surfaces all you want, right? And that's for another time with the bomb fogging and all that stuff. But it's kind of like the people who are like, I just keep taking oddprofen, but it's not helping because there's something else going on underneath, and I need to figure out what that is. So if there's a root issue there, then how much are you, how far are you going to get doing services or addressing content, whatever? But you actually then spin it around on me and say, when you think about it, not just from the direct impact of the mold and fungal toxins or whatever other contaminants, and you think about the emotional layer, that limbic system, again, we'll reference back to the first session, right? The mind-body connection and ultimately people who might more easily feel unsafe, right? Or triggered, and all of a sudden they feel like they're surrounded and they can't do something, as you said. They can't, it's a trapped situation. And especially those people who have had life experiences that are not even related to this home building environment and they generally feel anxious, PTSD, unsafe in some kind of way or another, that you're saying, hey, that has as much or more many times impact than the direct impact of the mold mycotoxins. And therefore, addressing something that might be more surface-y, even if there are deeper underlying issues, that has can have as much impact on helping them get better by reassuring them and pulling back from the cliff that it doesn't mean all or nothing binary, like you got to move, you got to throw everything out, et cetera, et cetera. That's what I'm hearing from you.

 Mike Schrantz 49:43

Yeah. Yeah. And sorry, I got a little bit emotional there because even listening to you describe it, which is how I meant it to be heard. Uh, not only do I have personal experience with that, and you think I wouldn't, right? Maybe we joke, we talked about this before on the first podcast, but I've told my story to other people. And they're like, but Mike, you have all these connections and people, wouldn't you have just been sipping on a Mai Thai while you were dealing with your journey? And it was like, no, because part of my problem was is that I went to people, not you, Mark, that just made it feel overwhelming. And I'm not saying that's all on them. Like, I got my own stuff, I have my own pain points, I have my own unique things that make me a beautiful person, but also might affect me in other ways. I get all that stuff. But at the end of the day, I look back and it's, yeah, no, you're right. On the surface level, your question, yeah, you're right. Hidden deeper sources the problem. If you don't address the root cause, that is going to continue to be an issue. Case in point, someone says, You have mold in the house, and so just clean it. So they just clean the house and then they resample and the mold comes back and they're still having symptoms. We're like, what happened? I just cleaned the house. You didn't address the root cause. You didn't re rip out the wall or the or address the crawl space or clean or and address the moldy H back system where mold is growing in it and how to prevent it from happening in the future. You didn't address that. So of course it's going to come back. And you're right. What happened was is I missed that very legitimate opportunity to express that because what I've been getting over the last five, six years is the answer that I gave you originally. And it's so bad. And for people who can't afford it, for those of you listening right now, how many of you have spent 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 on grasping at things that were felt as a solution? Not that they didn't help, but that state of desperation. I gotta do this. And I just decided I just got rid of everything. And then I bought an O2 chamber in my house. And then I just did all these things. And it's I'm not, hey, I wish I had an O2 chamber in my house. But the point is that it has this snowball effect. And we can move on, Mark. I just want to just want to say that when that's not correct, when the assumptions, the thought that mold is plutonium, stacky botris, I can't have any. If I had something land on my book, I have to get rid of it. When the patient, and for those of you who are feeling this right now, pay attention. When that is your baseline, that's what you have to work with and push off of. Everything else downstream that you're going to use that imply that quote unquote logic, which was, which is more from a s in a loving way, in a fearful stated manner developed, is going to have negative ripple effects down the road when you realize if down the road one day when maybe you do have an epiphany or something changes, or you have the right person that you're talking to who can give you the correct information in a very loving way that lets you know that you're being heard, is that you didn't have to do half the stuff that you did. And if you're blessed to do half that stuff and it wasn't really an issue for you, good for you. I think, Mark, I'm speaking to the 90 what percent of the population can't do that.

Dr. Mark Su 52:39

Yeah, that's great summaries. It's great, it's great kind of wind down and closure here. Yeah, I agree with you. If you're yeah, if you're someone listening to this and you're thinking maybe for the first time, or it's validating something you haven't addressed and thinking, could this be my house or my condo or my apartment that's sick or got environmental issues? Could this be what's making me sick? Whether it's respiratory stuff, brain fog, fatigue, pains, gut issues, et cetera, then yeah, you're not alone, right? We've seen we see those patients all the time. It's a it's an uncertainty that a lot of people deal with, and uh it's but it's legit. Further, if you're a person who you're in a little bit of analysis, paralysis of or frozen with overwhelm, wondering, oh my gosh, this is where I'm reading online. I know there's an issue now, but what does that look like to have to deal with it? Yeah, as we said at the beginning, just it's okay to take a deep breath and just know. I think this has been really obviously educational for me, but yeah, I feel like I you and I both have more of an empath background and our profile and tendencies and personality profiles and just being in the shoe of someone like that, and you've been in that shoe, but just to know that there's hope, there's action plans that that are available and can be created, but all the more so that it doesn't have to be all or nothing and overwhelming and just catastrophe. Yeah. If it's something this is all something that you and I, and certainly through RootSeek, we do with all the time, helping patients and clients map this out step by step. Because as we like to say, again, we're about clarity. We're this podcast, a lot of what we're trying to accomplish is helping create clarity, right? And in a lot of ways, dare I say, here clarity itself can be medicine, right? Or it can lead to healing, just the clarity itself. I think we've all experienced that, right? The unknown, the what ifs, it's so oppressive sometimes. And okay, now I have some awareness, I've identification, clarity. What's the game plan? Big. Yeah.

What To Clean Vs What To Toss

 Mike Schrantz 54:24

Yeah. And Mark, if I may, to your point, you made a reference earlier in the beginning, how it was like I go online, it's like my or I read something or I think something, it's like, why does my mind go to the worst case? Like, why don't I choose that it could be this instead? And I'd like to clarify something here. Everything that I spoke about today on the topic of assumptions, misinformation, and how that has snowball effects. Please understand this as even a bigger picture. Is that there when we say there's hope, the general experience I have with patients is success. The curve that is majority people graduate, get better in a way that is rewarding relative to their situation, exciting for them at the point that they're at, and they feel better. I don't deal with too many people. And I know that there's some outliers out there that have got some pretty complex situations going on that maybe they have been going on through this longer than others, but the vast majority of people who are experiencing some form of chronic illness or low dose environmental exposure concern. I have found that with that clarity mark that you're just talking about, that education combined with just yeah, an awareness of really what the industry and what this exposure is all about versus what it's not, the fear-based stuff that you can find a dime, a dozen. You all want to be scared senseless. Just go on social media, you'll get all you need. You'll get your, you'll get an earful. Is that it's not that. That's what I love about Root Seek, is that this is a place where you can find clarity, comfort, and peace, knowing that, okay, I'm not going to be able to go to a grocery store or a gas station and get one Advil off the counter and solve my problems. There is a path of figuring out what's going on with you and getting your house, getting your building, getting your body better.

Dr. Mark Su 56:11

Yeah. Yeah, that's good stuff. Yeah, if this resonates with you as a listener and you're feeling like you need a partner on the on your healing journey, you can find us, Mike and I and others at RootSeek Health, root like a root of a tree, rootseekhealth.com, and we'd be honored to walk with you and be part of your journey. So yeah, this good stuff, Mike. Really, this that's it's awesome. It's more than I would have more than I could have expected. So yeah, thanks to you and thanks everybody for joining us on this second episode between Mike and I for this on the functional medicine reality podcast. Our encouragement for you as a next step is just to click that link in the show notes to take a quick health quiz. It's designed to help you uncover what your body really needs and how we can best support you, but also to help us give some feedback on where we can go with future content information so that we can be of greatest value to the communities out there. So our purpose again is to create clarity among all this noise of all the excess information we're faced with every day, whether it's social media, podcasts, emails, friends, family. So we're bringing you the reality of functional medicine, the good, sometimes bad, occasionally the ugly, but we're going to call a spade. And the world of functional medicine is diverse. It's diverse, it's powerful, it's full of hope with all its tools and potential. But the practice itself is the practice of functional medicine and mold illness and such as Mike and I talk have talked about so far, is far from a one size fits all application. It's not a cookie cutter. So what might be great for others might not be work for you. It might even do more harm than good for you. So we want to help you look lock in on what's worth your time, effort, and money and what's not so much. Again, rootseekhealth.com is where discovery calls can be made or just to connect and engage and ask questions. But our team's ready to help you move forward with clarity and confidence at your discretion. And Mike, awesome as usual. We'll we'll do this again. Love being here, Mark. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.

 Mike Schrantz 58:01

Just the way you like to