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Has anyone followed the Neil Nathan approach and gotten better?

Hi guys,

I was wondering if anyone who has followed the Neil Nathan protocol has gotten better and if the mycotoxin urine test you did was accurate?

I have been sick for quite some time and did welchol for 9 months with no progress. This whole thing has confused me more than anything as in my experience, people with mold illness seem to get better on a binder after a few months, which never happened for me.

I was seeing a doctor who follows the Shoemaker protocol but I just didn't feel like it was a good fit. He is very well known in the mold world, but I just felt he put way too much stock into Shoemaker and the new GENIE test, but I have always felt like we are missing something. I am very reactive to medications and feel like I can never get a head in treatment without hitting a roadblock days into it due to sensitivity.

We did all Shoemaker labs which were out of whack but recently most have almost become normal, even though I found mold in my apartment. My neuroquant showed no lyme nor mold, but I have tested positive on DNA Connexions and Igenex for lyme, but GENIE showed no lyme or mold exposure and just straight up CIRS which doctor believes is just from residue inflammation.

One thing I don't understand is how I have made no progress at all. There is no way I have lived in moldy houses for 6 years, but none of my symptoms budge. When I first got sick it was during a pregnancy and after that all hell broke lose. I was not aware of any mold in the home nor did I ever see any, but I lost the baby.

Now I am seeing a new doctor who follows Neil Nathan and seems to take a much more gentle approach and I am hoping my body will react better to this. The doctor also thought I have mast cell, though my old doctor said this is just a fad. He said histamine is an issue in mold illness but not for reasons the top doctors such as Afrin think, and he is wrong. So the next plan with current doctor is to do trial stabilizers for mast cell and 5 different binders that go after certain molds. If you follow Shoemaker, you will know he only believes the binders that work are CSM, welchol and one other (I think okra something), due to a positive charge, but Nathan's work believes the other binders (charcoal, clay, chlorella work).

I have also attached my Great Plains test. Wondering if anyone else who did this test found it accurate. Also another test a lot of people disagree about.
 

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Dufresne

almost there...
Messages
1,039
Location
Laurentians, Quebec
I'm not a fan of Shoemaker; too dogmatic and arrogant. He criticizes everyone else's science while practicing some bad science himself.

I think Dr Nathan's book, Toxic, is a great primer. He outlines so many of the issues a lot of us are facing. Regarding the binders, NAC and s boulardii kick my ass. According to him they bind to gliotoxin.
 
Messages
19
I'd agree, Toxic is a great book. I was taking too many binders and it made me a lot worse, and when I took a break I got much better. Now I'm going very slowly with the binders. I got covid in march which is a set back, but overall I've had improvement doing this.

Here's a link where you can see a table of which binders work on what toxins - it's under neil nathan's talk.

Have you tested your house?
 
I'd agree, Toxic is a great book. I was taking too many binders and it made me a lot worse, and when I took a break I got much better. Now I'm going very slowly with the binders. I got covid in march which is a set back, but overall I've had improvement doing this.

Here's a link where you can see a table of which binders work on what toxins - it's under neil nathan's talk.

Have you tested your house?

I tested my house and it wasn't bad on ERMI, but I noticed mold around an A/C vent and I think it may have been making me feel terrible. I got it tested and it is cladosporium.
 
Messages
19
I can't tell you much about that, other than try to clean up that area and if your ERMI score is low, there's a good chance you'll be able to get better. Starting very slow has helped me.
 

Lalia

Senior Member
Messages
127
Location
Australia
Hi @lookingforanswers4
I’ve been consulting with Neil Nathan for two years now. I would say I’ve improved about 50% using his approach of taking tiny amounts of a rotation of mould binders. This is based on my health being close to 0% when I started working with him, as I was so sick I was near death.
Other doctors also contributed to my improvement, but his approach to taking binders had the greatest impact. I am extremely sensitive to binders and any kind of detoxification. I take a pinch of charcoal once every five days, then a pinch of optifiber lean once every five days and a drop of bentonite clay once every five days (so a tiny amount of three binders over a fortnight).
I generally deal with negative symptoms for the first 3 - 4 months while taking these binders. However I see significant results. I was very underweight before I started taking charcoal, and gained 12 kilos in five months taking these tiny amounts.
In 2021 I will be focusing on trying to understand why I don’t detox properly and how I can increase my tolerance to binders, so I can then trial antifungals. Nathan has given me some good high level guidance and I’m now searching for a new naturopath who can work with me methodically to review my genes / nutrition / minerals and figure out what supplements may support my body’s ability to detox. It is a long road treating mould Illness, I wish you all the best.
 

hapl808

Senior Member
Messages
2,052
Hi @lookingforanswers4
I’ve been consulting with Neil Nathan for two years now. I would say I’ve improved about 50% using his approach of taking tiny amounts of a rotation of mould binders. This is based on my health being close to 0% when I started working with him, as I was so sick I was near death.
Other doctors also contributed to my improvement, but his approach to taking binders had the greatest impact. I am extremely sensitive to binders and any kind of detoxification. I take a pinch of charcoal once every five days, then a pinch of optifiber lean once every five days and a drop of bentonite clay once every five days (so a tiny amount of three binders over a fortnight).

I liked Toxic, but I was curious about your progression other than the binders.

I've tried CSM, charcoal, chlorella, clay, NAC, etc. I built up to the full CSM dose within a couple weeks, but then had a bad reaction (throat closing, etc). May have just been a detox reaction, but weird that for the first 1-2 weeks I had zero reactions to the CSM at all - didn't feel better or worse at all.

Charcoal has always made me feel a bit better even before I discovered CIRS - I took it for GI issues when they got bad. I take 1-2 capsules sometimes in the evening, but I really don't know dosage. Started taking clay within the last couple years but haven't been super consistent - usually a teaspoon before bed when I'm doing it.

I guess what I wish Toxic had more of, or the various Shoemaker docs I've seen or such - is specific guidelines on dosage and what to do if you have good reactions, bad reactions, no reactions. It gets expensive quickly if every time you need a consult it's another $250 or $500 or whatever. Obviously all of us have spent insane amounts of money and we'd happily spend it all to get better - but it's frustrating to spend $600 on a Shoemaker doctors who gives me some VCS test I pro'ly could've taken on my own and a CSM prescription and then told me to talk to my GP when I had a bad reaction to it.

Anyways - I wish there were just clear guidelines for how much to take, when to take, etc. My main problem is muscular - I've been too weak to walk for years. The mold breathing issues are just within the last few years.
 

Lalia

Senior Member
Messages
127
Location
Australia
@hapl808 my reactions to binders are very intense, which is why I take such tiny amounts, so I can’t be much help here. Nothing else I’ve taken has had a major impact on my recovery either.
There is a page in Toxic with a table outlining the different binders. He gives dosage recommendations there, often starting with a tiny dose and then giving the max. dose. Not sure if this is helpful to you, if you tolerate max. dose straight away.
The only thing in your message I relate to is the delayed reaction - I can often go a month taking binders with nothing happening, and then it’s like my body realizes something’s changed and all hell breaks loose.