IC Remission and the Mold Connection

I went into remission from IC while living in a moldy home that we did not know was mold-y. And so I actually believe that by removing toxic products and changing my diet, that gave my body enough space to heal even while being actively exposed to mold in our house.

I think that just goes to show the incredible way that God has designed our bodies to heel even in less than ideal circumstances. because it wasn't until several, I want to say about a year later that we found out we were living in mold and got out of that house because we had a sick kid that I then realized, oh my goodness.

I experienced this complete healing with no flares, even while living very, very dangerous levels of toxic mold. And even though mold over the course of my life was probably one of the biggest factors that played into me developing an autoimmune disease, I was still able to reach remission while living in mold.

If you're overwhelmed with chronic health symptoms and still don't have answers, you are not alone. I'm Dr. Javan and on redefining wellness with Dr Javin, we'll be exploring root causes like Lyme disease mold and parasites, and I'll guide you with simple and practical steps towards real healing.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the redefining wellness podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Jayvon Moore. And today I am here with Kristen. She is the organic mama and her story is pretty fun.

creates its own fun to go through. And we can talk about how Western medicine versus crunchy mama medicine come together, the benefits of both and what that means for her and her family.

So thanks for joining us today. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Why are you doing this type of medicine? Now, why are the crunchy organic mama when you're married to a physician?

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, it all actually started back way before he was a doctor. When we got married at age 21, we were still in college.

He did have the goal of becoming a Doctor eventually, but we we're still an undergrad at the time. And on our honeymoon, I developed interstitial cystitis, which I'm sure you're familiar with.

But I obviously don't know if your entire audience that is listening right now knows what that It's essentially a chronic illness of the inflammation of urinary tract system.

So it can be the bladder, the urethra. And so I developed that on our honeymoon and it was very chronic and very severe for about two years. And I was 21 at the time, pretty much had very minimal exposure to holistic health or medicine.

Really the extent of it was that my mom used like Boiron Oxalococcinum for the flu when we were growing up, like homeopathy. That was really kind of my only exposure to holistic approaches to medicine.

When I was told by my doctor that interstitial cystitis was an incurable disease that was a diagnosis of exclusion, I I don't want to be sick for the rest of my life." Because he handed me a pamphlet and said, here's some things that help some patients with IC to have some improvement of their symptoms, but you may suffer from this for rest your life.

And I was basically like, heck no. I have no idea what I need to do to figure this out, whatever it is, I'm going to I mean, that set my life on a complete 180.

Introducing the Podcast and Kristen's Background

It was a brand new trajectory for me of spending time researching health for the first time and digging deep on interstitial cystitis, which opened up the whole world of reading about inflammation and what that is and autoimmune and how these things all connect together.

And I realized like my lifestyle sucks. My entire home is just full of toxic products that I've never thought twice about all my beauty products, my cleaning supplies.

everything. And my food that I'm eating is trash. Very slowly, little by little, I started swapping out things in my home, making pretty dramatic changes to the way I was eating, the And I went into permanent remission from interstitial cystitis back in 2020 and it is now 2026 and I have not had a single flare in six years.

So I'm so passionate about a low-tox holistic way of living and a more natural way approaching health because it completely healed me when the odds were stacked not in my favor for overcoming a chronic illness diagnosed at age 21. So you were basically going through your own version of medical school while your husband was going though MD school at the same time and then you heal yourself and it sounds like you probably healed yourself before he graduated but then he graduates and I can't imagine the, hey honey I'm doing this and he's just like well that's not what the medical training teaches me.

How does that go? Well, okay, I will also say that he is a DO, so he's a doctor of osteopathics, he does have osteopathy training, and generally speaking, the DO program is more holistically attuned than an MD program, but in a lot of ways the curriculum is the same.

I would say they take a mind-whole-body approach more than the MD program, but their qualifications are the same and everything. But that being said, it's not like he's getting Western medical training because that's what he did receive.

I will say that by the time I had healed from interstitial cystitis was before he even got into med school. So he went into medical school already having watched me go through my whole healing journey.

And, you know, I will say, by the grace of God, we have had such a fun experience in our marriage of talking about health topics. And no, don't always see 100% eye to eye on everything.

I'll say I've never really shared this before, but he actually thinks that homeopathy is just completely placebo. He's like, well, maybe it works, because placebo works.

But he's not convinced that it's legit. We'll forgive him on that one. Pretty much for everything else, like toxicity and inflammation and diet and lifestyle and even mold, he is just as passionate about those things as I am.

And he will straight up say, yeah, you don't learn about that in med school. We talk all the time about how the amount of education that they get in medical school on really any topic is so slim.

and like nutrition and toxins and all of these things, it's like one slide in one presentation that they get or something like that in med school. But the other thing that he reminds me often is like, you're not supposed to come out of medical school being an actual expert.

It's supposed be like a sprint crash course on literally everything that can try to cover as quickly as possible to covered as much as possibly, but you are not You're not coming out of med school like being an expert on any medical like specialty.

That's what residency is for. And so that's I think an interesting thing is that like there is a lot of hate towards like the lack of education that med students get and I Think that true of like any category though.

Like it's not like they're just not getting very much about nutrition or about toxins or mold or any of that.

How IC Began and the Start of Healing

It's like they don't really get a lot of super in-depth stuff on really any specific topic because of the amount that they have to cover in two years of classroom time before they go on to two-years of clinical training.

I think there's a lot of problems with the system for sure and it is tough because it's hard to even know where to start with fixing it because you know when residents get into residency for the most part they are clueless and that's where they do most of their learning is in residency.

But then in Residency all they're getting is just training for most on their own specialty and not really anything else. Yeah, I mean, it is really interesting being married to now.

He's an ER resident, and so he's getting all of that extreme intense training on his specific specialty now, but in the ER, they're not treating long-term conditions.

They're saving people from true life or death emergencies, so that's really his area of expertise now and will be for his career. But then when you ask him about like longevity of life, he cares a lot about the things I care about, about how people are eating.

How are they active? You know, have they gotten toxins out of their home? And actually just asked him yesterday for a post, like, what are the top four toxins that you think are most important for people to not have in their homes?

He texted me back and said, carpet, fragrance. What was the third one that he said? I'm trying to remember now. I have to look it up. I don't want to misquote this.

The top four from my doctor husband. That right there could be your hook for your next viral reel. Okay, he said carpet, moisture, fragrance, and garbage food.

So we love that. I love it. That is his response there and I texted him back and said you didn't say plastic and then I was like, well, I guess carpet kind of counts but Anyways, yeah I mean I'm open to like more questions if you want to know more about what that dynamic is like but I definitely think I have an interesting inside perspective of the Western medical world and like doctor training specifically with also having, you know, my pretty much entire approach to health and wellness is holistic.

So, yeah. Well, I think we're going to weave that in as we continue to go. But I know you have an expertise, obviously, in IC. You recovered, but mold toxicity, toxins in a home.

raising children. I mean, we were talking about before we even got started, our kids and we're, I was kind of joking with you. And like, both of our, kids are like 99th percentile giant babies.

I think all of that is going to be a piece of the puzzle that we go through today. So let's talk about IC. What about, IC correlates back to this mold journey you went on.

I work with mold every single day. so many women are dealing with IC out there and they get exactly what you got told. They get the, well, that kind of sucks.

This is what it is. Deal. How did mold for you interact with IC. Well, it's very interesting because I actually have kind of a multifaceted opinion on this.

But looking back, I do believe that mold was kind the root cause of the inflammation I dealt with that led to a diagnosis of IC I grew up in a moldy house.

I didn't know any of this until within the last like five years, but I Then I lived overseas in Thailand in middle school and high school as a missionary kid.

And everything over there is open air. I mean, technically we have air conditioning and we could close up our house, but a lot of times all the doors and windows were left open, which in some ways is a good thing.

But at the same time, there's a lots of moisture issues because of how hot and humid it is there. And so I can probably pretty much guarantee that because of the level of humidity over there and the heat and all of that raining that happens in that tropical environment, there was probably mold in my house, in school, everywhere that I spent time.

But fortunately, I did spend a lot of time outside, but the also downside to that is the city that lived in, Chiang Mai, is one of most polluted cities in the world during certain times of year.

So it was like, I think they compared certain times of year, like being outside for an hour to the equivalent of like smoking a six pack of cigarettes a day.

And I was a kid, you know, so none of that was necessarily good. Um, and all of was, was building up to me, developing IC at age 21. So I graduated from high school in Thailand, came back to United States to go to college.

Then I lived in a college dorm that for sure was full of mold. like college girls are disgusting and like I just remember like pouring out entire bottles of water on the floor of my dorm room being like, oh, it'll dry.

It just, you know, gross, nasty. And like the whole place was carpeted. So anyway, there's just a lot building up, right? And I think like between in college, that's when I got married between the stress of college the lack of sleep, the trash diet and all of this mold exposure that I was having.

Then, you know, I got married and parts of my body that I hadn't been using much before being used and being irritated and then boom, suddenly I'm having all this inflammation and developing this chronic illness kind of like seemingly out of nowhere, but I don't think it was out nowhere.

I think was building up in that like there was kind just a catalyst and maybe I started off with a urinary tract infection. We don t actually know because we were in the Dominican Republic and My husband, with his very broken Spanish, went to a pharmacy to try and get me an antibiotic for a urinary tract infection.

And so I took it, but my symptoms never went away. So we're not actually sure if I actually did have a UTI that just turned into long-term inflammation and pain or what, But I experienced essentially the symptoms of a uti on and off for two years.

and had multiple urinalysis cultures done down the road that showed no sign of infection or bacteria. So mold was definitely a piece of it, but what's very interesting is I went into remission from IC while living in a moldy home that we did not know was mold-y.

And so I actually believe that by removing toxic products and changing my diet, that gave my body enough space to heal, even while being actively exposed to mold in our house.

And I think that just goes to show like, the incredible way that God has designed our bodies to heal even in less than ideal circumstances. Because it wasn't until several, like I want to say about a year later that we found out we were living in mold and got out of that house because we had a sick kid that I then realized like, oh my goodness, I like experienced this complete healing with no, you know, flares even while living like very, very dangerous levels of toxic mold.

And even though mold over the course of my life was probably one of the biggest factors that played into me developing an autoimmune disease, I was still able to reach remission while living in mold.

So I hope that's an encouragement to somebody who's out there like I'm sick and living and mold and there's nothing I can do about my mold situation right now.

I am a living example of like healing despite living a toxic environment because of all the other things that I could change that were within my control at the time.

I think that's really important for people to hear. I've worked with and I'm currently working with numerous people where they're like, I can't get out right now.

Just yesterday I was messaging with one of my clients in Switzerland. And we ran an ERMI and everybody has their hate for ER MI because it's not a building biologist.

It is not. A replacement for a really quality mold inspection. However, it was really nice for me to look at and go, yeah, we should probably take this further or maybe not compare that to our mold, urine, toxin panels and, and take the next step.

So we were in a test and it, was like 6,000 particles of astrogillus pinnaculoides. And I'm like, You should probably find a new residence because she was renting.

And I'm like, the likelihood that you are going to completely improve there is, is unfortunately not really great, especially because her mitochondria were very suppressed, which we could see on an organic acid test.

We could just see the suppression. But at the same time, I've had so many people get out of those places and then their health starts really coming along.

So if you're listening right now and you have chronic recurrent, IC, Lyme, SIBO, parasites, symptoms in general, it's like if they keep coming back, ask why.

And that's the big thing that I want to say to people with what you said is if you have symptoms that will not go away, ask why. And sometimes when you get out, your body can overcome and heal.

You're not stuck. But when when said something, I'm a guy who likes to do research. So I was like, how many dorm rooms? Just take it back to that for a second.

Have mold. Is there any studies out there? It says one in three college dormitories has actually tested positive for mold, one and three. which is- I would venture to say three and three.

Medical Training, DO vs MD, and Family Health Perspectives

I mean, I agree with you, but there's even data on it. Yeah. For sure. Like on the low end at least. So, and here's another thing I've actually looked at some data that, what was the name of this company?

There's a company in Kansas City, Missouri, where I'm at, that did some studies on universities around here. And they found massive amounts of mold and like K-State's dormitory, which their business was to remove mold.

So they partnered with K State to release some technology that puts hydrogen peroxide in the air. And it decreased mold spores in air in dormitories by like 50 to 60% by releasing hydrogen Peroxide at a very, very low level through the HVAC system.

Anyway, I know I'm off topic a little bit, but That's a real problem is these federal type buildings, flat roofs. If you have a flat roof on anything that you spend time in, it's probably got some mold in it.

It's just the way it is. Yep, absolutely. All right, so keep going with your story. Sorry to cut you off, but I was like, oh, that's some interesting things in there.

I really think that if there's somebody out there that wants to make a really lucrative career that positively impacts people, go get trained in holistic mold inspection and then market yourself exclusively to universities.

I'm sure it's a massive problem. Think about the number of college students or the people who are dealing with chronic health problems in their 20s after living in college storms.

That's obviously a conjecture on my part, but I have to imagine that that is a huge part of all the chronic illness that we're seeing in younger and younger people is just these moldy buildings that they spend the majority of their time in during their college years and it's sad.

And I went through it myself, so. Let's think about college, right? Like not everybody does this and I think the generation that's in college now might be doing better than my generation did, but what do you do?

You stay up late, you drink alcohol, eat crappy food. You stress yourself out on exams. Oh, and now you live in a moldy building. It's just like, yes, they're young.

They're 18 to 23, something like that. As far as most college kids, the resilient, They can do it. You can handle it, you can detox. you haven't been through this, that and the other, but there is still a limit.

Yeah. Yeah. And also you tack on social media addiction on top of that and literally everyone's nervous system is so fried around the clock that like our bodies don't even have the space or the time or capacity to heal at all.

So, yeah. Anyways, okay, so mold. We lived in a moldy house. I was already healed from IC at this point. Well, we had our first child and we were just seeing some symptoms in our baby that were concerning.

And I, was like confused because we, had you know all completely non-toxic products in, our home fragrance-free. i had gone down the absolute rabbit hole to pick all non-toxic baby products, which is a huge part of my platform now.

And I created this baby registry guide that has been, you know, purchased and downloaded by tens of thousands of families around the world to help make non toxic baby registries.

So I was so passionate about that. I'm like, all of products are toxin free for my child. All of our products tox in free. We've got, HEPA rated air filters running throughout the house.

what could possibly be causing eczema and hives and like 10 different food sensitivities through my breast milk for our child. And so, you know, spent a little time digging on the good old Instagram and saw just a lot of people talking about mold, especially in relation to exima in babies.

And so I, you know, we lived in a little bit of an older home and I started talking with my husband who was in his second year of med school or just about to start his 2nd year in med-school, which is the hardest year at medschool.

The second years the most intense with the studying the exams. And I was like, I think we need to test our home for mold and he was, like you're crazy.

And I was like, no, really, here's my explanation for why. Here's why I think I feel like I smell kind of like a mustiness in the house. I'm just wondering if there might be a leak somewhere and some mold that's causing all of these symptoms in our kid.

And so he finally got on board and we did an ERMI. We did an ERMI, we worked with a holistic mold consultant and found out that we had over 600 times the safe level of Ketomium Globusum in our house.

Essentially, there was a leak in are vented crawl space and the leak was causing mold formation that was right next to the intake for the HVAC. So KETOMIUM was like blowing through our HvAC through the entire house And so when we found out about that, we evacuated and ended up discarding about 8% of our belongings and it took us a really long time to get back on our feet financially after that.

We lived with family for a while and then, you know, We were house hunting for a very long time to try to find something that was safe in our very, very small med school loan stipend budget.

And we eventually did. We found a house that really small, but it checked all the boxes for us. we tested it during the inspection period and it came back clean.

We were there for the rest of med school before we moved for residency. That was such a huge blessing that we found a place that was safe. Honestly, after moving out of the moldy house, there were all kinds of symptoms that myself and my husband had been experiencing that, we didn't even realize that were having until we left, like trouble with sleep, headaches.

Even just like the quality of our marriage, I talked about this on my Instagram kind of recently after somebody else posted about like divorce and mold, but like we fought more when we lived in mold than any other time.

And it's after we've now lived two different homes that were, you know, not full of toxic mold that our marriages at the strongest point it has ever been.

Mold Exposure, the Baby's Symptoms, and Testing the House

I think that that is a really incredible testimony of like how much mold can impact the brain and the nervous system and your ability to make decisions and so much more.

I'm thinking of all the potential reels that you can make of that, but also the science. As you're saying this, I've gone down a bit of like the neurotoxic rabbit hole trying to learn the physiology and understand what's going on.

But how I explain this to patients, like if you're walking around with a 500 pound backpack, is that going to make you tired and dysfunctional just from a perspective of, I'm worn out?

I mean, even if it's just a hundred pound back pack, if had to wear that for a week, how nice would you be in your case to your husband or wife or how functional are you going be?

You're gonna be tired. You'll be irritable. And then you add on top of that the fact that it's triggering cortisol, and cortisol is your stress hormone.

As that stress hormones stays high, it starts to create irritability and fight or flight, so you feel unsafe. When you're unsafe, again, you are pretty short of people.

You snap, You're not going to have the patience to deal with little things. So those little annoyances of your spouse may become big annoyance that realistically aren't that big of a deal to you.

That you knew were there, but they were fine until they weren't. And As you continue to stay in that state and you have less and less bandwidth or space for tolerance of, well, anything, including toxins and foods and people and behaviors and light and sound and all of this, the cortisol as it continues to build on your brain from that long term actually becomes toxic itself.

which then perpetuates the problem over and over by itself, triggering inflammation to the brain that leads to depression and anxiety. And the story goes on and on, and I see this every day with people that I'm working with.

When they get the toxins and the stress out of their body and off their brain, I go, wow, You know, like the things that were bothered to no longer bother them.

And you're saying it about your marriage and your relationship, but this can also include food toxins that are in the environment. I mean, who in today's society has not been friends with somebody that's like, yeah, you know.

Before 2020, I could have a glass of wine and I have no problem, but now I do or cheese or gluten or you know, you can name the thing that we're all reactive to today after your body went through so much stress and COVID and spike protein and well, being inside with all your molds.

So now that you're, safe and away from it, if you were to create a list of like symptoms that adults might see in mold versus kids, what would you say?

Yeah, that's a great question. As far as adults go, I would say from my personal experience as well as the plethora of people that I have talked with and guided through mold experiences themselves, whether that be in-person friends of mine or people who follow me on my platform, Adults, it's going to be a lot of sleep issues, migraines, brain fog, irritability, mood swings.

And then also, I have seen countless examples of fertility being impacted by mold, like either infertility or recurrent miscarriage, also just like PMS things because of the way that mold can impact your hormones, having severe PMS or severe acne or eczema or asthma.

Those are common things that you can see kind of across the board. Specifically in kids, I think exima and asthma are probably the two most common. that I've seen.

And again, this is completely my anecdotal experience, but eczema, asthma, and then also like food sensitivities. I think this my opinion. But I thing having an intolerance to dairy as a baby isn't necessarily something that has a root cause.

Like I that is a lot of times just because some baby's guts just truly cannot handle dairy. If your kid is like struggling with like dairy, soy, egg, wheat, tree nuts, like beef, like whatever, a million things seem to set them off with severe reflux or eczema, I would personally be hesitant to say like, oh, that's just like a variation of normal.

I, would have questions about toxins in the home and or environmental toxins, in home like mold. I agree with you. I think a lot of those things I'd throw out there, freaking urination, inability to become potty trained is another one that I see.

Let's see, kids with OCD, more of that perfectionistic, as a three-year-old even, you know, like I've seen that with so many kids I'm working with. Some of those brain symptoms like you mentioned of your relationship with your husband was like the child's developing brain if it's stressed out, what would you be like if you were highly stressed and felt unsafe?

Well, your child is doing that and just not verbalizing it, right? They're very particular. They are very irritable, which, hey, that makes the parents life way harder.

Well, for sure. So, you know, sometimes I'm working with families and the mom comes in because she can verbalize that her hormones are off. She feels horrible.

It feels like she's still a postpartum years later. And we start working together, discover mold in her. Can this affect my kids? Yeah, here's some kids symptoms.

My goodness. Then we clean up the mold the house and she says, my baby's sleeping for the first time in four years through the night. She's like, that's going to heal me by itself.

And I'm like yeah, I can help too, can't it? Yeah, sleep issues is another huge one for kids. I mean, like I know of plenty of examples of people in my own life as well as people I've chatted with online who their four-year-old is waking up having night terrors every single night for two hours or whatever and then, you know, they test their house for mold, get it properly dealt with, which is no easy feat, by the way, to get properly deal with.

And then suddenly their kid sleeps great and it's like, there you go. Kind of wild. It is, it is. And so many parents, when they listen to us talk about these sort of things, they're like, is that my kid?

You can test them. I mean, if they can pee and hold it even through a nap, you can do a urine test. You could do an ERMI test in your house. Like we've talked about a couple of times here, which is just a dust sample collection test that you could at your home, do it correctly and get with somebody that knows how to interpret that.

Then you get some really good results there. Shameless plug right here. I actually did make a little $15 mold course that is like for moms or families that like want to like go down this track but have no idea where to start or like how to hire the right team.

So I do have that resource. It's like a 90 minute video course. That just walks people through like the basics of understanding mold holistically and how the test your home, what kind of tests are like good versus not great options and then like finding a, you know, someone to interpret your results and hire the right team and all that stuff.

So there we go. Amazing. And it's vastly needed because I know when I'm on these calls, I am teaching people one-on-one in my practice, hey, this is what we need to do.

It can get really confusing. I'll just be straightforward. The ERMI results that they give you in the test itself are useless. They're uninterpretable by the majority of the population, including doctors.

It took me quite a while to run enough of them and after thousands of, them I'm like, oh yeah, like throw out the quintiles. Just look at the spore counts and it's great.

So definitely make sure you're getting with somebody that knows what they're doing. Grab her $15. That's nothing. You spend that much on coffee a week for a lot of people.

Get something valuable, All right. So you're you are, I mean, you go by organic mama, so I'm going to ask some questions here and it sounds like you have some of these tools out there.

And I cheated and I went to your Instagram and one of the posts that I was like, hmm, that would be interesting is let's talk about crunchy things that you do through all of your experience with a husband that's a doctor that.

You think are really valuable versus ones that are like I can't get behind this. This just doesn't make sense to me. Yes. My, my crunchy hot takes. There we go.

Yes. Okay, great question. So some of the things that we do that I think are really valuable is limiting EMF exposure in our home.

Living in Mold, Recovery, and Adult vs Child Symptoms

We do not have Wi-Fi. I'm talking to you right now plugged into ethernet. so we don't have wi-fi in her home at all and we run all of our internet needing things through ether net courting, which is actually not super hard to do.

we got a system from tech wellness that were able to set up pretty easily to get Internet to our house without having to run Wi-Fi and we have like grounded Ethernet cords so they don't have dirty electricity and stuff.

So that's one thing. And we also just use cellular data on our phones sparingly if we need to use our phone out and about for Internet. I am able to plug my phone into EtherNet at home.

So if I want internet on my phone, I can plug it in. But we also sometimes just use cellular data with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned off on our phones. And we'll also turn off 5G on your phones and use LTE instead.

So those are just little things we do. We don't have a microwave for EMF reasons. we use the stove or a toaster oven to heat up food. Um, we've gone to pretty great lengths to get all non-toxic furniture, including couches.

This couch right here is like, It cost me probably like $4,000 and it's in my office. So it was a business expense, but, um, it like made of completely organic cotton with like a natural latex stuffing inside.

And then the frame is made solid wood. plastics in our home, whether that's through fabric or in the kitchen, cutting boards, food storage. We're not purists, so I don't get stressed about one toxic exposure or 10 even.

But the things that we can do better with, we do. And so anytime we need to buy something new for our home or for life or whatever, We're always researching to find out what's the most non-toxic version of this thing that can find.

Or if we're already using the non toxic version and we needed to replace it, just buy another one of what we had. But that's kind of my goal all the time is anytime I need to buy something new, I'm going to say, what's the most non-toxic version of this thing that I can find that in my budget right now?

Because that the other thing is, you know, like I just said, this couch was so expensive for a love seat for my office and like a few years ago I wouldn't have been in a place to be able to afford that, And so I always talk about honoring your budget and honoring what you have to spend is more important than being stressed about toxins because if you're stressed money, that's probably more harmful for your body because of the nervous system, the cortisol that is going to come as a result from that.

So being wise about how you spend your money is just as important as limiting toxins, in my opinion. So yeah, those are some of the things we do in our home.

I'm trying to think. What else? I think the Wi-Fi one is probably the one that shocks the most people that we don't have Wi Fi. We don' have a TV actually either because pretty much all TVs these days are smart TVs with like they put off a signal that's trying t connect to Wi fi.

Even if you don t have wi fi, they're still emitting that connection signal. So we actually have non-EMF emitting projector in our basement with a projector screen that's wired to ethernet.

So we have access to Netflix and Hulu and all that stuff, but without any EMF being put off by that system. That's kind of fun. And then I mean the other thing that we do that's kind of extreme is like we are just very, very mindful about mold prevention.

So we have water sensors under all of our toilets, our sinks, or washing machine or dishwasher. We do we squeegee our shower every single time we use it from top to bottom, completely dry before we get out.

There's a lot of things about mold that we do to try and prevent mold. Even just when we were house hunting for this house that live in, we took great, great lengths to be extremely picky when looking for a home because of what we've been through before and what know about molds.

So I think a lotta people would say that were way too extreme about what we say no to when we're house hunting, but I think that it is justified and we all feel really healthy in this house.

And I that's significantly attributed to the care with which we took to find a house that was, you know, not moldy because most of them are even new construction homes like our house, that we live in right now.

Yeah, the house I'm in here in my home was an old farmhouse from 1981. I stripped the inside of, so I knew where every nook and cranny of any possible mold was from the outside coming in.

It was a brick home with a fairly old roof. We put a new one on. Funny part about the new on is they put nail through a flashing and it started leaking after I went to fix it.

But fortunately it was small, a small problem to deal with. But yeah, getting a mold-free house is not an easy feat. So getting all these tests back of Hermes is, when you find something, you're like, all right, so is it worth fixing?

Is it not worth fixin'? My opinion over the years has definitely been changed time and time again on like well, You probably won't find better than that.

Let's just fix this. Yeah. So what is your hot take on things you're not a fan of? I see a couple posts about that. So, what are the crunchy things we can't get behind?

Okay, the first one I will literally die on this hill is that EMF blockers are like the biggest scam to the crunchy world of all time. There is like not a single good piece of research put out by an EMMF like blocking or remediation product company that like is a good study at all.

Like I've had my husband, so this is one really good thing I think about doctors is even if they don't necessarily always look at the full gamut of studies, they know how to read and interpret a study and can tell you very quickly if it's like done well or not done.

Well, and so that's one of the things that I do love about him. I mean, I love a lot of things about. But for his medical training, that is one thing he was taught really well.

How to do is how you know, sample size, like so many factors to analyze when you're looking at peer-reviewed studies. And he, I have sent him so, many websites of like EMF blocking products being like, okay, what about this one?

Do you think there's any legitimacy to this? And, he will like take a look at it and he'll go to the like about us, the research behind our product. Then he's like oh, they linked a study.

He's looking and every time within like two minutes, this is absolute BS. You know, they whiffed on this study so hard. Like this is not done well. There is zero proof in this to like prove that their product actually works.

So I have like literally sent him everyone that's out there and every time the conclusion is exactly the same. This study is trash. It doesn't prove anything.

I feel very strongly about the fact that these EMF blockers, stickers, whatever, all the things, these necklaces that people are wearing. If it's working for you, then it is placebo and it can create a false sense of security and they're usually very expensive and the best solution for EMF exposure is distance and avoidance.

So turning things off, staying as far away from EMS sources as possible, that is the way to reduce your exposure in my humble opinion. Yeah. I've read some of those studies and for many of the companies I'm just like, well, this doesn't tell me much.

Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately. And I mean, I have some those devices cause I was like you know what, why not? But at the same time I live in a country enough where like your saying you can use your cell phone data.

Um, that doesn't exist here, which is fortunate when I'm in my yard, I pretty, pretty much signal free, Which is great. Um. We do plug in a little bit of our stuff.

we have a Little wifi, but I've, i've minimized as much as possible. So I love that. Any other, uh, hot takes out there? Um, I think that people should not be detoxing, like DIY detox.

I. Think that like doing DIY parasite cleanses or heavy metal cleansers without working with a practitioner is foolish because You just have no idea like from a drainage pathway standpoint, from the way that that is moving things around in your body and can be impacting your organs and your other systems.

Like I think there's just a lot of people that are desperate for help, right? So they're like, oh, I saw this one, you know, person on Instagram recommending this, one like heavy metal toxins cleanse.

I'm going to try it.

Crunchy Living: EMF, Mold Prevention, and Home Choices

It seems harmless enough, but like These kinds of things aren't necessarily regulated and I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever use something that's not like federally regulated but I think it's best and wisest to work with a practitioner who specializes in you know, detox When you're doing something like that and on the same front personally I know that there are you you probably like these I am guessing but i'm really quite against coffee enemas at home and That's not to say that I would never utilize it in a medical setting if that felt like it was necessary.

But kind of similarly, I feel that DIYing coffee enemas at home could be potentially quite dangerous. So that also is an opinion held by my husband. He's like, we use enemmas in the medical settings all the time for things that they can be helpful for.

People doing coffee enemas at homes without really knowing what they're doing can Yeah, I mean, when it comes to a coffee enema, can understand the perspective for sure.

I have seen, limit the amount that I recommend just because let's be honest, most people don't want to do that anyway. And I've never had anyone actually that i'm aware of that has done one and many people come in doing them before they even get to me.

that have had or have an injury at any point that I'm aware of with them. And I've had some people doing some things that, I am just like, we need to cut back.

They're like three times a day coming in. I like that. That seems overboard, first of all. Secondly, you're flushing out all your minerals and everything else when you are doing that over and over again.

So, it's definitely a risk reward. We can throw into this a gallbladder flush. Theoretically, a gallbladder flush could, if it was working, displace gallstones, which I've always had a concern about.

I never heard of it happening ever. But in theory, If you're throwing a bunch of fat and other things into your gall bladder, trying to move around Sludge in there.

I'm like what is going on and could there be an injury now? Have I seen it help so much? I have seen to change the game for people. Is it getting out actual stones?

There's some definite conversation about whether that is or isn't I like well, I've seen people get a lot better I see a whole bunch of interesting things come out so there's there a of Let's call it alternative behaviors treatments that people do that I'm like, you know, I can't put my finger on it.

It is helpful. Placebo or not. I mean, let's be honest about this also. What was it? Majority of mental health drugs don't beat placebo. Interesting. So is it in your head?

I don' know. As long as you get well, conversation. Let's have a conversation now. Yes. Risk reward benefit I think is going to be a big conversation for a lot of it And that goes into so many things, carnivore diet, vegan diet.

There's risk and reward with both. Sure. I agree. Yeah, for sure. No, I think like kind of just like a funny aside, but one of the reasons I on like at-home enemas for people that are just like trying to DIY getting better is I think working in the ER, specifically, he's like, I just don't want anyone sticking to anything up their butt.

Because they just have seen too much. He's seen to much in ER. So I that's part of it. Just don' do it Yeah. I get that. Honestly, I've had a lot of wives of doctors like yourself come in to be patients and the doctors.

And they're like, sometimes they are really nice. Sometimes they aren't so much. It's kind of interesting. We'll have conversations. For you, here's the studies and data in the labs.

Here's how the trend lines look. How do you feel? It's fun to have those two conversations there and it's also really fun. To see improvement and then the thing that they didn't want their wife to do or didn' necessarily think could work when it works.

I get it though. It is a risk to anything internally. Yeah. Including the big trends of peptides, which by the way, I've done some of because I do a whole lot of things that I had to try on myself first.

Ask your husband about a, if you haven't heard this one yet, stellate ganglion block, a four inch needle into your neck to inject right above the stellic ganglan.

Okay. I don't know what it is, but he probably does. It's a fun one. And of course I went to medical providers with ultrasound guided, but the lack of required training to have to do that is insane.

People are doing it without ultrasound-guided. It is not required. Insurances would like it. But they're sticking a big old needle right next to your carotid, into your neck to inject.

Does it work? Yeah. Anesthesiologists do it all the time for pain. And it's kind of one of the last steps, but yeah, medicine and chronic health is the wild, wild west.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is ever going to change because whatever is a cutting edge is always going be the edge. Yep. That's very true. And I think one of the really beautiful things like, you know, he is obviously very cautious about like sticking things up your butt or, something that could land somebody in the ER.

Um, but on the flip side, and he'll say this in his own words and actually has said this and his onwards on my podcast, him watching me go through my healing journey and then me being the one to push for mold testing on our house.

He said, like, none of those things would have been on his radar. And, you know, even with his medical training, those are not things that are talked about in med school or in his specialty.

I mean, he went into ER residency after we had been through all of that. None of those things like interstitial cystitis, like autoimmune, inflammation, mold, none of that was stuff that he really had any understanding of going through med school.

After all of these experiences, he had a ton of respect for me. I also have a ton of respect for him and his knowledge and capability. He comes home from a shift in the ER and it's incredible what he did in a 10 or 12 hour shift.

The number of people he saved from ODs. heart attacks or, I mean, they have the entire gamut in the ER that he works in. But it's amazing how he's saving lives every day.

And I have massive respect for his calling and vocation to be working in a medical system. But at the same time, I mean, he would straight up tell anybody like he has a ton of respect for me for, you know, being able to figure out how to heal from a chronic illness without any medical training on my own, and he's like, it's amazing that you did that.

And he says that to me all the time. He's, like I'm so grateful for you being willing to push for mold testing on our house because he never thought of that and was kind of against it initially.

He is just as passionate about the mold topic as I am. And he, we talk about it all the time. Like we'll be laying in bed at night and I'll like, Hey, so, and so friend of mine said that they're having like X, Y, Z symptoms.

and then he's just like. Did you tell him to test their house for mold? And I'm like yup. He's like all right. like he cares about just, as much as, I do.

I, am so grateful for that and you're going to be hard pressed to find like doctors in general that like have an understanding about mold or autoimmune unless that's something that they're trying to specialize in.

But there aren't really like mold doctors that hold MD or DO, not really. There are a few more coming around. I've actually got three or four on my team now that I'm training that are, one's a pediatric pulmonologist.

One's a family doc, one's the hospitalist, another's an endocrinologist, OB-GYN. And they're coming out of the hospitals because they are getting tired of, well, insurance is dictating what they were supposed to do.

Insurance is so tough. I have all the respect for the things that they can do because let me tell you this, when I'm having conversations with them, their differential diagnoses are completely different than mine.

So they're giving me the this could kill you diagnosis and I'm giving them the, this makes your life miserable diagnosis. So we're ruling out those things and then fixing the lack of quality of life things.

And we need both so badly. We just need to respect each other on both sides of the fence, which I think for a lot of doctors is getting better. It is so much fun to have conversations with these doctors because they are so crass about some of old school mantras that they've been taught in med school.

One of them was the pulmonologist. We were talking about vaccines and he knew nothing. He was literally mainstream, just going, I want to help people and what we're doing doesn't work.

And his statement was, whooping cough is a fucking cough. He's like, it's pretty much not going to kill anyone. I'm a pulmonologist. If you don't want to do that one, whatever, right?

Like not knowing anything, no, none of the research about vaccines.

Hot Takes on EMF Blockers, Detoxing, and Medical Nuance

And I was just like… damn, I wish I could record that for my podcast. Just because it's interesting from the perspective of completely mainstream doctors, what is and is not necessary, not necessarily what they want you to do, but what will save your life is just different from their perspective when they live and breathe emergency medicine.

Yeah, that is 100% true. Just, yeah, for sure. I mean, just the number of things that, you know, Nick has come home from work and said to me about like something or other about some situation that he had to deal with with a patient.

And I'll be like, wait, wasn't like weren't you concerned about this or wasn't this an issue and he was like literally no and I think it's just funny because I thank a lot of what what some of the biggest fights on social media about doctors especially in the crunchy world like the country world is like you know like there's the vaccine debate that's like.

The big one that seems to be kind of most. like overarching fight between like holistic and modern medicine especially on on crunchy instagram um and i've asked him before i'm like so how much do you guys like talk about in the er specifically because he don't he doesn't work in other areas but i'll make in here specifically how must you talk abou vaccines and then like being important per what modern medicine thinks.

And he was like, literally, it doesn't come up like people think it does. We're trying to save people's lives. we're not debating about vaccines. Oftentimes in that scenario, vaccines aren't being pushed in the ER.

You're getting conversations about that in a pediatric office. It's not the same at all. He was, I think, funny because people online seem to think that all doctors are just constantly thinking about how everyone should be pushed with vaccines.

And for a lot of specialties, it's literally not a main topic at all. Yeah, It's interesting. We have intentionally chosen not to share about our kids' vaccination statuses online.

So I do get some interesting pressure from people to like talk about it or say like well What did you guys actually decide and I always kind of come back to this thing of like it shouldn't matter like what we Decided like yes, you have like a crunchy mom and a doctor who are married that have to make decisions about their kids But what decision that we actually made?

Shouldn't really matter to you because if you're trying to Make your decision just based off of the decision. I made that's kind stupid You need to made a decision based on like A, like how you feel and what like provider that you're seeing and, what conversations you had with them and.

What research that, you have personally done and like every person has to make these medical decisions for themselves and so. We have been really intentional to not like share our own choices on certain things that people.

I think want to know what we've decided since we do kind of come from two sides of like perspective wise on health. Because I feel strongly that people should make their own educated informed decision and honestly on the vaccine topic, I'm totally going off on a tangent here, but on I hate that it is so black and white on social media because it's either like all vaccines are from the devil and you're going to die and go to hell if you get vaccinated at all.

And then if then you don't have vaccines, you are pure blood. If you care about people, if you love people you should vaccinate your child and if if don't vaccinating child you don actually love.

I think all that is really dumb because there there's a gray area in the middle that I take most people fall in but don know how to ask questions or say that or be like.

I don't really fall into either of those camps, but I'm afraid to ask questions or speak up because somebody's going to yell at me about it. And so I really try to encourage people to be like, hey, this is a nuanced topic for a reason.

I am not here to say there's one right or one wrong choice. Like you said earlier, there are pros and cons to every choice, and when it comes to vaccines, as somebody who is married to a doctor, I fully, wholeheartedly think that for any parent who's making this decision, and maybe this is one of my crunchy hot takes that you asked me earlier, is that I think the vaccine conversation is more nuanced than people make it out to be online.

And as long as you're doing your due diligence to research and understand and read the inserts and look at the diseases that are prevalent in your area and ask yourself, like, am I putting my kid in public school?

Am I not? Those should all be factors. I respect any parent who has made a thorough, well-educated, and well researched decision for their kid, no matter what it is.

Yeah, I think the data is getting, we don't have a lot of amazing data, but what is out there is becoming more accessible. I've ran down the rabbit hole, done the research, talked to some of the experts, watched the documentaries, And you can access all these things now, which is important so that people can make more informed decisions.

And maybe that's the next. guide that can be made that you can help people with that. You don't give your actual what you did, but ask these questions.

Look at these things and form your own decision.

Finding Kristen Online and Her Wellness Resources

Well, I've had a lot of fun talking to you because as a father, as aid physician, doctor, i I love having conversations with moms because our kids are the future and we need to protect them.

The story that went through is the one that so many of the people that I work with are going through. It is the story that we all run into. I got to get myself well, then I gotta get my kids well and then here's the things that I learned along the way.

And I'm glad that you're getting it out there. So how do people find more out about you and get their hands on your guides? Yeah, that's a great question.

So you can find me on Instagram at v.organimama. If you head to the link in my bio, I have all my guides listed there. I had guides for helping people swap out toxins in their homes over a variety of categories.

There's guide for home furnishings like furniture and cleaning supplies and tech. and kitchen supplies, and then I have one for personal care and beauty products, I had one clothing, baby gear and items and I also have a couple other ones for creating a holistic medicine cabinet, a pregnancy guide that's been really popular, then my $15 mold course as well.

All of that stuff is linked in my bio if you head over to Instagram or you can find me and my blog at Organimama.com. Awesome. Thank you so much for jumping in here and doing this podcast.

Absolutely. It was a pleasure to be here.

Kristen Van Gilse

Your Home Is Making You Sick and You Don’t Even Know It | Toxins, Hormones & Low Tox Living with Kristen The OrganiMama