Could the Air Inside Your Home Be Making You Sick?

Podcast Intro and Mold Testing Overview 0:00

And we understand that certain molds can be allergenic from that standpoint. In fact, if you have a histamine response to molds, then just about any mold can do that to you. But it's these molds that produce these toxins that can help create some of the chronic issues. I think that's a very solid test. I've worked with Dr. Huthert Real-Time Labs for years. In fact, as you probably know, I sat on their board. We actually have a patented process for removing the microtoxins from the structure and contents.

And we can talk more about that later on. That's kind of what we specialize in. So that environment of microtoxin testing, there's actually several companies now that do that besides Real Time. There's several other labs that are doing that. You've tried everything, you've changed your diet, detoxed, even moved homes, and yet you still feel sick. Headaches, brain fog, fatigue that no one can explain. What if it's not you? What is your environment? Welcome to Mold Microtoxins and More. I'm John Borden.

Each week I sit down with experts uncovering how mold, microtuxins, environmental exposures affect your health and what real recovery looks like. Let's get into today's conversation. The information provided on the Mold Pros Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Listening to the podcast does not create a doctor-patient or professional-client relationship between you and the Podcast host, guest, and Mould Pros. The content shared should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advise, diagnoses, treatment, And always seek the medical advice of your physician or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding the medial condition, potential mold exposure, or health concerns.

Never disregard professional medical advise or delay in seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast. And while we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, expressed or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, and suitability of all the information discussed. A guest's experience and outcomes discussed on this podcast are individual cases and should not be considered typical results. Your situation may differ significantly.

As always, if you think you have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. By listening to the Mold Pros podcast, you acknowledge that you understood this disclosure. What if the air inside your home is affecting your health and you don't even know it? What have you been told your house is fine? Because air tests ain't that normal, yet you or your family are still struggling with brain fog, fatigue, allergies, sinus issues, or other chronic symptoms. How do you know if you really have a mold problem and is air sample enough?

And most importantly, How do you know if the company you're hiring truly understands the needs of someone with mold-related illness? Today, we're going to answer these questions and more with Dr. Myra Reed, a board-certified internal medicine physician and certified functional medicine practitioner who has helped countless patients uncover the environmental factors in treating the chronic illness. So if you've ever wondered whether your home could be making you sick, or how to find the right answers, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Dr. Reedu2019s Medical Background and Functional Medicine Journey 3:00

Welcome back to Mold Microtoxics and More. I'm your host, John Bode, co-founder of the MOLD Pros, where we help physicians, patients, and homeowners understand how indoor environmental conditions can impact your health. Today's guest, Dr. Myra Reed, has spent more than three decades helping patients uncover the root cause of chronic illness. Inspired by her parents who were both physicians, Doctor Reed earned her medical degree from Louisiana State University and completed residency at the University of Texas.

As an Oklahoma fan, two SEC schools, I'm not the biggest fan of, but great institutions nonetheless. She founded her own practice in 2001 with a vision of providing more personalized patient-centered care. And in 2015, transitioned to a concierge model, that allows her to really spend more time with her patients. In 2017, she became certified in functional medicine and buying traditional medicine with advanced diagnostic testing to help patients identify the underlying factors. including environmental exposures that may be contributing to chronic health issues.

Today, Dr. Reed serves patients throughout the Florida Panhandle and is passionate about helping people achieve lasting wellness through personalized root cause meds. Dr Reed, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome. Thank you, John. I'm excited to be here. This is such a niche I get the topic from me and so well that we need to explain to people what's going on so people have an understanding. You bet. So glad that you carved out time. I'd really like to start by learning more about or having you share a little more yourself and your practice growing up in a household with both parents being physicians.

And I'm really interested to learn, and I think our audience would be as well, your transition from traditional internal medicine to functional medicine. Yeah, so both of my parents were small town physicians. My dad was a general surgeon and my mom, general practitioner, but she delivered babies, helped my dad in surgery. And so we, growing up in this small Cajun town, southwest Louisiana, we just saw how medicine was practiced. It, you know, people knew each other and they, my, parents would help each out, like the patients would come by the house or, you know, there was just that good personalized medicine.

So I knew that I was going to go into medicine and then, of course, going into traditional training, end up in internal medicine, and I loved it. I open my own practice, started seeing patients and spending time with them, but then I could start seeing how medicine was changing. And how insurance was starting to dictate that you had shorter time to see patients and only one, maybe three at the most if you were lucky problems, given that pill for an ill approach. And I was like, I can't do this. This is not the way I grew up.

I love to give that small town medicine approach And even though I was looking at this, I started saying, well, there's another model that I heard about where people can do what they call, it's called a concierge or personalized medicine. It's a membership and people who really want to really take, invest in their health for the long term and have that personalized care, plus the access, the longer appointments, less medications and less specialist. I Was like, this is the way I want a practice medicine, And this is the way I grew up.

So I like to say I do the small town approach using modern day technology because I'm a lifelong learner and I always every day like piqued interest of what's happening next. brilliant doctors talking. Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr Bland, I mean, it's just on and on. And I was like, who are these people? They're talking my language. I didn't even know this existed. It happened to be a functional medicine conference. and I want to learn everything I can about this because this is speaking to me. So I jumped in right away and joined the IFM.org, which is the functional medicine program and just started taking all the modules and I rushed as soon as I could to learn as much and get through and gets certified.

So it takes two years and so I took the certification. It was an early certified in functional Medicine and then once I was certified doing all this I at another conference heard Dr. Dale Bredesen, a neurologist in California, talking about reversing dementia. Now that really piqued my mind because Dr Bledesen talking, about as a Neurologist doing this research, was using a functional medicine approach to reverse dementia and because my mother, the brilliant physician, ended up getting Alzheimer's and dying of Alzheimer, and I knew I was going to be next on that path because it runs in my family, along with Parkinson's, I'm like, I going to do everything I can to learn and prevent this.

So, you know, just things evolve and one path led to another. And here I am all these years later, still doing the membership, helping people transform their lives, finding the root cause of why people are having problems instead of that pill for an ill. It's just, it's like the way medicine needs to be practiced. So yes, I feel blessed that I've had this path, which helped me because I had brain fog. And we can talk about that. So I knew I was really having a really hard time studying. Even though I really pushed through and did well at going through medical school or residency and all, it was a struggle because of the brainfog.

Once I started learning about this, Not only did I learn why my mom got Alzheimer's, but also why I was having brain fog and how to fix it. And one of the big things was mold. So going back to another thing is what happened because I knew about Dr. Bredesen's program. You know, I'm learning about toxins, genetics, a lot of different inflammatory things that can happen in your body. I found out that I had high mercury, so I started you know, really detoxing mercury. And then I started really learning about, you now, that there's mold.

But that was really kind of a harder one to really learn because the CIRS is called Sears program that Dr. Richie Shoemaker was doing. That was my first experience of learning how, about mold, what mold causes in the body, the inflammation, to our body. And so I did his program, which was very intense learning and implementing and such. So I didn't learn all that, but then I came across Dr. Neil Nathan, who to me is the world expert in mold and, such a wise gentleman. He's written the two books that I highly recommend people read, you know, Toxin.

Yeah, that book is right there on my shelf. I think it is foundation. It's a great guy. A lot of wisdom there. Well, he's really my mentor in mold. And so I'm going to tell the story how I really started learning about mold is that I was trying to figure out all these things. Learning about functional medicine, learning gut health and how to detox and lifestyle and hormones and such, which is our foundational type things for functional medicine. But I'm going to really jump into really how I feel like I am a mold expert is that in October of 2018, I live in the Panhandle of Florida, the north part of the Florida on the Gulf Coast.

And in October of 2018, we had a large hurricane, Hurricane Michael, that just totally devastated our community. It wiped out, literally it was a category five and if you can make it a six, it really was six. both of our hospitals were knocked out. We, all the nursing home, everything, it turned into where we had a mash unit set up, a literally outside little tent outside of one of the hospitals. There was, the hospital's were devastated. People were being lifelighted by helicopter and ambulances.

No communication, though, by cell phone. Cell phone towers were knocked out for 10 days. We had no water, no gasoline, and no communication. And we didn't know if people were dead or alive. I mean, I think there was one cell service that was working like AT&T or something. A friend of mine who was in Louisiana, part of the Cajun Navy, that goes and helps hurricane people brought over gasoline and water in some cell phones. But that took like over a week and then we started like putting our lives back together at that time.

And everybody had roof damage, water damage from roof leaks, trees were all knocked out. I'm just telling you, it was total devastation. So when we starting getting our life back, I started noticing that people were getting sicker, they weren't feeling good, brain fog. gut issues, fatigue, sinus problems, coughing, respiratory, you name it. And so I started kind of looking at, well, what could this happen? What could be? And then right after that, my daughter, who was living out in California, had to come home because you know, if it was October of 18, January of 19 is when COVID hit, pandemic.

So my daughter came home from California like in February, March. Okay. And, and I'm going to mention in a minute what, what all was happening because we had water, some water damage. We weren't feeling good. I had some local mold inspectors come, you know, insurance wanted to inspection. So I have on two different occasions. The first one was before she came. No, two of them were both before she came home, and they both did air sampling and tested my home and said, your home's fine. You don't have any mold.

And I'm like, okay, well, fine, that's great. So when she come home in March, she's like mom, what's this black stuff coming out behind my cabinet in my closet?

Hurricane Damage, Hidden Mold, and Family Exposure 13:00

And we're like pulling and we pulled the cabinet out. I had some workers here at the house. They pulled it out and there is black, wet, sticky mold, Please don't let anybody ever do this. But one of the construction guys got a fan to dry it, blew, and she's in there. I'm like, get out, Get out. Get Out. This is even crazy, but I was on the phone with two of my girlfriends. One's is in the UK. She's a functional nutritionist. And another one that's up in British Columbia, she did. she is a Richie Shoemaker Sears mold certified doctor.

We met in IFM and we would talk on WhatsApp every now and then. It happened to be on the phone when all this was happening. They're like, y'all get out of that house, get outta the house. But it was too late, we got exposed. And so then my daughter got so sick. She was in a fetal position on a sofa. I mean, literally, I'm not exaggerating, for a good week or more. Her stomach was hurting, she had headaches, had brain fog. Because we didn't know this, but not only did we have the hurricane damage, But there was also a PVC pipe that had a hole drilled in it that been leaking chronically from the bathroom up above.

So you can imagine the bacteria and with the black stacubatris and come to find out once we got it tested, it was horrible. And this was not something that just happened. This happened before. When these mold testers came and said that my house was fine, I hate to say it, but it a lie. I mean, how can that be? Because this a chronic leak. Yeah, one of the things we can dive into that a little bit deeper. There's so much there to unpack. Yeah. Those spores don't aerosolize very well, and so that's where a good inspection really comes into play in surface sampling as well.

So maybe one of the things we talk about as we have our conversation is what type of testing is adequate, especially what kind of test for people that are mold sensitive or have mold illness. Well, I'm going to tell you that, you know, here we had two negative mold inspections turned into the insurance company. And then not only did we pull out and see the stacubatris, but when they came in and pulled the HVAC, the unit out, if you, when you looked up, What do you ever call that? You know, where the air goes up, you know?

The air ducts, the plume, I guess. I took pictures. It looked like cancer. it was black. And I mean, it, was, It was the grossest picture you've ever seen. and this is what we've been, we were breathing in for even for, for who knows how long. Cause both of them just looked cancerous. I mean, if I could send pictures to show, because a picture is a thousand words, but this explains, you know, my son was always having chronic sinus problems, and we all had gut problems. Overgrowth, cause mold loves to go in wet, moist, dark, warm areas.

You know, sinuses, gut, I mean, we can go into more, but even people who have recurrent vaginal issues is mold-induced. So any of these areas of the body are cavities. And if you're chronically breathing it in and don't even know it, you think you are living in a safe home, your life, and we're going to go in to what mold can do to people more so than just what I just mentioned. But I can factually say that, yes, getting the right mold inspector is huge. And I hate to say it, but where we live up here, for years since all this, I have not found reliable testers in our area.

I've had to get people from central and south Florida or North Carolina or different places, and it's just hard to set this up. And people are so sick and they talk about cause anxiety. I mean, mold can cause an anxiety and then once you tell them, then they're like totally freaking out. That's the problem where we live was finding the right people to test it. test it right. We can dig into that a little bit more what that testing should look like so that people don't have to live the experience that you live.

But I think as a practitioner having gone through that probably gives you a great perspective and ability to relate and understand and guide people through you know, the glass is always half full, there's a silver lining. Unfortunately, you went through that with your family, but it probably positioned you very well to really take care of your patients in a way that you may not have been able to do to that level. You've cleaned, repainted, and replaced filters. And still, you're not getting better.

Headache, fatigue, brain fog? The doctors can't explain it, but your environment can. At The Mold Pros, we specialize in uncovering what's hidden in plain sight. Our environmental testing looks beyond surface mold, identifying bacteria, volatile organic compounds, even microtoxins in the air that you breathe. Then we correlate those results with your clinical data, showing how your space may be affecting your health. Next, we use our patented remediation process to safely remove toxins, restore balance, and prevent them from returning.

It's more than just a cleanup. it's a science-based system designed to help your body heal by healing the environment first. If you're ready to breathe freely again, visit themoldpros.com and schedule your free consultation. Because wellness doesn't start in the doctor's office. It starts where you live. I agree. And I believe that God puts things in our paths, struggles, so that we can learn and help other people. The one thing I had early on was hard was convincing people that it exists. Like if a woman came in with brain fog, fatigue, hormonal problems, gut issues, weight issues.

It affects all these things and they've been dismissed by other doctors. And even their spouse gets tired of hearing them and say, well, you've been to the doctor, all these doctors. And then they finally come to me and I'm like, no, this is real. I believe you. You're not crazy. That's one of the biggest things is that people don't know why they don' feel good. And that's why I feel like, again, thank God functional medicine came into my life when it did. And this path that I'm on really opened my eyes to saying, okay, people need to be believed and make them feel they're heard and then show them that this can be tested.

and validated because the spouses always say, well, show me, so I can say okay, here's the test. Here's, the positives. It's not just me doing a woo woo test, this is validated through true research, through through environmental agencies. And you know, it's definitely true science. You're going to talk about testing the home. And I know how to test people and then treat them and get them better. What's interesting, you said two things that are kind of interesting. You talked about inspectors that don't understand and do proper testing and therefore giving you false negatives, right?

And then you turn around to practitioners doing the exact same thing. There's a corollary there. So question, when a new patient goes to your practice and walks into your office, they have these unexplained chronic symptoms that you mentioned before. How often does the conversation eventually lead to their home or workspace? So the way my practice works now, I do a meet and greet with anybody who's interested in joining my practices. I want them to understand the value of what they're getting and what their getting involved in.

And I wanna make sure that we're a good match. So when people come in for the meet and greet, we sit down, I start asking questions, you know, on and on. But one thing is I love to gather so much information and I ask everything. And so, okay, what are your symptoms? You know what's going on? What's your, You Know, What are you having issues with? So once they start going through, and I ask them about their life, about, you know, family history, things, all these things. But then I'll finally ask, have you ever lived in a watered down home?

Has there ever been a Water Leak? Or do you think that you've ever live in place where there was mold? And they go, yes. And I'm like, because leading up their history, after I just sit there and do this brief meet and greet, you know, like it's, well, it is about 45 minutes long, but about as we get through everything, I'll ask them that. And they're like yeah, and I am like well do you think you are living in one now? Are you working in an environment? You know, are you exposed in any places? Or was it in the past?

Because a lot of people think you have to be living in it presently, which does make it worse, but you could have also been exposed, in your in-the-past, like 10, 20 years ago even. And it, because it like, it'll go into your body and set up shop in some people. And there is a percentage of people that don't detox well, you know, everybody genetically is different. So that's one of the things I look at, but I do, I ask people, is this, could this be a possible? And I don' t say it is. I just say, and they're like their eyes, their eye's open, they peek and their like never thought of that.

No one's ever asked me that and I'm saying, well you, know it's something we really need to dive into and look into in check. Because if it is, we need to find out when, where, how, and then start fixing this. I think it's great that you do that. We do a similar thing. If we get an intake, you know, tell me all about your home, your past water history, etc. Water damage, et cetera. One of the things that we're all trained to do, especially when we go down this mold journey, is we talk about water damage builds.

Mold Congress, Dr. Shoemaker's Conference. Years ago, again, the focus is on water damage buildings, and that's not necessarily correct. I think we need to go a little bit deeper because, you know, there are certain molds. You have, we talk about stack of buffers, but when we're talking about penicillium and aspergillus and these zero-killing molds, they can thrive with just high humidity. And you and I both live in Florida. That's every day, especially in the south. It's everyday we have hot weather.

Right? I think you need to start thinking about moisture-affected buildings, maybe MAS as opposed to WDBs, because the EPA recommends ideally to keep your relative humidity between 30% and 50% in your home. If you're consistently above that, then the odds of you having a zero-filling mold problem can get pretty high. Well, I agree with that because you are right. And a lot of people think, well, and I'm going to, I don't mean to jump the gun, but just one thing that people say, Well, But I guess I just need to go live in Tucson, you know, or Arizona.

And I was like, Do you realize that the number one guy with the ISEAI.org which is our environmental group that we're in, lives in Tucson. The number one, you know, like, there's just, the president of our organization lives is Tucson, so it's not necessarily, and I love this because we do live in the Gulf Coast where the humidity is really high, especially all these condos that are right on the beach and everybody wants their doors open. Right? You know, you have to be careful and so people are like, well, where do I go live?

So when you guide a patient and you say, we talk, okay, there could be these environmental factors. How often do you see where, sometimes folks like to take that ostrich approach, put their head in the sand and again, it's not really an issue. Have you seen or experienced patients that didn't want to go down that rabbit hole or that trail, that journey to You discover if her home does have contaminants

How Mold Illness Shows Up in Patients 25:00

and maybe it's impacted their ability to, you know, get on the road to recovery or wellness because of that? Yes. Yes, because people get scared. You know they don't, no one wants to leave their home. It's hard to move. That's harder to renovate or remediate. And people are like, Yeah, they'll fight everything they can. And they're like, well, where am I going to go? How would I find a safe place? And so people are, and it's really hard. That's it really one of my biggest struggles. But if people who are sick enough or uncomfortable enough, They'll probably do it.

One of the things that we know, And this is really something that We talk about in our groups, is that mold doesn't want you to leave the environment. it messes with your brain and as well as not just brain fog, but it also kind of makes you do that second guessing like, well, maybe, you know, being doubtful, like well could this really be, I don't know. I mean, it's really not my home, and they don' want to leave. And then the mold again, just mess with you because it wants you to stay in that environment.

That's something we talk about, if you've ever heard that. But a lot of people in our groups talk about how it's really hard to get people convinced always to either fix their home or move or do something about it. Because you can't live in mold and get better. And that's one of Dr. Nathan's first thing is, you know, that our first rule of thumb when you're treating mold is you gotta get out of it! out of that environment. And that's one of my struggles is like trying to help people find a place.

We do have a lot of new construction around here that is affordable, new places or things like that. People can go somewhere else and then try to fix their home. But the problem is too, is insurance doesn't always like to pay that much for mold remediation either, which can be a problem. But yeah, trying to convince people that it's their home is really hard. I mean, just for example, I have a case that I'm seeing, you know, someone that, that's a patient. She's been in the community a long time and she lives in that top floor of the penthouse of a condo.

that had water damage from the hurricane in 2018. And I've been after her and her husband both. I'm saying, look, you're getting progressive dementia. She's had cancer because mold decreases your immune system and sets you up for a lot of things, immune disruption, A lot of people get autoimmune as well, but it can make you more susceptible to bad things. And it does lead to dementia as, well as so many other things and I'm, I beg her and her dementia is getting progressive. In fact, yesterday I talked to her, and she, um, you haven't done the testing that I need." And she's like, well, we're just going to go to Mayo.

I'm like okay, We'll go Mayo, but you know, she goes, I needed genetic testing. And I said, i've already done your genetic, testing I've done The Bredesen. You know I know what Dr. Bledesen what we need to do and she won't test her home. Like she wont. and then I had another friend that came in right after that and I and She was like saying, hey, so and so is really bad off. i said i know i just talked to her. And I said, I think she has mold and I know she had mold in her home. And she goes, oh my gosh, she does.

You can see it, you can smell it. They're living in it and both this patient and her husband are both getting progressive dementia and they don't want to do anything. She's like, well, don' want leave my home, and she's got enough money to move somewhere else, but she is just in denial. Does it? So it doesn't always have to be a situation when you need hormone. You know, it's just a matter of being out of the home until the issue gets resolved. Sometimes, yeah, and folks, we come across this all the time.

It's not my home is fine. I don't see anything, I'll smell anything. This patient, you can see it. Do you ever have them do some sort of like a DIY screening that would kind of open their eyes a little bit to make them a bit more open to actually having something more thoroughly done? Yes. And so what my protocol is, again, you know, one of my first things after I do the meet and greet, they come in and start doing the workup. I will highly suspect that they may have, we know we've got to rule it out.

So I'm like, okay, let's do, lets test you. what they call a real-time lab, it's a dust test just to check the mold. It's readiness mold index test that's an environmental company does. And it is just a cloth and just go get dust out of the air vac. You want to just test the home. Let's just do a little quick screening with that. While we're doing that, let's go ahead and test you. So I do a urine mycotoxin, so we know that mold makes toxins and the toxins are what's causing the problem. So if it's in your body causing a problem, we can mobilize the toxins and I like to use a what they call glutathione challenge.

Now, glutathione, if people don't know that word, glutathion is a molecule made in our liver to help us detox. And so it's a big molecule because it is made of three amino acids. So we now have a liposomal glutothione that I keep in the refrigerator. and I get them to pump it under their tongue a couple of times a day for about five to seven days and really start mobilizing these toxins through their liver, through the gallbladder, throughout their body, and then even sweating the night before we do the test to help even more so move these toxins.

And then the morning urine that we get at the end of this glutathione challenge at five or seven day, we hopefully get a better concentrated urine of mycotoxins, And so these are my two ways of testing. I test the home with the dust initially, and I do the person's urine mycotoxins. Myco means yeast or fungus, of course toxins. So these bad molds that we, I call them, you know, there's five classifications that, we test for that are from water damaged buildings or, high humidity buildings, mold overgrowth that releases these invisible toxins that we breathe in and then once we're breathing them in or they get on our skin even or in our eyes or mouth whatever you get it into your body then then these toxins get in kind of habitat with us releasing these Toxins that start breaking our body down.

So we want to test that so that We can fix it. So that's what I do, is the urine test for the person initially. And this is my DIY testing, I guess you would say, the home and the persons. Very good. I'm glad to hear the environmental monoclonal testing. We understand that certain molds can be allergenic from that standpoint. In fact, if you have a histamine response to molds, then just about any mold can do that to you. But it's these molds that produce these toxins that can help create some of the chronic issues.

So I think that's a very solid test. I've worked with Dr. Hooter at Real-Time Labs for years. In fact, as you probably know, I sat on their board. We actually have a patented process for removing the microtoxins from the structure and contents. And we can talk more about that later on. That's kind of what we specialize in. There's actually several companies now that do that besides Real Time. I think you just get used to what works and what's easy and, you know, what has been kind of tried and true for helping, keeping things easier.

I've been through the complicated learning of all this stuff and you just kind of funneled down and find out what really works. And that's why I want people to understand is that mold, the water dam mold or the mycotoxins are damaging the body. That's where the word CIRS came from. Dr. Richie Shoemaker said that the CERS is chronic. The C stands for it. C-I-R-S, C means chronic, I is immune. artist response and then S syndrome.

Testing the Home and the Body for Mycotoxins 33:00

That's where Sears came from. So it's a chronic immune problem. I will run blood work and if some people have a positive ANA or some kind of autoimmune, they're having gut issues, what I call the leaky gut, like they have either constipation, diarrhea, bloating, reflux. And then if I do, I kind of do like a little quick, little easy through question delayed food allergy testing as well to kind You know, the IgG allergy is the delayed allergy. IgE is when you have a quick allergy, like if you eat, you know people who get a peanut or they're allergic or something, they get anaphylaxis or if they a reaction.

That's not the one I'm testing for. I am testing the for the delay onset which comes from leaky gut. And leakey gut is where the gut barrier is broken. and then bigger molecules go from your gut into your bloodstream and set up these immune complexes. Well, I can test people's delayed food allergy test, and if they're lighting up everything, everything lights up as positive, it looks like you have leaky gut. And leky gut can come from a number of things that we put in our gut, but mold is one of them.

The mycotoxin is on of it. And so I'm like, okay, let's do, I like to do a stool test looking at the microbiome, the advanced stool tests, not one that you would send to Quest or LabCorp, but one of these advanced functional medicine. And there's a lot of different ones out there that I use. Genova has GI effects. I liked GI map from another company and then, you know, tiny health. So I look at all these different functional labs, But I really like look the the micro biome. And so if people are having an imbalance in their gut, I'm like, okay, well what's causing this?

And going back again, i'm not trying to blame everything on mold all the time, but that's one of the big things I do look for. A couple things i'd like to add to that, when you're having your patients do that testing, that dust collection, and we just did a podcast series on VYI testing. And when we're doing that does collection it's really easy to get what is known as sampling models. So if I'm going to go and sample somewhere that, you know, that doesn't look, I've got white fuzzier, brown fuzzier, the Walmart sample right there.

That'll turn around and may give you a positive sampling bias. Well, if my sample, my credenza bacteria that gets dusted every week, then I might get a negative bias, and so there runs, If you do that composite sample like that there's a risk of getting saffron bias So one of the things that we, how we sample when we do or perform environmental PCR sampling or migratory sampling, we're going to sample from the HVAC firm and there's a couple of reasons why you may want to have your patients do that.

One is that, you know that inhalation is one the primary pathways for that exposure and so that really gives a good indication of what they're breathing in because it's in their air filter as a collection. It also is a great way of giving them a composite sample and eliminating some of that sampling bias. You're going year, year and year to sample. And the third reason why that may make some sense is that, you know, hopefully that filter hasn't been there for the last few years. So often people sample, they'll do like for a while of a big, crazy sample that they can refrigerate to get a good desk room.

Maybe they have a cabinet that hasn' t been cleaned in a And so really what you're doing is you are getting a core sample over the last three years or two years, or whatever, not really indicative of what's going on in today's technology at home. So we've recommended the sample from the HVAC filter as a single sample. Well, that's a good thing. I appreciate you telling me that because I love that idea. It sounds so smart. And I'm going to start telling my patients to do that. Because I was getting them to test on top of the ceiling fan blades.

Which, like you said, you never know how long that's been there. Yeah, we've seen killer fans that you could make a sweater out of that stuff. And then the other thing is that when we're talking about these kind of screening sport tests, or any test, there isn't one test. So we talked about this at nausea amongst our prior episodes, but it's important to understand each test has its strengths and weaknesses, and there is one that is kind a silver bullet or panacea crawl test That's why we can get into what a good inspection shouldn't tell, but it's going to be, you know, that one test tells you that thing that it is trying to solve for and look for.

And so, a layered approach really is probably, once they advance to getting an inspection, maybe that's a jump and off point, But a inspection is going have multiple types of tests to make sure you cover all of the bases. Well, I appreciate you saying that because I know, like I mentioned to you in the past, is that my frustration is finding the right people to test. And, you know thank God you said you trained someone up in my area now that I can start using because that's the whole thing is getting people who have been to the conferences that we go to, for people that have chronic illness.

And, you know, and I hate to say it, I mean, they're nice guys and they mean well, but around here, some people who say that they are mold inspectors, whatever, are not trained in these conferences and especially not train for people that are sick. And so you really need someone who's not going to give a false sense of security like I had personally. But you do need somebody who understands all of this and is trained and knows how to really look for it the right way. and definitely not just do air sampling, the little tripod catching the spores in the area.

If I tell people all the time, if someone comes in and says that's how they're doing it, you need to get rid of it. That's not reliable. I mean, that what happened to me and that didn't work. So yes, I'm glad that we reconnected. Like I said, in one of the meetings a couple of years ago, I was like, yes, I'm going to start using you up in the panhandle of Florida. And then y'all had a hurricane two days later that has wiped you out. So they're going be busy. Yeah, that does happen. We've worked really hard to put together in the last 18 months an inspector network of certified inspectors.

And we have software that we can actually, when they're on site, we could actually see inspection in real time and we do our intakes. We guide on here's what type of samples we recommend to be taken, whether it's intracavity samples or surface samples, or air samples actually have value. They have limitations, but they have values at that. to a certain extent. And then also, hey, do you need to do micro toxins? You know, we find a lot of our practitioners are working with folks that are chemically sensitive.

So we do a little bit of chemical testing like for formaldehyde or benzene, things like that as well. Do you see that in your practice? Yes, I do. the volatile organic compounds really affect people. But people who are very chemically sensitive, for sure, I see that a lot. I mean, there's just so many things. And I guess I didn't go through the whole list of things, but I mentioned some of the symptoms that I initially see people come in for, people that have histamine reactions or that the MCAS, you know, or what we call POTS where they get up and they're dizzy and their lightheaded.

I mean, all those things people come in, they are kind of like mystery symptoms that a lot of doctors don't understand. And when people coming in you, know people don t ask about those kind symptoms. So there's a whole lot more that people do not get asked in their intake. Yes, I do ask you about chemical sensitivity and And like I said, histamine reactions that people don't even realize what that is. Like when I say histamines, like a lot of people can get headaches or rashes or heart palpitations.

And, you know, there's just all this stuff can be connected to mold mycotoxin in people.

Environmental Inspection Best Practices and Costs 41:00

A lot of people just don't know because they don' know who to go to, who look for. And, you know, doctors like me, like I've been the only one in my area that has studied these kind of things. It's not doctor's faults. They're just stuck in a system that we were trained in. Unless you kind go outside of that box. and really start learning. And I'm just perpetually always learning and my interest has always peaked. But I feel like this is my purpose in life is to help people with these more, I guess they call mystery symptoms.

That's what I like to do. I love trying to figure things out. Really my niche I'd like say is early detection for longevity. Early detection, longevity medicine. Like, because I want to stay smarter, stronger for longer. And doing a functional medicine approach really does this longevity, you know, healthgevity, if you want call it. You know not, I, want, to, live longer and have a good mind and stay strong and healthy. That's what I what for my patients. So yeah, that's my whole goal. I don't want end up like my mother.

You know, my sweet mama, she, you know brilliant lady just watched her decline like crazy into dementia. And, I've got Parkinson's on both sides of my family. So I know I'm high risk. I want to know as much as I can. As I am learning on myself, i'm able to teach my patients. I think that's critically important. One of the things that I was thinking as we're having our conversation is that there's a big trend in concierge medicine that a lot of practitioners are going that way because that insurance model is somewhat limited and maybe not as patient focused as what it needs to be.

And why this is an evolving trend and more doctors are doing that. For you, it's actually kind of getting back to your roots and what you grew up with. So this isn't anything new. It's back in the basics. You're fine. Yeah, that's what I say. I have a small town approach with modern day technology. Yeah. One last thing I wanted to cover, and we talked about this a little bit before we started the episode, was cost. You know, you mentioned folks don't want to leave their house. Do you find that sometimes too, folks really don' want too spend the money or they're afraid the cost is too high to really understand what's going on?

Is that a factor that you'd find with a lot of locations? Yes, it's huge. Yes. And that's like when I'm just talking about the lady I just talked to yesterday with dementia, you know, she's, like, I've been in this home for 40 years. Like, well, maybe that is the problem, with the water damage. But people don't want to leave. It is hard to get people to uproot. you know, from their home. I mean, I've been through it here and it is a lot. It costs a lots, it's energy taxing. But I tell people if you want to have longevity and health jeopardy and to live optimal health is what I do.

Optimal health, you've got to push a little bit just to get better. You know you just, It is hard and I understand it. So that is an obstacle that we have to work with. Well, let's maybe dig into that a little bit and what costs should be. Now, if you already have them do their environmental micro-toxin testing and they sampled appropriately, that's something that is a good foundation for the next step. So for your patients, there's a few things that they should expect from a Good Inspection. A Good inspection tells us the what.

That's going to be for the laboratory data. What type of contaminants do we have? Is it VOCs, is it microtoxins, endotoxin, bacteria, fungal, those sorts of things. So it's the lot that comes from the lab. The rare really comes in that visual inspection. And a good inspector, you mentioned a pipe leak that was undiscovered. A good inspectors going have some tools out there, like using infrared thermography. that measures temperature differentials and since water heats and cools at a different rate, it can help you identify some of these hidden causes that really you can't see with the naked eye.

So the why, the where, and the WHY it's there. You know, they should be going in and measuring the relative humidity inside the home. They should have a moisture meter when they see maybe drywall that's popped or prior water stains, etc. We should keep measuring that. And then on the sampling, they can do intra-cavity samples. So if we suspect there's mold behind a wall, you don't have to necessarily tear off a walls, but do an intra cavity sample, for us that's about a 95 sample and it's way cheaper than repairing a well that didn't need to be demoed but getting good data.

And the last thing is that inspection should give them the how on how to resolve their issues with a good thorough report. The DIY ice cream you're doing on it is fantastic. Then at the next step is going and getting that really professional assessment. And there's a lot of tests that can be done. That's where a good intake will understand what the issues are. I mean, you got to be flexible on the ground when you see, hey, we had water saying that you didn't know it was there. Maybe that's our hidden reservoir.

So I'd be able to test for that. And it does not have to pass them on the leg. A general rule of thumb, depending upon the size of the home, we're thorough testing. We're talking some PCR or DNA testing or pathogenic fungal species, environmental micro toxins, you know, circuits and air samples. Generally, you're going to be talking about a 1 square foot, sometimes a little bit less, the house is bigger. I've heard stories of there's companies out there that will go unnamed that are charging $10,000 for an inspection on a 2, 3, 000 square feet home.

And we all use the same labs for the most part. So that's just ludicrous, in my opinion. It doesn't have to that. That's what happened to me is I didn't know and I used a company, a very good company but it was very expensive. So that's good to know that there's more cost-effective, reliable companies. Yeah, you do get what you pay for oftentimes, but there's not always, You don't have to compromise quality to get a good inspection. So hopefully that'll help your patients.

Lyme, Anxiety, and the Importance of Root Cause Care 47:00

Yeah. That's going to help. But my thing too, is like I said, I value people like you that understand it, that have gone to the conferences, understand people that are chronically sick, and that helps us as mold literate doctors. And you know, they are taking the consideration of people's finances. I mean, definitely going be using you. I think you and I initially met years ago at the International Lyme Associated Disease Conference. I believe we're in DC this year. Is that on your calendar? I have so many conferences that I'm doing now that as much as I love the LyME community, the ILADS, and just love everybody there.

This year I can't. But yeah, I've enjoyed learning about everything. I mean, that's another chronic illness that it takes. It's, it's. Another tough one that, you know, so many people are affected and like Dr. Neil Nathan always says, and I hate to even bet. He always says, if people have Lyme, there's a couple of things that you want to do ahead of time, just bringing this up since we're mentioning it. But one of the things is make sure that people aren't exposed to mold or have mycotoxins because that's huge, because it's that immune response that causes Lyne to keep going.

And I'm just going to mention this, too. The other thing with mold and Lymen people is the anxiety and doing what they call the limbic part of brain, that part the brain that keeps, you know, keeps anxiety, and the fear is that reptilian part of our brain, you have to do a lot of retraining, that limbic system and the vagal system to help bring that down so your body can heal because we can go into that. That's a whole other topic about the cell danger response and all, but I'm just going to say that if people have a lots of anxiety, there are some training programs online for limbics.

or vagal or both training that really I will get people on that first if they're having major anxiety because they can't heal unless their limbic system is calmed down. You know, I think what you just did is led to a great segue. We need to have that. uh because that inquiring is is really it's true we just had a podcast episode that dropped i think yesterday with another provider here in florida it calls it the dynamic duo ii think that lime and mold uh but yeah if you would love having on the show today let's maybe sink our columns and dig into that a little bit next time Okay.

Well, this was wonderful, John. Thank you so much for it because this is such a much needed topic and doesn't get talked about enough and we really need to educate people. And I really think that this, is this great. The more information we get out, the more people listen to this and more, people learn about it and know that, that is a real thing and it's scientifically proven. And there is help. And I've transformed so many people from being so miserable and chronically sick into a great, functional, good, long, healthy life with optimal health.

Closing Thoughts and How to Connect 50:00

That's fantastic. There is hope. I think that's one of the things we try to end every episode with. I do a little plug just on my book. It's just a ebook even on the website that can download the PDF. I just call it Smarter, Stronger, Longer. If people want a quick topic, it's easy read. I was just getting ready to ask for people, for everyone that's listening, anyone want to learn more about you and your practice? How can they get a hold of you? What's the best way? So my website is www.DrMiraReed.com.

So, my websites really good. I have a lot of social media channels, but I'm really working on my YouTube channel. Right now, I'd love for people to start following my YouTube as drdoc.myrared. So yeah, would love to get some followers on my Youtube. I'm really starting to build that and going to be doing a lot of education, so I am building that up right now too. That is fantastic. We'll make sure we get all those socials posted, that way everyone can see them. launched the episode. So we'd like to thank everybody for listening.

If you'd liked to learn more about environmental testing or mold remediation or microtoxin removal, you can always visit us at www.vmoldpros.com. That's t-h-e-o-l-d-p-r- o-s dot com. if you found this episode helpful, please subscribe and leave a review or even better share it with someone who's dealing with environmental exposures. Some of them may have a mold problem or just have some questions about proper mold inspections or proper model mediations. It really is a big help to get this information out to reach people who need it the most.

We think that empowering people through education is really critical and enables them to make the right decision for themselves and their families. So this is John Vody. You've been listening to Mold Microboxes and More, and we will see you next time. You've been listening to mold, mycotoxins and more with John Bodie. If you're ready to take the next step towards a healthier home, follow the show and visit TheMoldPros.com for your free consultation. Because clean air is the first step to true healing.