Hi Cigana,
Let me explain in more detail my personal experience, so it would make more sense:
I no longer live in that moldy apartment. As a matter of fact, it's going to be 1.5 years since I moved to a mold-free, brand new building, but my symptoms have not improved much. Actually the last year has been particularly bad for me.
I did live in that moldy apartment for about 8 years, and i strongly suspect that the previous apartment before that had mold as well (water damage, very old wood structure, typical New England --but did not conduct an actual environmental study). When I think about it, I believe my immune system received a
massive triple punch within the span of a year. To note:
- I got Lyme,
- I moved to the first old and moldy building,
- and then I got a massive case of EBV mono that left me bed-ridden for quite a while and even hospitalized (my EBV titers are off the charts and persist to this day). My lymph nodes were so enlarged during that time that oncologists performed two lymph biopsies; the results came negative, fortunately.
All that happened in the same year!
I'm very interested in the mold angle as a potential trigger for ME/CFS, but I don't think it was the only thing that led me here. I find quite fascinating the potential theory of the
HERV-W envelope protein as a major factor inducing our condition, and hope that someone looks into this further.