GOT MOLD? STEPS TO
TAKE
Written
by Daniel Mark Norris Newton Davis
Originally Posted: 6-30-07
Last Updated:
1-28-09
Mold spores
are in the air everywhere, looking for the moisture they require to
grow. The moisture from a shower,a leaky faucet or a leaky toilet
provide all the moisture they need. If the wood or sheetrock is not
dried out within 24-48 hours, mold will grow! Usually by the time
mold becomes visible, they have already established toxic mold
colonies inside the walls, ceilings or floors. They started
affecting the human occupants long before they became
visible.
The mold
spores and their mycotoxins are far from harmless. Some of them are
extremely harmful, especially when concentrated inside a home,
school or workplace. And if that exposure to people, especially a
child, continues over a prolonged period of time, the level of
degenerative damage increases accordingly.
Anytime you have ANY element enter the
chemistry of your body there is cause and effect.
How much the toxic mold affects the chemistry
of your body is dependent on a number of
factors;
1) The particular species of toxic mold. Different molds affect
different people in different ways.
2) The concentration level of the various molds involved in the
exposure inside the home, old school or business.
3) The length of the exposure.
4) Your genetic susceptibility. 24% of us are genetically more
susceptible.
5) The level of mold fungi already accumulated inside your
body.
The human body has difficulty ridding the mold fungi from the
mucous membranes throughout our bodies. If the accumulating mold
fungi exceeds the capacity of our cleaning systems to get rid of
them, health symptoms start manifesting themselves. If this
accumulation is not reversed, systemic degenerative breakdown is
inevitable.
Since the
beginning of time, mold has been Mother Nature's recyclers of her
basic biological elements. It is the job of mold to decompose,
degenerate, and break down all biological compositions to their
basic elements. They recycle them back to where they came from,
Mother Nature's soil. Dust to Dust. The cycle of life.
Mold Fungi
need three things to grow; warmth, moisture and biological material
they can consume, for the nutrients they require. In the building
materials like sheetrock and wood, structural molds suck the
moisture and nutrients out, degenerating the wood into dry rot.
Where there is dry rot, there is a mold problem.
In people,
especially a child, these same structural molds can suck the
moisture and nutrient elements right out of you, dehydrating and
degenerating your body. Our bodies provide all the moisture and
nutrients, like carbohydrates, which they need to survive and grow.
Although it is more complex in the human body, with it's immune
system, they still attempt to do the same thing..
In nature,
it is only about survival. To them, we are a just a warm and
delicious supply of the moisture and biolological nutrients they
require to survive. As they consume the moisture and nutrients,
especially carbohydrates, from our bodies it puts in motion a chain
reaction of cause and effects which degenerate our biological
bodies. Underneath the complex spiderweb of cause and effects, and
combinations of health symptoms with names of degenerative
diseases, there is the underlying contributing causation of mold
fungi doing their job, degenerating biological material.
Assess Mold
Exposure Level
To
effectively assess what you are dealing with, it is important to
have your home tested by a reputable mold testing company. They can
test for the level of different molds in your breathing
environments. Since different mold fungi affect people in different
ways knowing what level, of what mold is important.
The
following are the steps you should take to reduce the effects of
mold on your body.
Reduce Inhalation of Mold
Fungi
Use
an air cleaner with a hepa filter
To arrest the effects of mold on your body you
need to eliminate mold from your breathing environment. The most
important thing to do is reduce the level of mold spores and their
mycotoxins from entering your body's operating systems as soon as
possible. The quickest and most effective way to do this is to
start using air cleaners with hepa filters. They capture a very
high percentage of the invisible mold spores floating through your
air. Hepa filtering systems are recommended by my doctor. The
replacement filters can get expensive. But, not as expensive as the
doctor bills. I bought a Honeywell air cleaner with a Hepa filter
from Home Depot for about $140. I also use the Oreck XL air
cleaner, which eliminates the costs of replacing the hepa filter.
Using both systems is the most effective, and lengthens the life of
the hepa filter.
The idea is to reduce the intake of mold spores
into your body, and then reduce the levels of mold fungi already
accumulated inside your body. The body has difficulty eliminating
the mold fungi from the mucous membranes located throughout your
body. Taking a proactive approach is required to reduce their
levels in your body. Doing nothing is not an option if you want
your good health back.
Use a vacuum with a
hepa filter
It takes
only a slight air current to lift mold spores into the air. When
the mold spores are not floating through the air they settle onto
room furnishings and the floor. A vacuum with a hepa filter is
another effective tool to capture the mold spores out of your
breathing environment. Any mold spores you capture means less for
you to breath into your body. Reduction, reduction, reduction.
That's what it's all about.
Eliminate The Source
After
taking the immediate steps of hepa air cleaners and hepa vacuuming,
you must eliminate the source of the mold. Mold requires three
ingredients in order to grow; heat, moisture, and a food source of
biological material.
Usually
mold problems start as a result of a leak somewhere in the
building. A leaking toilet, a leaking roof, a leaking basement,
etc.. The source of the moisture problem must be eliminated. The
building materials such as wood, gypsum in the sheetrock of walls,
and carpets whose underlying pads rarely dry adequately after
shampooing, provide the biological material mold fungi require in
order to grow.
To
eliminate the source of mold you MUST get rid of ALL building
materials that the mold has gotten into. This includes replacing
the sheetrock, cutting out the wood, and getting rid of the
affected carpet. I tried a lot of shortcuts. But, they didn't work.
GET RID OF ALL THE AFFECTED BUILDING MATERIALS ASAP!
Ideally, if one can afford it, a reputable mold
remediation company should be called in to remediate the mold out
of your home.
Use an ozone
production machineto kill any
remaining mold
When you
are done cleaning as well as possible it is a good idea to buy or
rent an ozone machine. If you set the machine on the kill setting
for 72 hours it should kill any remaining surface mold.
YOU CANNOT HAVE ANYONE OR ANY PETS INSIDE DURING THE
OZONE TREATMENT. Air it out before re-entering the
building. All remodelers should do this at the end of remodeling.
Although this kills off most of the remaining surface mold, the
dead spores are still there. Inhaling the dead spores is not good
for you either. The surfaces still need to be cleaned of the dead
spores. For
Information about using ozone go to the experts,
ozone.ca .
Get rid of mold effected possessions
Any
possessions that had mold grow on them will have to be evaluated as
to whether they can be cleaned of the mold effectively. Wooden and
upholstered furniture which had mold grow on it, or it's legs, will
more than likely have to be thrown away. Even when layers of the
wood are removed the mold has usually penetrated deeper into the
wood. Spraying straight bleach onto the bare wood will reveal a
shadow of the mold deeper inside the wood. I was not able to save
any of my furniture which had mold grow on the legs, especially the
upholstered furniture. Leather, being biological material, appears
to be very difficult, to impossible, to get mold out of.
Clean all of your possessions
Now the
time consuming job starts. EVERYTHING in your home has to be
cleaned of the mold spores on and in them. First use a vacuum with
a hepa filter to clean as many possessions as possible. Hard
surfaces can be cleaned with soap and warm water. Be sure to use a
damp cloth to prevent the spores poofing up into the air. The mold
spores poof up into the air on contact, or with a slight air
disturbance. Use a mold remediation mask from your local home
improvement center. The mask should be one that filters out the
mold spores and the chlorine bleach you use during mold cleanup.
All your clothes need to be dry cleaned or washed several times.
Use bleach on all loads where bleach is appropriate. Let the
clothes sit with bleach on them long enough to kill the mold
spores. How long that is is debatible. Perhaps a few hours. Then
dry them in as hot a temperature as possible without ruining them.
It appears to be difficult to eliminate the mycotoxins from cloth
material.Any clothes which actually had mold grow on them should be
thrown out.
Moving to a new home
The last thing you want to do when you
move away from a home with a mold problem is to take all your
unwelcome mold and mycotoxin guests with you. Be sure to clean all
your cleanable possessions between the two homes. If the
possessions are not cleanable, get rid of them. But, don't
contaminate your new home.
It is a real pain to clean ALL your
possessions. Since they are invisible it is easy to forget how
harmful those mold spores and their mycotoxins are. Be sure to have
an air cleaner with a HEPA filter in your new home to capture any
mold spores which elude your cleaning efforts.
Don't forget the mold spores are traveling
on your clothes and in your hair. Your animals also have them well
entrenched in their hair. Perhaps dropping them off at the
veterinarian for an antifungal bath on your way inbetween homes is
a good idea. Remember that most dandruff shampoos have an
antifungal agent in them, since dandruff is a fungal
condition.
More and more ways are being figured out
to rid your possessions of the mold spores and their mycotoxins. If
you have a possession which has sentimental value and cannot be
cleaned, perhaps put it in storage untill you can save it with
future information. Ozone is used by professional remediators. An
ozone chamber can be set up to sterilize your
possessions.
Reduce
Level of Mold Fungi in Your Body
Now that
you have reduced the inhalation of mold spores into your body, you
can concentrate on reducing the level of mold fungi already
accumulated inside your body. The human body has difficulty ridding
the mold from the mucous membranes which are throughout your body.
With the body having a difficult time getting rid of the mold
fungi, it becomes a case of incoming vs outgoing. When mold fungi
are entering the body faster than the cleaning systems are able to
eliminate them, their increasing strength starts causing
problems.
See
section called Regaining
My Good Health to find
out how I reduced the level of mold fungi in my body to levels my
cleaning systems could properly manage, thereby regaining my good
health.
Summary:
1) Use air
cleaner with Hepa filter.
2) Use vacuum with Hepa
filter.
3) Drink lots of GOOD
water to replace the water mold sucks out of you for their own use.
Your body needs the moisture and the oxygen from the H2O to stay
generative and function properly. Cells need oxygen to live and
grow. The oxygen supply to the cells is already compromised by the
accumulating mold spores in your lungs.
4) Find one of the few
doctors knowledgable with effects of mold on the human body. Most
doctors receive very little training in mycology. Perhaps consider
a naturopathic doctor familiar with antifungal protocols and
detoxification methods.
5) Read my section on
Chlorophyllin and consider adding it to your
diet to help reduce the mold mycotoxins in your body
6) Follow antifungal
protocols to reduce the fungal levels in your body to a level the
cleaning systems of your body can properly manage.
7) Bring the bacteria and
fungi back into balance in order to keep each other in check. Then
reduce both the bacteria and fungal levels down to a level the
cleaning systems can properly manage. If either one gets
qualitatively or quantitatively stronger health problems manifest
themselves. After a series of fungal based antibiotics, which kill
off both the bad and the good bacteria, it is important to
replentish the bacteria flora with a good probiotic, good bacteria.
Acidophilus is a good bacteria. A good yogurt may have all four of
the good bacteria which help bring your body back to proper levels
of bacteria. Mold exposures put the body totally out of
bacteria/fungal balance causing many health problems.
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