Regaining My Good Health

Written by Daniel Mark Norris Newton Davis

Originally Posted: 4-27-06

Last Updated: 4-27-06

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.

FIRST STEP

The first thing you must do is eliminate or reduce your exposures to mold as much as possible. You must remove yourself from the environment where you are being exposed to harmful levels of mold fungi. Either move or remediate the building. Clean your breathing environment using an air cleaner with a hepa filter. See section called Got Mold? Steps To Take.

FINDING the RIGHT DOCTOR

I went through a couple of years of doctors trying this and that to solve my health problems. I was given CT scans, antidepressants, tranquilizers and sent to a neuropsychologist. Thousands of dollars were spent on this trial and error approach, with relatively little relief.

After being prescribed an antibiotic, for an infection in my jaw and my cheek, my health took a very dramatic downturn. Most of your traditional antibiotics are derived from various species of mold fungi. Penicillin is made from the penicillium mold, etc.. Since in the end all of my health problems were related to various actions of the mold fungi, that were at very high levels in my body, introducing an additional concentrated dose of mold fungi to the chemical battle inside my body was not a good thing. The antibiotic killed off all of the bacterial competitors, giving the mold fungi, already firmly entrenched in my body, free reign to wreak havoc throughout my body.

My health when downhill so fast it scared me. I could not walk across the living room floor without tripping over my own feet all the way across. Coordination and motor skills were severely compromised. I had severe memory problems. If you interrupted me in the middle of a sentence I could not remember what we were talking about. So, I started to talk in a nonstop manner, in order to prevent being interrupted until I was done with my point. This tends to irritate people who wish to contribute to the conversation.

Arthritis moved from both thumbs to both wrists, to both elbows, to both shoulders, to both hips, to both knees, to both ankles and to the toes, all in a period of about one week. Severe arthritic pain made it very difficult to do anything, especially go up and down stairs. It felt like I was walking on stumps I threw out in front of me. The chronic depression got so severe that it handicapped my ability to function. For a more detailed description of various symptoms I experienced, go to the Symptoms section.

It was at this point that I decided it was up to me to find the answers. My doctors did not believe my health problems were from the growing toxic mold problem in my apartment. But, my common sense, and my preliminary research, indicated that they were indeed related. I searched the United States for the doctors who were most knowledgeable on how mold fungi effects the human body. The names of Dr. Johannings at the New York Fungal Research Group, and Dr. Vincent Marinkovich in Redwood City, California kept coming up.

FINALLY SOME RELIEF

I made an appointment with Dr. Marinkovich for March, 2003. He diagnosed me with fungal hypersensitivity, allergic rhinitis, and mild asthma. We decided to start with the mildest form of treatment first to see how my body responded. He gave me a nizoral/cromolyn sodium antifungal nose spray he makes up in his office. You mist it into your nose and nasal passages three times a day.

Within a week the symptoms from health problems started going away. It seemed unbelievable that a simple anti-fungal nose spray was now taking away the symptoms of my health problems, after very good doctors had been unable to do so over the previous eighteen months. Good doctors had spent thousands of dollars in an unsuccessful attempt to diagnose and correct my health problems. I had gone through eighteen months of severe pain and suffering unneccessarily. All I could think was; "What the HELL is going on?!"

This led to a collage of emotions. Relief that I finally found an answer. Anger that the majority of doctors lacked the knowledge to bring me relief sooner. And appreciation for the pioneering spirit and compassion of Dr. Marinkovich. Just as it brought me many answers, it also presented me with many many more questions, which I had to find the answers to. It is part of my genetic makeup to seek out the answers to the questions. And as with my ancestors before me, it became my passion to seek out and find the answers to these questions.Over the next few months the symptoms rapidly dissipated.

ANOTHER EXPOSURE

Three months later we moved into a new rental house. The symptoms started to return. This ended up being from a combination of factors. 1) In spite of sterilizing most of our possessions during the move, the process exposed me to mold spores coming off our possessions in the process. 2) The rental was old and had experienced many water leaks over the years. The old carpet, and it's underlying pad, was a breeding ground for mold. Every time the carpet got shampooed it gave the mold fungi in the carpet and pad the moisture they needed to grow. 3) There was a wetlands area close by. It provided ideal conditions for dead and dying plant material to mold and sporulate.

When I tested the outside air I was shocked at the high concentration levels of mold spores in the outside air around the area. We were in the middle of the Spring/Summer, wet season to dry season transition. When it is wet the mold fungi grow. When it gets dry the mold fungi sporulate, dispensing millions of spores into the air to find the moisture they require to grow and perpetuate their species.

This process is accelerated and enhanced during this Spring/Summer transition season, as the weather oscillates back and forth from wet to dry, to wet, to dry, to wet, to dry. With each wet to dry cycle the level of mold spores in the air we breathe grows to a higher concentration level. Even when pollen counts are at their highest mold spore counts are 100 to 1000 times higher.

This leads to Summer colds, and allergy seasons that start sooner, last longer and are stronger each year. Almost no one is monitoring their levels, as they microscopically grow and effect our health. It is a big void in scientific monitoring. Asthma and other respiratory problems are dramatically increasing, in direct proportion to the relatively unmonitored escalation of mold fungi in our breathing environments.

As I tested the my indoor and outdoor breathing environments, and found high levels of various species of mold fungi, I started to understand why my symptoms had begun to reappear. I increased my use of the nizoral/cromolyn sodium antifungal nose spray to relieve my reappearing symptoms. I prefer not to use drugs to solve health problems any more or any longer than it is necessary. So, I sought out more natural ways to assist my body in it's amazing ability to defend itself against microbes such as mold fungi.

I decided I would study and collate the research on mold fungi. Then, I would put it into laymans terms and enlighten the world. I used my personal and intimate encounter with mold fungi to understand it, and all it's interrelationships throughout the human body, mind and soul. It became my mission and my passion. Anytime some of the symptoms would start to reappear it served as a new opportunity to engage it and more fully understand it. It also refined my understanding of which symptoms were related directly and/or indirectly to the actions mold fungi.

The aspergillus mold fungi had colonized in my lungs. It was important to find ways to kill off the mold fungi hiding in the less used areas of my lungs. These areas usually only get used when exercising and other activities which require taking deep breaths.Years before I experienced a near death motorcycle accident. While I was flat on my back in traction, the respiratory therapist would come in to help me with deep breathing exercises. You breath all the way in with your nose and then your mouth. Hold it for a count of 5? Then let it all out through first your mouth then your nose. This expels undesirable elements from the unused sections of the lungs, and prevented pneumonia. These deep breathing exercises helped get the mold fungi out of my lungs.

USING A NEBULIZER

I asked Dr. Marinkovich if there was a way to get medicine into my lungs, in a way similar to the inhaler used for asthma. He prescribed nizoral in tablet form and cromolyn sodium inhalation solution. I would mix them together into a solution. Then, I was able use a nebulizer to aerosol the nizoral/cromolyn sodium mixture into my lungs. I would deep breathe it into all parts of my lungs and hold for several seconds, to give it a chance to cover the affected tissues. Then, I would let out my breath slowly to leave as much of the mixture inside on the tissues. I exhaled through my nose to coat the sinuses.

Within a half-hour or so I would be rewarded, as I coughed up little black spores out of my lungs and into the sink. I found myself vocalizing my feelings with statements like "See ya" or "Later" as they were exhaled out of my lungs. I cultured some of them on potato dextrose agar, in petri dishes. They grew very nasty looking colonies of mold fungi. The nebulizer method of eliminating the mold fungi from the mucous membranes inside my lungs, was the most effective method I used, to gain the upper hand.

THE EARS

I suffered from earaches consistently. In studying the ears I found that the purpose of the wax is to cushion loud noises and catch things which enter the ears in the air. This can include dust, pieces of leaves, pollens, viruses, bacteria and mold spores. I was intrigued with the fact that the skin on the inner ear moves very slowly to the outside of the ear, like a very slow moving conveyor belt, taking the wax out.

As with all of the human body, the ears are very adaptive as they evolve to accommodate ever-changing situations and environments. A friend of mine, who cleans his ears every day, noticed an increase in the ear wax production on days when he worked around loud equipment. The ears apparently produced more wax to cushion the louder noises.

On the same note the ears seem to produce more wax to accommodate increases in microbes, such as mold spores, which enter the ears through the air. This increasing volume of mold spores entering the ears, and saturating the ear wax, triggers higher ear wax production, earaches, hearing sensitivities and compromised hearing ability.

This increase in ear wax production plugged up my ears and gave me chronic and very painful earaches. It sometimes created a high-pitched tone in my ears. Sharp noises would feel like they were piercing my ear drums giving me excruciating pain, which would make me grimace. I recall one time at a warehouse store where the beeping of the forklift forced me to leave the store, in the middle of talking to a salesman.

My hearing became so bad, I was unable to seperate peoples' voices from loud background noise. I could not understand what people were saying to me. This made it impossible to have fun in public places where there was a lot of noise. It was embarrassing. I got so tired of saying "What?", on a continual basis, that I started acting like I had heard what they said, even if I hadn't. But, that got me into all kinds of trouble.

I am now convinced that a high percentage of cases, where tubes have been placed in the ears of children, as a last resort for chronic earaches, may very well have been related to accumulation of mold spore saturated wax, and avoided. I remember a girlfriend who had a toxic mold exposure several years before I met her. I now realize that the ear problems, and all the other health problems which she and her children were experiencing were the direct result of their mold exposure.

Realizing that the ear wax captures the microbes entering the ears, I felt it was probably not a good idea having that microbe saturated ear wax sitting against that sensitive ear skin, especially so close to my brain. So, I set out to get all that very old, saturated wax out of my ears. To clean house so to speak. Out with all the old wax, and then let the ears coat the sensitive ear skin with a fresh coat of clean ear wax. See section called Ears-Earaches Gone, Hearing Restored for details of how I got the ear wax out and fixed my hearing problems

I used to always have a stiff neck that I thought was from stress. I'd stretch it this way and that way, trying to get some relief. Massages and hot/cold packs brought only temporary relief. It ended up being from the mold fungi filling up the sinus canals in the neck. It's like filling up a flexible tube with a bunch of sand or beans, making it rigid. Stiff necks disappeared when I vacated the mold fungi from the sinus canals. Stress made it worse. But, the underlying cause was the sinus canals in the neck filling up to the point of stiffness.

It's all about REDUCTION. Reduce your intake of mold fungi. And reduce the accumulated levels already inside your body, to levels your body's cleaning systems can handle. The body has difficulty ridding the mold fungi from the mucous membanes, which are throughout your body. So, it becomes a case of incoming vs outgoing.

Another piece of equipment important to my home, especially since I live in a wet climate, is a dehumidifier. Most mold fungi cannot grow in humidity under 50%. I like to set mine at 40%. A different problem can present itself when there is too little humidity in your air. This creates static electricity, which can turn you into a microbe magnet. This can also occur during periods of high solar flare activity, (2) , where the electromagnetic fields here on earth, and inside our bodies, are altered.

The other piece of equipment I use in different ways is an ozone machine. An ozone machine is a good tool to kill the mold fungi on the surfaces inside a home. Set the ozone machine on the kill zone setting, for 72 hours and it will kill the surface mold fungi. You cannot be in the house during this period. Since, too much ozone will give you ozone poisoning. Using an ozone machine while you are present within your living environment can be very dangerous. Ozone measuring equipment is very important to maintain ozone levels at a healthy concentration level.

Ozone machines can be used to kill various microbes that create bad odors. It is very effective in killing odors from cigarette smoking. House remodelers can use them to kill surface microbes. Motels often use them to kill odors between customers. I personally use mine on the lowest setting on a continual basis inside my big apartment. When set at the appropriate level it will smell and feel like the air just after a thunder and lightning storm.

Many of our foods and drinks contain mold. Anything that has been aged, such as cheese, is likely to contain mold. I love cheese and will never give it up. But, I have reduced how much of it I eat. It is all about reduction. Fresh food is best. The fresher the better. Then you are eating LIVE food. Since your body depends on you to supply it's fuels, you are what you eat.

I avoid alcohols. Fermentation is a molding process. Yeast mold is often added to speed up the molding process, as they age and fement(mold) grains into beers and fruits into wines. Liquors are distilled into a more concentrated form. The mold content of the alcohols is what dehydrates you from drinking. The molds in your body dehydrate your body, as they suck the moisture out of you for their own use. It is not by mere coincidence that the symptoms of alcohol use, parallels the symptoms of toxic mold exposure.

Most research regarding the effects of alcohol on the human body can be applied to mold fungi accumulations in the human body. Alcohol equals a concentrated dose of mold. It's no wonder that alcoholics are told that alcohol is 'poison' to their body. It is a degenerative poison to everyones' body. Poisonous substances trigger chemical reactions in your body that make you HIGH.

The most important action I take, to maintain good health, is to drink adequate levels of good water. This keeps my body well hydrated with the H2O mandatory to maintain the human biological machine. I use distilled water. Our bodies are approximately 70% water. 70% of our health is dependent on maintaining appropriate levels of good water, H2O. Without it we are just a pile of skin and bones flattened out on the sidewalk.

One very hot summer day I saw a bunch of worms dried up flat on the sidewalk. One was stiff and dry, but was not yet flat. It was still round. I picked it up and dipped it in a nearby fountain. It immediately started wiggling all over the place. I found a shady patch of dirt to set it on. The line between life and death can be hydration.

We can live longer without food than we can without water. Caffeine drinks such as colas and coffee will dehydrate you. Alcohols dehydrate you. Molds require three things to grow inside you: Heat, moisture, and a food source of biological material. Molds inside you will dehydrate you as they suck the moisture out of your body for their own use. Under-hydration and dehydration, from the aforementioned sources, cause severe disabling of the human biological machine. When not corrected, the domino of cause and affects will inevitably lead to the break down of the operating systems throughout your body. It is the most important fluid with which you supply your body.

Human cells, tissues, organs and operating systems require oxygen to live and generate. You get oxygen through your lungs and through your water intake. It is the O in the H2O. The human biological machine requires certain levels of H2O in order to live and stay generative. If you supply your body with the required levels of fluids and nutrition, which enable it to function properly, it is the most amazingly adaptive organism in the world. Otherwise none of us would live past the age of 30, with the way most of us handicap our bodies from being able to functioning properly. Hydrating your body at a proper level is not just recommended. It is required, in order to keep your body in a generative state.

Now that I regained my good health I concentrate on preventative protocols. If some of the symptoms start emerging I increase my preventative protocols. I didn't have to use the nizoral/cromolyn sodium antifungal nose spray for many months. But, during the 2006 Spring/Summer transition from wet season to dry season(allergy season), the mold spore levels in the air got so strong I had to resume using the nose spray. It helps to reduce the accumulated mold fungi in my body to levels my cleaning systems can handle.

I do a number of things to help reduce mold fungi from my breathing environments. I take the garbage out every, or every other day, before anything starts to mold. I periodically flush each sink with a bunch of bleach, especially the kitchen sink that has a garbage disposal. It is very important to have all windows and doors open and fans blowing bleach away from you when you do this. I wear a chlorine/mold remediation mask when I do this, to prevent harming my lungs. They can be purchased at your local home improvement store.

When I come home from working outside I take off my outer clothes and put them in the laundry room. If you work in environments where there are higher levels of mold fungi, they will get on your clothes and go home with you. I was locating underground utilities, which took me into many environments high in mold fungi. People's yards with compose piles. Landscapers using blowers that blow all the mold spores from the ground up into the air we breathe. And houses where their mold problem was so bad you could smell it on the outside of their house.

Unfortunately those people may not even be aware they have a mold problem. Your smell sensitivities get altered. You do not smell the molds effecting your health. Usually it is someone else coming over to your house, that cares about you enough that they are willing to risk offending you, that makes you aware of the severity of the mold smell in and around your home. During that period of toxic mold exposure, my brother walked into my apartment for Thanksgiving, and walked right back out, making me aware of how serious a problem I had.

Many years ago we rented our downstairs apartment to a relative and her two children. As a result of leaving wet laundry in clothes baskets, instead of going ahead and putting them into the dryer, they would midew, or mold. Since this had been an ongoing habit, the mold spores moved with them, on and in their possessions, from their old apartment. Since their smell sensitivities had been altered they were not aware of how the mold smell saturated their clothes.

If you work around remodeling of old houses, where you are removing wood with dry rot, you are getting mold spores on your clothes and taking them home with you. Mold is what sucks the nutrients,and moisture out of the wood, destructing, decomposing, and degenerating the wood down to it's basic elements, recycling them back to Mother Earth, leaving only dry rot dust. If you work pulling up old carpet you end up with a lot of mold fungi on your clothes, taking them home to your family, and their breathing environment.

The spillage of liquids on carpets, and the cleaning of carpets without being able to dry the padding, contribute to carpets being a major source of mold fungi in home breathing environments. Wall to wall carpeting has only been around since the 1970's, which correlates with other changes in building practices, which all contribute to the sharp increase of mold fungi in our indoor breathing environments.

I take a shower each night just before I get into bed, to prevent taking spores to bed with me. I like to keep my hair short so I can pour some hydrogen peroxide on my scalp to help eliminate any spores that have landed on my hair and scalp. A few minutes later I use soap and water, and then shampoo my hair and scalp.

When I get up each morning I cover my sheets and pillow with the bedspread, to prevent mold spores from landing on it during the day. Pillows are a source for many microbes, including mold fungi. The body sweats some of the mold fungi out through the pores in your skin, onto your clothes, pillow and sheets. Frequent changing of the sheets, pillow cases and clothes is recommended. There is good reason to listen to our body when it tells us to get out of those sweaty clothes or, when it tells us that those freshly laundered sheets feel soooooo good.

One only has to be around some of the homeless people, who have had no choice but to sleep in their clothes, and in less than ideal living environments, to smell the other end of the spectrum. Their living conditions provide the three ingredients of warmth, moisture and a food source, needed for mold fungi to grow. They are continually inhaling mold fungi, effecting their health.

Keep in mind that mold fungi are floating around in the air, landing on and in things. I cover butter tubs all food, and use covered drinking glasses. I got myself a vacuum with a hepa filter, to capture as many microbes as possible out of my breathing environment. Vacuuming often is recommended. The point is that whatever is in the air, from whatever the source, effects our health. Using exposure reduction procedures and equipment to make our air as clean as possible, during at least the time we are in that environment, is very important nowadays.

The process of respiration is taking oxygen into your lungs and exhaling carbon dioxide and other undesirable microbial elements, such as viruses, bacteria, and mold fungi. If there is bad breath, you can be sure that mold fungi is one of the microbial elements you are exhaling out of your lungs. Out into the air that you, and others around you, are breathing into their lungs.

I remember one time during my mold exposure, when I was breathing a lot of mold spores into my lungs. One of the people sitting right next to me at work was describing having some of the identical symptoms as I had gotten from my mold exposure. It shocked me as I wondered if it was possible he was getting enough of an exposure, from the air I was exhaling, to effect his health.

When the mold fungi were sucking the moisture out of my body for their own use, it would dry out my skin. Then my skin would start cracking. Once our protective barrier of skin starts cracking, it allows the microbes , like mold fungi, to get into and under our skin. Once this occurs, it is very difficult to heal the cracks shut again, and restore the skin to it's soft, supple, healthy condition. The most important action is to drink lot's of good quality water. Dehydration of the skin tissues, as a result of the dehydrating effects of mold fungi, caused the drying and cracking in the first place. So, overcoming this drain of moisture from your body is your first priority.

Next I rub hydrogen peroxide on the dried out areas of my skin. When the hydrogen peroxide comes into the enzymes and microbes it bubbles, and kills the microbes that are making it difficult for your hands to heal. After a few minutes I rinse the area with soap and water.

Next I rub aloe into the skin. I buy a big aloe leaf, and slice off an inch square piece. Then I slice it down the middle of the clear gel, leaving me two sqares with the aloe skin intact. Since the aloe is so slippery leaving the skin intact gives me something to hold onto. The aloe has healing properties that the microbes do not like. Having aloe soaking into your skin and tissues, drives the degenerative microbes out of those parts of your body. Tissues lacking the adequate levels of the H2O they require to live, start to degenerate and die, providing the invasive microbes with the degenerating tissues they prefer and thrive on. Mold fungi are opportunistic. Damaged tissue makes their job easier.

The warmth and moisture of your mouth provides ideal conditions for germs like fungi to grow. Food stuck between the teeth will mold just like it would if you left it on the kitchen counter, and provided moisture. I like to run my toothbrushes through the dishwasher regularly to kill the germs. After flossing I like to rinse my mouth with hydrogen peroxide. Don't swallow it. Use externally only. Follow the directions on the bottle.