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My Recent Experience with Toxic Mold

Christopher

Senior Member
Messages
576
Location
Pennsylvania
Sunday: All day in bed, depressed as usual with very little energy. At 5pm I say enough is enough and head out to my tent in the yard to rest and sleep until the next day. The next day I feel much better than usual, especially with regard to energy, mood and attention. In the evening, I laid back down in bed to rest and within 5-10 minutes, my attention span was back to nothing, energy plummeted, and my depression crept in, followed by a depressed agitation state of mind.

It was very difficult to accept but there is something in that room that is affecting me severely.

I've had a history of mold exposure inducing CFS symptoms in me so I am confident it is the mold. The interesting thing is that there is nothing currently in that room that I owned at the moldy condo. I did run a computer from that condo in this room, which I determined later on was making me tremendously ill all by itself, but only when turned on (same with a television I owned at the condo).

I had been sleeping in a different room the previous few weeks and had a marked improvement in symptoms, so I will definitely by avoiding that room and seeing if I can make some progress.
 

Christopher

Senior Member
Messages
576
Location
Pennsylvania
Thanks @ahmo. I'd been so mildly sick growing up with vague symptoms (except for one summer I spent living by the ocean) but it was not until I moved into an old house that I crashed very severely (no visible mold though!) I moved out and recovered substantially but then regressed again. I think at this point I'm carrying around a tiny bit of extremely nasty toxin that I first encountered at the house I crashed in. Exposing myself to it is severely limiting my health and driving inflammation.

The computer is interesting. I'd been running that at the condo for years and even afterwards when I moved out. But not using it for a while and then turning it back on, I had a major inflammatory blast. the PC is long trash but I seem to react to that room just the same!
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
Have you had the room tested for mold? Might be good (if you can afford it) to rule it in or out...
 

Christopher

Senior Member
Messages
576
Location
Pennsylvania
Have you had the room tested for mold? Might be good (if you can afford it) to rule it in or out...

It's really hard to explain. Mold got unleashed at the condo I was at, and was remediated so improperly that it literally contaminated every single object in the unit. I moved out and stabalized, but every time I tried to bring an object to the new apartment (television, office chair, a box of files), I would immediately react to that object as if I were still living at the previous condo. Once I removed the object, my system would calm down.

Also, things like leaving a clean new blanket on top of a mattress from the condo for one day, would also contaminate the blanket. I'm now stuck in a situation where I constantly feel like I'm being exposed to the particular toxin, so I'm still trying to figure out what's driving that inflammation.

At one point I cleaned out the room entirely, and washed the walls and floors, and still reacted as if I were at my old condo. So I'm reacting to something that really can't be remediated it seems. The only reason I noticed this, I think is that Sunday night I slept out in a tent in the backyard. The next day, I had a relatively huge increase in mood, attention span, and energy. This completely evaporated within 10 minutes of spending time in this room I'm referring to.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
Thanks @Christopher. Sorry you're going through so much. I don't know if I have mold issues here, but have had a really bad year, and do wonder at times. I did test positive on the RealTime labs test, but that could be from prior exposure years ago.

@Ifish -- over on the mycotoxins thread (from about a year ago) mentioned a company he used to remediate his house. They used some new type of product that brought the spore counts way down. He and his family are doing the Brewer protocol. I was hoping to try it but my doctor wasn't familiar with the protocol, I reacted to her version, then haven't been able to afford to proceed.

Anyway, tagging him so he can comment on the remediation aspect.
 

Christopher

Senior Member
Messages
576
Location
Pennsylvania
Well upon further review I think the problem is the house itself and not the particular room. I'm going to spend as much time as I can in the tent I have outside. Last night, I had a dream with my mom and dad (who passed in 2008 from cancer). In the dream, he was just diagnosed, and the house he was living in felt bad or moldy to me. I convinced him that he could not recover there, so we hopped in my car and drove off.

The reality is the house he was staying in when he was sick felt very moldy to me when I visited. It was an old, wood house.

But, the realty is that he died in 2008, and the dream might have been my subconscious being afraid that the house I'm currently in is also sick. As soon as we got in the car in the dream, I woke up, took a shower, and headed out to the tent.
 

Christopher

Senior Member
Messages
576
Location
Pennsylvania
I tried sleeping in my car a few nights in July, and found that the next day I had substantially less brain fog, more energy, and more acceptance of my emotional state. I would also feel cognitively clearer after an elimination (urine, feces). The car is a bit uncomfortable, but I am small at 5'5" 150 lbs., so it was manageable. Unfortunately, the last few times I've tried this, I have not realized the same benefits. So I was laying in my car last night, and decided to move to the tent I have set up in the back yard. This time, today, I am realizing the old benefits noted above.

I do not know why the car is no different to me than my likely moldy house. At one point I brought a blanket from the house into the car. I know from past experiences that doing this without washing it first can make a room or space not clean enough for me to feel better, so that might have been what happened. I'm not sure.
 

Forebearance

Senior Member
Messages
568
Location
Great Plains, US
I'm impressed that you can sleep in your car! I have never been able to find a car that was sufficiently non-toxic enough for me to do that.

Sure, I could understand that a blanket from the house might have ruined the car. It is possible that the effect might wear off with time, if you took the blanket out. I just am glad that you can sleep somewhere.
 

Christopher

Senior Member
Messages
576
Location
Pennsylvania
The car didn't work out, and neither did the previously set up tent. Again, likely due to contamination from the house. Last night I picked up a new tent, cot, and sleeping bag, from walmart, and set up a new tent in the yard. I showered, changed, and slept outside last night. Had a decent BM this morning (constipation is a sign of exposure for me), and my energy is ok today. My body is desiring water, as well, where as in exposure I have no interest in drinking anything.

I'm going to do this as much as possible while the weather allows, but not sure what would be my next step. I almost signed a lease to an apartment I felt might be ok, but wasn't prepared to move without being careful about cross contamination.