Mould poisoning test

[Glaciera]

Could anyone recommend a reliable test for mycotoxins – poisonous metabolites, and if a blood test or urine is best for this? Im in U.K. now but I lived in a very hot humid country and super mouldy apartment (it’s common there) prior to my health going down the drain.. has anyone else been tested for mould related illnesses and if so is love to know your symptoms and if there’s a way to rid your body of it? It’s been over 2 years of complete hell for me and this is one of the strongest links I found so far.

[GAtherton Administrator Fungal Infection Trust]

Exposure to excessive moulds in your home or work area are strongly linked to respiratory symtoms eg cough, wheeze; allergic symptoms eg itchy eyes, sneezing; and infections such as sinusitis. These can all be assessed and treated by your doctor so that should be your first port of call. Ultimately the only reliable long term cure is to remove yourself from the excessive exposure. This can be achieved by educating yourself on the sources and causes of the damp that is causing the mould growth and taking action to prevent further damp. Often leaving the damp home is a quicker solution but be careful not to cause damp in your new home nacpatients.org.uk/damp_pre...

At the current time there is little benefit to measuring levels of mycotoxin in your body as the levels found are usually very low and your body will naturally rid itself from the toxins as you move to a dry, clean home - concentrate on removing yourself from the source of damp/moulds.

[Glaciera in reply to GAtherton]

Thank you for your response, I have left the mouldy apartment over 2 years ago however I am very ill to this day. I have done research and spoken to others who have weak immune system and health issues and like me were unable to get their body rid of mycotoxins. Mould poisoning is a real thing and it does happen to people and symptoms are much worse than just cough or sneeze or sinusitis. 😔

[Lutonian in reply to Glaciera]

'Glaceria' ,I know of two potential ways of obtaining Mycotoxins analysis in UK.

1 - Breakespear Hospital in Hemel Hempstead -(Dr Jean Munrow) They use 'Realtime Laboratories' in US for urine analysis (maybe more now) :

2 - New Medicine Group in London (Dr David Downing) : they use 'AcumenLaboratories' in Tiverton Devon .for blood and fat analysis and how well your immune system is metabising toxins inc mycotoxins ,out of your system

The effects of water damaged buildings ,mould,Mycotoxins etc is a very complex issue and the effects can vary due to individual genetics, underlying health,gender , what exposed to, levels exposed to, duration of exposure, etc etc : see Hindawi Review article " A Review of the Mechanisms of Injury and Treatment Approaches for Illness Resulting from Exposure to Water Damaged Buildings,Mold, and Mycotoxins". In their introduction they highlight that " symptoms and illnesses due to exposure can result from varying mechanisms including infection,toxicity,allergy,irritant effects and systemic inflammation and it is important to understand that the health consequences of exposure to Water Damaged environments likely result from a combination of factors acting synergistically"

I'e read about 'Shoemaker protocol to.address symptoms such as CIRS (chronic inflammatory response syndrome) and a recent post indicated that a doctor in UK is now offering this

[Lutonian]

Louise Carder is the first 'Shoemaker Protocol' certified person in UK .

[GAtherton Administrator Fungal Infection Trust]

The Shoemaker protocol is based on a set of theories which lack verification. I believe Dr Shoemaker was suspended from practice for a number of questionable decisions such as using treatments that were not appropriate and using an unverifiable test on his website which led people to his very expensive clinic. Overall this is hardly something we can recommend you follow and there is no published information on how effective it might be.

Item number one in the protocol is to leave the mouldy building and that we do recommend! Do not try to live or work in a damp building as your illness will only get worse, no matter what treatment is used.

We know that most people recover slowly once they have left the mouldy, but we also know a few don't for reasons we don't yet understand, but these tend to be people who have lived with the damp for longer, so early action seems to be important..

[Hidden in reply to GAtherton]

I'm sorry, but there are now peer reviewed, double-blind studies on the shoemaker protocol, proving it's healing effects on those suffering from biotoxin poisoning. With a faulty HLA gene, people cannot remove said toxins from their system, leading eventually to changes in sizes of sectors of the brain, cardiovascular issues, hormonal problems, digestive symptoms etc. It is a multi-system, multi symptom syndrome. This is ALSO provable by NeuroQuant MRI brain scans and biomarkers such as VIP, MSH, MMP-9, c4a, c3a etc. It's now all very black and white, and scientifically backed. Your lack of understanding is actually very dangerous, because you are advising people who desperately need help. By giving them misinformation, you are prolonging their treatment which results in more damage to their bodily systems. Go back and research it, or stop feeding people dark age information. These people need treatment, CIRS is a now a very well understood condition. Back to school, buddy.

[GAtherton Administrator Fungal Infection Trust in reply to Hidden]

Hi Hingu

I have been following the work of Shoemaker for some time. I regularly check for any developments and as yet can find no peer-reviewed work since 2014 and no clinical trials for CIRS. Consequently, I assume not much progress has been made since then. The work carried out before that date is very far from being scientifically proven, but shows some promise - that is why I call them hypotheses.

There are big questions about his work - there are a few peer-reviewed papers as you say:

Let me ask you this as an example - the claim made is that 25% of the US population has a particular HLA gene arrangement that makes them susceptible to CIRS. Putting to one side that that claim is made in a non-peer reviewed publication - an abstract to a meeting - if this is true where are all these sick people? At least 10-50% of US homes are known to be damp (iaqscience.lbl.gov/dampness... which means that 30 - 150 million homes should be at risk. If 25% of the people in those homes are likely to be ill that means we are looking at 15 to 75 million people who will be sick if they come into contact with moulds - which they will as they are living in a damp home. Where are they?

I suspect that one of the papers you mention is this one sciencedirect.com/science/a... from 2005. Right at the start, he intervenes with 20 patients after collecting a series of symptoms and some testing. Only 4 have respiratory symptoms but all have various subjective self-reported symptoms that are consistent with other authors. He then uses a control population from a different experiment to compare them with, and there is no double-blinding which would have been more convincing.

He gives us improvements in respiratory function comparing timepoint 5 to time point 1 but of course, that includes a period of time when there was no-exposure to a damp home so how can we conclude that his treatment worked? Removing exposure alone certainly does work.

Consequently, I think this adds up to a useful observation and an interesting theory but it lacks rigour - to be fair probably not the author's fault particularly as these experiments are difficult and expensive but I can see why his medical colleagues are not accepting this unreservedly. Lots more & better work needed.

NB I know of a European doctor who tried using cholestyramine to treat people who live in damp homes and found it made no discernible difference 70% of the time.

I would like to see the success rates of these treatments audited and made public.