My Pet Mold: The Vicious Cycle of Mold Exposure and How to Heal

While I was watching Hoarders last night, I had a breakthrough. People on the show live in horrid conditions. They hoard useless stuff, and their houses are filthy. People on Hoarders choose to live in situations that continue to make themselves sick. Psychologists would say it is only mental health issues the people on the television show suffer from which cause them to live in a troubled environment. Mold in their house and problems with their microbiome could cause them to continue to live in filth. Welcome to my pet mold.

You have moldy curtains in your living room and have been suffering from different health issues for years. The mold is consistently releasing mycotoxins and spores into the air; you breathe them in. At first, you developed a runny nose, a little cough, and had to give up a few of your favorite foods due to digestive issues. Oh well who needs pizza, you need to lose a few pounds anyway. Eventually, you develop severe brain fog, anxiety, and your digestive symptoms continue to worsen. You go to many doctors, and they tell you your blood work is fine. Everyone says you look the best in your life, you lost some weight, but you feel horrible. Your issues have to be all in your head, the anxiety, the depression, the worry, just like the therapist says. You start researching your illness online and eventually match your symptoms to environmental biotoxin illness. You now know the moldy curtains in your house are a problem, yet you panic about what to do about them. You feel very ill and suffer from constant panic attacks; You think to yourself if you clean up the mold, will you even get better? Days turn to weeks, and your moldy curtains still hang, your symptoms have not improved, in fact, they are worse. You have a new pet in the house; its name is mold.

I have known personally in my life people that have fallen victim to the vicious cycle of mold exposure. Is it the exposure to the mycotoxins and its effect on the immune system that cause people to become unmotivated, crippled by fear? In Dave Asprey’s Moldy documentary, we see people that refuse to leave their house, even though it is riddled with mold making them ill. The documenters even asked Dave, “Why won’t people living in a moldy environment leave if it makes them so sick?” Dave answered, “Mold demotivates them to do anything about their situation.” My pet mold does not happen to everyone that has an environmental biotoxin illness. Most people do clean up the mold or vacate their environment and do recover, but some sadly do not.

Some fungi, however, can control the thoughts of other animals, one of the main ones are cordyceps. Cordyceps infect insects and replace their tissue with stems that release spores into the air. Cordyceps control the insects so strongly that they walk around like the living dead, their only purpose is to spread the fungus. Ants quickly fall prey to cordyceps. When the cordyceps infects the ant, it climbs to the top of a plant and waits to die. Cordyceps then germinate from the ant, like the movie Alien, bursting out of the ant. The ant, perched on the top of the plant, releases spores quickly into the wind, infecting more insects. The video game, The Last of Us, explores what would happen if cordyceps controlled humans, turning us into the living dead to spread the fungus across the globe. People ingest cordyceps, mainly in supplements, a zombie mold supplement. Cordyceps are beneficial for some people when they supplement with it, but not all fungi are the same. Mold might not turn us into the living dead, but it does appear it can control some of our thoughts and actions, causing us to keep it around.¹

We know other organisms can also control the behavior of those infected with it. For centuries, cats were the end host for Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite would drive mice mad and cause them to become friendly around cats and even play dead in some instances so that they would eat them. The parasite would cause the mice to sacrifice themselves so that the parasite would survive in their preferred feline hosts. There is a theory that the parasite later caused cats to become domesticated so the parasite could attempt to increase its life cycle. Cats warmed up to their human masters driven by Toxoplasma gondii madness to find a greater host to infect the world. Sadly for Toxoplasma gondii, people do not spread it easily like cats or mice but can develop latent infections for extended periods of time, which eventually infect the brain and cause schizophrenia. If parasites can control mammals, why not mycotoxins or mold itself?^{2 3}

So if you live in housing where mold is an issue, try to clean up the mold if possible. If not, do what you can to leave. Join a biotoxin relocation group on Facebook or stay temporarily in certified very low mold housing. I know not everyone can just leave where they live and abandon their possessions, but there are things you can do to try to mitigate the damage from being exposed to mold.

• Clean up the mold. There are many online guides on how to clean up mold. Make sure you wear protection when doing so including gloves and a high quality respirator. Try to clean up the mold naturally and use natural methods to block its regrowth. Depending on the severity of your biotoxin illness or mold damage, you might need to hire someone to clean up the mold and repair the damage. Read reviews of mold cleanup companies and do some research beforehand; beware of scammers!
• You may need to replace or clean any furniture, clothing, and personal items that are exposed to mold.
• Purchase a high-quality air purifier to help reduce mycotoxin exposure and to help clean the air after you repair your mold damage.
• Use a high-quality HEPA filter in your HVAC system to help reduce mycotoxin exposure and to help clean the air after you repair your mold damage. Replace the filter frequently.
• If you have an elevated Th2 system, reduce autoimmunity.
• Follow the Bulletproof Diet to reduce mycotoxin ingestion.
• Consider taking glutathione and molybdenum to help protect you from the mold toxins. Activated charcoal can help to absorb endotoxins in questionable food. Do not use glutathione if you are mercury burdened.

If you are suffering from health problems caused by mold, do whatever you can to motivate yourself to change your situation. Rid yourself of pesky mold and reclaim your health.

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