Mold: It Might Be Silently Destroying Your Health
Mold. It’s nasty stuff.
Sure we can give it credit for the existence of blue cheese, but the vast majority of mold can be detrimental to our health. We may be exposed in our homes, workplaces and many places we visit without ever knowing. It loves to hang out in dark, damp places that we often give little attention to.
On this week’s episode Ed discusses specific types of mold and what to look for in your own home and how to help your body’s defense system to help protect against it. Just remember the 3 T’s: test, treat, and take supplements that can help mitigate the effects on your body.
Some Topics We Discussed:
What is mold and what happens to the body if mold is introduced to it? (1:24)
How do we figure out if we have mold? (4:51)
What should you do if you do have mold? (7:15)
What are some common treatments for mold? (10:30)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
About half the time, mold only impacts the respiratory system but the other half if can devastated the rest of the body. (6:01)
The number one thing mold will do is affect the immune system, it will lower its capacity to be healthy, and many times send it off on a path of autoimmune and attacking the own body. (6:40)
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CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:43 What's going on everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Holistic Navigator Podcast, where we believe in the body's ability to heal itself. I'm Brian Strickland, the producer of the show. And today we've got a little bit of a shorter episode for you today. But it's an important topic that we're really excited to talk about. But before we begin, let me go ahead and introduce you to the host of the show. Here in the studio with me, as always is Ed Jones, Ed, how are you doing today?
Ed Jones 01:11 Could not be better, Brian, and thank you for asking hope you are well. And I am again excited to talk about another topic that seems to not kind of be on the radar for most healthcare practitioners.
Brian Strickland 01:24 Yeah, I think it definitely is not. And so let's go ahead and introduce our topic for today. And we're going to be speaking about mold. Mold is one of those things that if you haven't really been affected by it, then it's something that you don't really pay attention to. But it can be really devastating once it enters into the body. So we're gonna spend some time today talking about some of the precautions that you can take, some of the dangers of what happens when it's actually introduced into the body. And if that occurs, what are some of the steps in next steps that you can take? So let's go ahead and get right into this conversation. Ed, can you go ahead and tell us exactly what mold is where people may be introduced to it, and how it can affect the body wants it is introduced?
Ed Jones 02:13 Yeah, thank you, Brian, I'm continually amazed how little is known or talked about, with people's chronic illnesses and mold. We all know what mold looks like, which is of course you go in your shower, and you see the discoloration of the tiles or the floor if it's not been clean. But this kind of mold is generally the kind that's causing so much distress in our health is kind of hidden. Most of the time it is not running down the walls, and is hidden behind wood or or sheet rock or basements or attics. And what is mold? Mold is a fungus. Where do funguses like to live? Dark, moist, warm places. So that's there's no wonder in our especially during the summer, and with the kind of moisture that we sometimes get with a lot of rain, that we are a breeding ground for the house. And our bodies are also warm, moist and dark inside. So what happens when you get exposure to mold? You know what most of the time nothing, Brian. But the thing is, they are such pervasive little critters that if they get within us, you can have devastating effects like neuro logical diseases even to that level. You can have unexplained conditions from chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and migraines. And you can live years dancing in the medical diagnosis field. And no one can figure this out until someone starts to think about mold.
Brian Strickland 03:52 Right?
Ed Jones 03:52 There is a gentleman a physician named Dr. Shumacher who I consider probably the leading physician in this country who's speaking and writing on mold. And, you know, if you are a person listening to this, who has unexplained types of symptoms, and you've been checked out thoroughly by either conventional or even complimentary health care people, and there's no real answers, and you have things like chronic cough, low energy, a whole plethora of symptoms that are really and you know, you can't really define where they're coming from. Because many of these people you get bloodwork and it looks great, because many people are you know some people of course I'm listening to or talking to are taking better care of themselves in the average American so they're wondering, why am I feeling so horrible? Why am I you know, not functioning, why am I depressed? I mean, this mold if it's inside our bodies, there's nothing it can't kind of trigger. Well, how do we figure out if we have mold? You know what, there is the coolest test on earth that I have ever seine and I have done this on several occasions, and I've recommended it for 50 or more people. And it is something you can do on your computer, believe it or not. And you I'll give you the website. It's called surviving mold.com. And it is a visual contrast test, and it will cost you about $15 or $20. And Dr. Shumacher says it's 92% accurate to see is mold a significant issue in your health? If it is, you're going to flunk this test. And I know people who it seemed like they did have mold, and they certainly flunked. And I've also put people on it, who I really felt were not having any symptoms very healthy, and they certainly passed. I have a lot of confidence in this test. So anyone who's you know, intrigued by this conversation, go to survivingmold.com and do what's called the visual contrast test. VCT, they may have it listed as that.
Brian Strickland 06:01 One question, if people are introduced to mold, does it typically just affect like the respiratory system?
Ed Jones 06:09 You know, Brian, that's a good question, does it only affect the lungs and respiratory half of the time in my experience, it is generally only affecting that, and the other half, it is devastating all other systems of the body, like the neurological system. Again, that's the system that rules to kind of runs the electrical, muscular, contractive, all these kind of different, like, MS symptoms would be something that's really been neurological. And so that's, you know, there's really hard to define what mold can do. But the number one thing it will do is affect the immune system, it will lower its capacity to be healthy, and many times send it off on a path of autoimmune and attacking the own body, because it sees this mold as an enemy, so it wants to attack it. But the mold is so kind of connected to the cells that it's also attacking the cells of the body. And the point I want to make too is your pets will also have the same symptoms from mold exposure.
Brian Strickland 07:13 Okay. Dogs and cats?
Ed Jones 07:15 Dogs and cats, or any animal actually, if you have a cow living with you, they could probably have mold. So let's just say you failed the visual contrast test. First step to do is try to identify where is the mold coming from, there is a lot of people who are claiming to be experts on, you know, looking for the mold and, and supposedly taking care of it be very, very skeptical of a lot of claims. Number one is many of these people, if they do tried to get rid yourself of the mold, they sometimes use very toxic ingredients, like chlorine. Chlorine, when mixed with mold actually produces a secondary type of byproduct that is as unhealthy as the mold. So you need people who understand that. And secondly, a lot of the people can see this as a easy sell, because you don't know what they're looking at. You don't know what the duck work and the attic, because you're not crawling up there. They can say anything they want. So check out credibility, but you have to figure out is it in your house? Where is it? And how do we get rid of it? Now, there are inexpensive ways to do this, if you don't want to or can't afford it at first, get the mold test kits. There's a Mold Test Kit made by a company that is I love called Microbalance. And you simply sit them out their petri dishes in your house, and you're going to watch the mold grow. And if you have more than two to three mold spores. What is the mold spore? It's that little circle and it gets all discolored. If you have two to three, that's normal. If you have four to five, it's questionable if you have six or more. It's definitely an unhealthy environment. Secondly, we don't really know what mold is growing so you can send these test kits off and you can get them tested because there's a mold call stacky battress, that is the one that will devastate your health to the limit that there's sometimes no recovery. If I lived in a house and I had this test and stackey battress came back, I would not spend the night I would go to a motel that night until it was taken care of. Alright, let's say we've checked your house and you know where it is and you are going to do whatever steps necessary to eliminate it. One product I do love is called mold solution concentrate. It's also made by the microbalance people. This is where you can apply to your carpets, upholstery, furniture, clothing, ductwork walls and cabinets. Because again, this is not the kind of chemical that's going to turn into this terrible byproducts. And we don't sell it we don't represent it but it's called microbalance health products if you want to Google that. I have used it with great success. So we've taken care of it in the house. But guess what? Is that ridding it inside our body? No, Brian, it's not once it's in the body, we are such a breeding ground that it wants to stay there for eternity. Now, if you are considering you know that you really have this issue, try to find a health practitioner who is skilled in mold and treatment, it is not easy to do. Don't expect your conventional practitioner to understand this.
Brian Strickland 10:28 What are what are some of the common treatments that you've seen?
Ed Jones 10:33 It's really hardly anything out there that can address this issue internally. Now, Dr. Schumacher believes of a drug called calistiramine. And I'm not a drug person. But calistaramine is a very safe drug. What it does is it binds with bile, we know that bile is produced by the liver stored in the gallbladder and bile can trap the mold in itself. And then calisytramine will basically help it carry itself out. So it helps you to rid yourself of the internal mold. Now my take on this is a little bit further, I don't like using drugs unless I have to. So what the other research seemed to point to is if we can use bentonite clay internally, and perhaps charcoal internally, that can tend to bind to those same mold receptors in the in the bile thing, so that we can rid it with a natural product. And then thirdly, which you don't read about this is just my own personal take is I would always be doing a good dose of olive leaf extract. Olive leaf is my miracle go to herb for so many things. The olive leaf tree is basically resistant to almost every disease because it tends to not allow anything to grow because of this certain ingredient called Ollieeuropen. And if you buy a product, it needs to say that but viruses can't live on the olive leaf tree very well, bacteria can't parasites can't. Well guess what it's very safe for us to take. And in higher doses seems to do the same thing for us that it did for the olive leaf tree. And so just using bentonite, charcoal consistently, one of those are both of those, it would take probably several months to completely rid yourself. And at the same time you're doing the olive leaf, and then you have to follow up with probiotics. And before we enter you, you know you and I both were so impressed with Brenda Watson and her podcast, the podcast I did with her here on the Holistic Navigator, and you need to know the details of probiotic purchase and how to take it and Brenda wants it explain that fully because most are not working because they're being killed by the stomach acids. Because you get the wrong kind of encapsulation.
Brian Strickland 12:53 The supplements that you recommended Is that something that we should be taking long term continuously? Are those safe to take long term?
Ed Jones 13:02 They are safe, but I think if that is the solution, you're treading water you're actually not, you know alleviating the underlying reason. And when you have a young one, you can't keep giving young ones bentonite and charcoal because the thing that that does is it binds everything to itself. It'll bind a drug, it'll bind a nutrient and then you can almost get into some deficiencies because if your vitamins you take were mixed with the bentonite the vitamin does nothing because the magnet effects of the bentonite. Okay Brian to recap this conversation on mold, the three things that people need to do and consider is the three T's test the house or wherever you're living. If it's mold, then you have to treat the house in whatever method seems appropriate, which is not using chlorine. Thirdly is take supplements and or find a conventional or not a conventional and alternative kind of complimentary physician or nurse practitioner who will prescribe calistryramine. Or if you're like me, and you're going to do all the non drug first, then look into bentonite liquid, not powder. And most people would be drinking this in between meals twice a day, two to three tablespoons. You must do it away from food, drugs and supplements. If you do that, and then add olive leaf and follow up with probiotics, you've got the protocol for bringing yourself back into balance. If you've been in the War zone with mold, thank you so much as always, and just remember what hypocrisy said so long ago. If a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.
Brian Strickland 14:55 The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the Va or any one of the medical profession and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The holistic navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials. The holistic navigator is not a doctor, nor does he claim to be, please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.