I thought I’d pop in and say hi, since I took my first dose of activated charcoal a couple days ago. I’ll be starting on this journey with y’all. I definitely have to fine-tune my dose but so far so good.
I first got sick after unknowingly moving into an apartment with leaky windows. I’ve lived here for 17 years, and have been sick for 15 of them (argh).
I began seeing a functional practitioner last December. She diagnosed me with EBV reactivation, mold exposure, and a potential tick-borne illness. All confirmed by labs, including a urine mycotoxin test—positive for trichothecenes, gliotoxins, and aflatoxins. Thus far we’ve been focusing on the EBV plus my food sensitivities. Phase I being more or less done, it’s time to tackle the mycotoxins!
My natural inclination is to be cautious of alternative medicine, and I kind of had to hit bottom before going to a functional practitioner, but I’m really glad I did. The book Toxic helped me understand why I have so many things going on. I was a bit suspicious of getting multiple diagnoses… until I understood that the mold probably caused my body to no longer be able to manage earlier EBV and tick exposures.
Good luck to us and I hope you all are doing well!
Hi Monkish!
I have abandoned the binder route for now. I just couldn't stop exacerbating my symptoms and have a few months off work to get better, so I'm attacking rather than binding now.
I discovered I have a bad case of candida too. I went low carb, no sugar and started reacting badly to any food that had antifungal properties. Candida is a whole other kettle of fish to deal with, but it's one Nathan says you probably have if you have mold illness and will need to treat to recover. I chose to ignore this but it turned out to be true.
I get you when you say you're skeptical of alternative medicine. I have been militantly anti-pseudoscience my whole life. If I didn't have first hand experience and overwhelming observational evidence, I would probably deem this whole candida/mold thing as quackery if it was explained to me that most doctors don't believe it exists and the people who do are into "alternative medicine". There's a bitter irony with me getting this illness. Still, the scientific method is our best tool, it just hasn't been rigorously applied here by the choices of people. We're in the unique position as non-experts to understand a frontier of modern medicine and the largely political decisions which lead to medical neglect.
Do let us know how you get on and ask if you have any questions. I'm quite far down this road.