Lyme, Mold, & Fibromyalgia

Jaban Moore, DC

The shot putter, track and field.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Okay. I could remember his football or track and field came down with a mysterious illness that he went from an elite athlete to bedridden. And it took him a while to figure it out. It turned out it was. LAMB And Jaban has devoted his practice, his career to helping those with what I call medical misfits. People got a bit everywhere, try everything, can’t figure out what’s wrong. And oftentimes it has to do with the fact that they’ve got Lyme or mold toxicity, some of the things that he specializes in with this telemedicine practice. So, Jasmyne, thanks so much. We’re going to be talking about the connection between Lyme mold and fibromyalgia. So to start off with, what is Lyme disease? What is that?

Jaban Moore, DC

So Lyme disease, so many things, so many different people. But the reality of what Lyme actually is, is it is a bacterial infection. Borellia of the Orient, it comes with a number of co-infections also friends that it always seems to travel with, which is a Babesia, Bartonella or Alicea cytomegalovirus. And I’m seeing a lot of different infections names, right. But the important thing to understand is Lyme disease is abaribe endorphin. That weakens your immune system and allows for other frenemies or other infections to come into your body and also to to take you as a host and then cause body pain, brain fog, fatigue, joint destruction. I see R.A. and M.S. and fibromyalgia as really common diagnosis is that when you run the appropriate testing and do the appropriate assessments actually come out to be Lyme disease.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So the symptoms of Lyme disease are very similar to fibromyalgia, too, and that really makes it a difficult diagnosis to make unless you’ve got somebody that, number one, it entertains the fact that Lyme disease is real. And I guess we still have doctors out there who they don’t believe the fact that Lyme disease is real. I would likely have doctors who don’t really acknowledge that fibromyalgia is a real entity. So separating those two sometimes can be a real challenge, right? Because again, the symptoms can be very similar. They can be extremely similar. And it’s really difficult because Lyme disease is also called the great matchmaker. So when you have one infection, it has its own side effects. Right? But when you have Lyme disease, which comes with multiple infections, often you have a smorgasbord of symptoms and there’s been 150 different symptoms attributed to Lyme. And the problem is it’s really hard to test for.

Jaban Moore, DC

So then you get somebody in your clinic who has chronic pain throughout their body, okay, that could be fibro. You have fatigue, you have probably some anxiety and depression, but is that chemical depression or anxiety or is that I’m depressed because I hurt and I can’t move? Right. So an emotional like real is yeah, I would be depressed too if I can’t get out of bed and I’m in pain all the time. So it’s really finding a practitioner that can dig in and ask the right questions and honestly just get through kind of the mess that these infections create. Because as a guy that’s been working with Lyme disease for a decade now, as far as clinically, you start seeing, okay, in some Lyme cases, we have liver markers that are off, we have higher cholesterol. We see the neutrophils, which is a type of white blood cell going up. We start seeing Syriac active protein said rate homocysteine going up, which are all inflammatory markers. So you start seeing these trends along with the symptoms. And then if you want to run Lyme testing, there’s several lines as we can get into that can give you possible. Yes, there’s yes and those but there’s no perfect Lyme test out there.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. And I think that that’s one of the things that baffles a lot of people, physicians and patients who have fibro that oftentimes they have testing done and it comes back normal. So they don’t have inflammatory markers like CRP or said rate or autoimmune markers that are I mean, sometimes they do, obviously, but just as just as often you see that those inflammatory markers or are normal. And so I think there’s a tendency to say, well, your labs look normal. You must be okay. You must be maybe you’re hypochondriac. And, you know, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, these folks are they just want some answers. And with Lyme one, one of the things I think is so, I guess infuriating if you were someone trying to look for answers, is that oftentimes the testing is inadequate. And even the idea that you live somewhere where Lyme is not supposed to be. Right, they think, well, there’s no there’s no ticks in Minneapolis. I don’t know wherever. But it really complicates things, right?

Jaban Moore, DC

It does. And honestly, it cracks me up the concept that Lyme is only in the Northeast or only Wisconsin in the Northeast. I’m like, so when’s the last time that you found a tick that obeyed the state legislator of this is the border don’t cross and I just laugh. I mean, clients are having a laugh at this because when you’re chronically ill, sometimes I keep a light hearted. But Lyme disease is transferred from tick to human right, but it’s also a vector board. So any insect vector that can bite can transmit that Lyme disease, though mosquitoes, fleas, ticks. Spiders also can be from mother to child. And in some cases the thought is that it can be sexually transmitted for some of the infections. Not all of the infections can be, but some of them can be that associated with Lyme. So there’s a bunch of different ways you can get it and then you know what I mean? People travel, we send animals and meat and shipping from New York to California. 

So let’s say ticks didn’t jump on that transport and end up in California to spread Lyme. They’re right. And then it’s the thought it’s only a deer tick, which again I just went over all the possible ways. It’s more than just the deer tick, but even just a deer tick can be so small. Certain types of ticks can be so small that literally pick up the end of your pin point it straight at your face, look right at the tip of it. That’s the size of the tick. So seeing that tick is really hard. Even if you are looking and beyond that, that’s the okay, well, if you didn’t have a bull’s eye rash, you didn’t get Lyme. All bull’s eye rash is only happened in 40% of the people that get identified. Yeah. Okay. The number of people that are identified a year is 25,000 or is the global Lyme alliance found studies showing that 476,000 people identified a year of Lyme 476,000 per year. I mean, that starts to add up year over year over year. I mean, you’re talking ten years, you’re up 5 million people. It’s a significant portion of the United States.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Why is there such a controversy with the testing?

Jaban Moore, DC

So the CDC came out with a test out or even know when it was several years ago, and it’s just inaccurate. They even went out as far as to say, okay, we know 25,000 people are diagnosed per year with our test, more like 300000 to 1000000 people are being infected and they just left it at that. So it’s an inaccurate test. It is assuming that the immune system is going to appropriately respond to Lyme when you’re getting better and create these antibody markers in the body. That’s just not how it works. Like you got Lyme likely because your immune system didn’t create the appropriate immune reaction to begin with. So now you have an infection and then Lyme itself affects the immune system. So then when we’re expecting the immune system, then to create a proper test response, that just doesn’t work well. We need a lot more science, a lot more effort, a lot more money and time put into those tests. There are better testing. So I Gen-X has been the gold standard for as long as as I can remember. As long as I’ve been in practice for ten years, I genetics has been that gold standard. 

There are some other tests out there like DNA connection to the PCR tests for DNA and a urine test within fiber in America. This was last year released a study and their claim was in their study that they are now the highest specificity of any Lyme testing. So they may be, you know, taking over as one of the better tests. I do like their Tickborne panel 2.0. It comes with a lot of co-infection and it gives you a big idea. But I always partner that with, like you said, so many fiber people, so many blind people get testing and it’s not it’s not showing much. Then when I run a hair test, we see that their body sodium, potassium starting to lower down. We see that their toxin burdens are going up. We see that their mitochondrial function, organic acid test is starting to suppress. You start seeing that breakdown happen long before the blood changes. When you’re looking at hair and urine, which is something that I’ve really started to lean on for my clients because blood testing alone doesn’t do the job. Your body will keep the blood perfect until it’s in a severe situation. Yeah, and that’s the misnomers. Blood does not change first. Blood is going to change last. Where’s your hair and your urine tests start to show up a little earlier, at least in my experience.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Now, someone someone suspects to have long and they go to their doctor, maybe even see a bull’s eye rash. Maybe they see that they go to their primary care physician. What’s the test that they’re typically going to run?

Jaban Moore, DC

It’s going to be the CDC standard. Eliza in Western blot testing is what you’re going to get from your standard medical doctor, which when I was doing the math. So if a million people are getting it a year and they’re finding like 25,000, it was less than a percent accurate.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

And so that’s really the disconnect, right? You go in, you get tested, they tell you it’s normal or, you know, you get tested and then they put you on antibiotics for a couple of weeks and then they send you on your way. Right. So there’s a lot of falling through the cracks with this illness in there.

Jaban Moore, DC

It’s so much falling through the cracks. You know, I got clients that spent 20, 30, 40 years looking for answers. I’ve got a client who’s like 70, 78 now. We’ve been working together for a couple of years, has been sick her entire life. And as we dig deeper, right, because memory’s not great for a person. Oftentimes the Lyme disease anyway and then you take it back to when they were a teenager when they got sick, and that’s 50 years ago. So now memories lapsing even more. And as we dig deeper, she’s like, you know, I, I think I lived in a moldy house. I think I, you know, I think I had Lyme and we start uncovering this information and she’s been to doctor after doctor after doctor and they just never talked about Lyme. They never talked about mold and never talked about the toxicities in the water as we cleaned this up and got her nervous system regulating, it’s just like, holy crap. Like, she’s getting a life. She’s like, I feel better than I felt when I was 50, 40, 30, and I’m just laughing. I’m like a 78 year old person saying I feel better than I was. 30 is so cool to hear, but also kind of sad to because I’m just like, somebody could call this back. It’s like going causes. 50 years ago.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, I was thinking that’s what I hear a lot is, you know, I feel better than I did 20 years ago, 30 years. And you think it’s rewarding to hear that? But you also think, oh, my goodness, this person, you know, is been struggling for two or three decades. Yeah. What’s with Lamm, do you find that there are some telltale signs that help you just in an interview or a questionnaire that you look at that and you go, that’s Lyme even without testing. And that also with that, do you find that there’s a common thread for Lyme that separates it from Fabbro? In other words, when you look at that person, talk to that person, look at their questionnaire and even there without even doing lab work, can you tell, oh no, this is Fabbro. Now this is like can you make that distinction just with a questionnaire and an interview?

Jaban Moore, DC

It’s definitely tough. You know, couple of questions in there is first, what am I looking for for Lyme if you if you’ve got like that age hand that body fatigue headaches at the bottom base of your neck associated also with brain symptoms. So like that the brain fog fatigue probably it’s hard to pick one or the other, but the what I call an inflamed brain which can be depressed or anxious right now, that leads me and down the Lyme category. And I’m also going to have to do my differential diagnosis is which means I rule out that we have Mulder parasites or something else working in there, those infections that can get into the brain. Because in studies that I’ve seen 100% of people and well postmortem so autopsy brains 100% of brains with M.S had nematodes 25% of them had Borrelia Lyme. So bacteria and parasites that were in those brains. But then when I go to fibromyalgia, although there is fatigue and there is brain fog associated and lower that lower energy. PS I don’t find that at least in my experience, has been as much brain oriented and it feels like it’s more body oriented. So the pain markers, the achiness that is common with Lyme to but maybe they don’t have as many brain symptoms for me.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Do you find it does I guess I should say this will have true long that’s what they have now. They could have some cofactors too. But Lyme central. Do you find that they tend to have more extreme symptoms, chemical sensitivities, problems, taking supplements from taking medications, those kind of those kind of things.

Jaban Moore, DC

So yeah, as you said, true central Lyme. So I’m thinking like we got the main.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah.

Jaban Moore, DC

And I haven’t, I’m not living in a moldy house and I haven’t got a bunch of trauma history and you know, all those things aside.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah.

Jaban Moore, DC

That person tends to slowly degrade over time and they think back into their, into the okay I got bit a couple of years ago. I remember now seeing that bull’s eye rash but ignored it, those sorts of things and they’re not. And my experience is chemically sensitive, but it’s building, it’s growing over time, right? Especially when you start stacking other issues on it. The chemical sensitive people usually live in a toxic environment, is what I’m finding where. Okay, yes, you have Lyme, but you now live in mold or you had a bunch of trauma as a child or your water for another is radioactive, which, you know, I’ve just had like my fourth new client from New Hampshire and one of my staff worked there. So it’s like right on my brain all the time. And so she’s from there and I found radioactive elements in her water. And I was like a fourth person from New Hampshire, all had radioactive on there. And wow, it’s like those people tend to be more chemically sensitive Lyme people. It mirrors fibro so much woods just a little bit more brain symptom not the multiple chemical sensitivities until you add that other piece and my experience.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So and I’m be candid I mean and I look back and I feel terrible about it but I remember missing it, my alarm case. So I was, you know, I was guilty of just treating this as seven, eight years ago, just treating this person, the fibro, cleaning things up, doing well. And she got a lot better, but she just couldn’t get to the next where she needed to be. And, and I really I feel bad about it, but I kind of just missed her thinking, you know, I don’t know what else to do. I’ve done everything I can and, you know, I don’t know what else to do for you. About three years later, I get an email from her talent. You know, her sharing with me, her appreciation now. And that was nice for her to say that, but that she found out she actually had Lyme and that was the last thing she needed to treat well. 

Seven, eight years ago. I mean, I wasn’t even thinking about long. I mean, I just now there’s some telltale signs for me. I find that once I start treating them, they have weird reactions. I mean, that that’s when I start putting out on a supplement and they have a weird reaction or they share that with me, that they have a lot of odd things happen with prescription medications or whatever. My first thought is, do they have line? Do they have mom? And I don’t know if you see that or not, but I will say in my defense, I’ve gotten a lot better. I just test people for it now. You know, if I had any idea, you know, of any into it in a course like, you know, we’ve been doing this for so long, your intuition tells you these things, you know, and it but I think testing is really important. I think it’s really important for these folks.

Jaban Moore, DC

It is. You know, I don’t always start off with Lyme disease specific testing. When you come into my clinic, I do start off with an organic test. Her tests, yeah. Yeah, blood tests. I can get a general concept of where we’re at. Yeah. And then when it comes to Lyme, I think maybe some of that weirdness that you’re experiencing is like that hurts detox reaction because yeah, as you’re building up and for me I guess it’s it’s such a common thought for me it’s like, oh, you know, like when I start with people which we build up slowly because if not, then it can overburden the liver because you have so much die off from those bacteria dying as you’re giving them herbs and mobilizing toxins out of their body. So I’m I literally pre set my entire protocols with, okay, we’re going to do the clean up your lifestyle site. We’re going to go with the nervous system piece and then we’re going to go to the we’re going to rebuild up any sort of nutrients that are deficient of like, say, potassium or B12 or iron based off of what your body needs and then also the infections, then you because you can’t just give iron anyone. If you give iron, it can seed certain bacteria. So you got to be very careful with what we’re doing there. And then we go into that drainage system like open up your detox pathways, and then we finally get into, okay, now I can actually give you an herbal that will help your immune system to handle these bacterial infections. So like I’ve had to preset my entire practice based off of the fact that those reactions were there. So when you’re asking me weird reaction, like we talk about, Oh, those are just normal to me. They’re like my every single day. I don’t even think about it anymore because it’s like built in.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that you’ve got to someone who is doing well or, you know, doing okay anyway and that they get it or some type of stressful event and then all of a sudden there’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, which what I see with fibro. Do you see that in line too? Can this be just sitting there dormant for years, like viruses, like Epstein-Barr virus? Some of these other things we see and then some stressful event or situation comes along and then bam, it sets them off.

Jaban Moore, DC

Without a doubt, 100%. And I’m finding that more and more of them in practice. And my most recent statement was, You’ve got to live in a safe place and you’ve got to feel safe. And when those are taken away from you, either one of those, if you’re not in a safe place anymore, if you don’t feel safe so you have a life altering event, you lose someone, a loved one, you have an extreme circumstance happen or even if you you had one person with an attorney who got into a court case, their work 100 hour weeks for a month, and they just took away their body’s ability to recover and shifted all their energy from stabilize, maintain homeostasis and health to this thing, whatever that thing is. Yeah. And they were probably bit by a tech 20 years ago and Prolia being a bacteria is in their system and it is a at that time probably normal bacterial flora that wasn’t pathogenic, that wasn’t an issue, just like clostridia, as in a cold eyes and, and these other bacteria that are in your body. 

But then when the immune system went and said, I got it, I got shut down, I got to take my energy down to reserve power and give it all over to this, this project or on or whatever this life event is. Then it allowed the Borelli out and it started to proliferate and grow because it’s not a normal part of our flora. And it became an issue. I’ve even had people ask me now they’re like, Well, you’re cured, right? I’m like, Well, what’s your definition of cured from Lyme? And I said, I am in a state of health where I can go play sand volleyball for 4 hours a day, for a week with my family, which I did. And boy, did I pay for it and soreness, but I could do it and I recovered. I’m fine. I can work, I can live, I can do all the things I want to do. I feel no symptoms, but I will always have the bacteria. BORELLI In my body, I’m not afraid of it, though. I’m not afraid of being bit by another attack because as long as I keep my immune system healthy, which is what we all have to do, by the way, because we all have chronic organisms in our body that are either in a symbiotic helpful state or a pathogenic state. And we just have to moderate that at all times. And that’s the new understanding that we’re coming to today, other than the research, is it’s not that these bacteria are good or bad. It’s not black and white. It’s that, you know, is your body regulating them to keep them in good or is your body allowing them to grow out of control and become pathogenic?

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Why is it so hard to get rid of Lyme disease? Why is it so hard? It’s very complicated. I mean, we don’t have time to go into all the stats and really there’s just no way we could. I mean, it would take it take a four or five hour masterclass just to go the different treatments, right? The steps. I mean, there’s multiple steps. Even more complicated than multimodal can be kind of complicated as well. We’re going to talk about that in a moment. But why is the spare keys that, you know, they move around, but what is it that makes them so hard to eliminate?

Jaban Moore, DC

So this is a two answer piece, right? So one is parakeets themselves are corkscrew shaped bacteria. That’s what Borrelia is. Right? So is a Lyme disease, is it is smart. It is over the last who knows how many thousands of years they found in a wooly mammoth that was frozen in an ice cap. So it’s been thousands of years on this planet and has developed the ability to get out of your bloodstream and I seen a study where said it got to your brain in 12 hours, where your brain there’s a limited amount of immune system that’s in your brain. So it’s not as easy to give an antibiotic or some of these other types of treatments that are supposedly going to wipe it out of your body. 

So they also, as far as they get out of your blood, which is where most of your immune function is, and into the white tissue, your joints, your muscles, your brain tissue, and then they can create what’s called a cyst form. So even if you were able to get the right treatment that would treat the burger earlier and the white tissue that doesn’t have blood flow. So it’s hard to get herbs and antibiotics, medications to that area. Then you have to get past the cyst, which is a protective fat cover barrier that wraps around that bacteria. So they’ve evolved over who knows how long to find themselves a safe space inside your body, protect them with a barrier, and then they can live within that barrier for a long period of time so that when you when your protocol ends, then they can come back out and then they start proliferating. But that’s the second part of this answer, which is too many people in the Lyme world are still in the mantra of kill, kill, kill, and then you’re good. And if you can lower the threshold of the virali of Lyme and it’s co-infections, but then rebuild the immune system, mitochondria and health of the body to where then when these other Borrelia come out of their hiding space, out of their system, and start trying to proliferate, that your immune system could take care of them. 

That’s the secret sauce that allows healing. So although I do antimicrobials and we do detox work, when I start getting to the end, it’s like, okay, now hour. And it’s not just at the end, it’s throughout, but really concerted effort at the end to okay we we have that your gut flora rebuilt. We are living in a safe environment. We’re not bringing new toxins and we’re keeping our nervous system healthy. Your body is going to be optimized to where I realize that you’re going to come in contact with another infection of some sort, another virus. There’s still stuff that’s going to be inside your body that’s trying to hide out, like I’m going to fortify your system to where it can heal. And between those two pieces of how smart Borelli is and then people missing the rebuild process, that’s what makes Lyme so difficult. And if you can understand both of those and all of their intricacies, then you can really formulate those plans for success.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So what’s the connection with mold? Let’s talk about mold. So people hear mold and they wonder what’s bad about mold? This this fungi. What’s bad about it?

Jaban Moore, DC

Mold is this wrecking ball that if you could think of a car, imagine not just putting like you know people say that it’s not even a prank. This is damage your car like you put salt or sand or sugars on your gas tank and then the engine gets all clogged up and can blow mold. Is that mold? Is this you move into a new house or you get a water leak from a storm and mold starts growing. And at first your body’s like, let me you have you get a little bit of a runny nose. Let’s you know, you’re a little more tired. You got dark circles under your eyes and it’s what’s happening is mycotoxins, which is the what the mold defends itself with. So it’s it released from the spore colonies. So it’s not mold itself, it’s its weapon, it’s bioweapon, and it’s fogging you with it little by little by little. And that weapon is so powerful that has been used in bio warfare. It’s so powerful that it is. Well, they actually model some of the immune suppressant drugs off of for people that have had transplants to suppress your immune system, not take that organ. So it’s just this incredibly potent, powerful toxin that slows down and stops your liver function from detoxifying so it can stay in your system. It absolutely shuts down the mitochondrial function of making energy, which if you don’t have energy, you don’t rebuild your own tissue, you don’t detox, you don’t think move, make proper decisions. So it’s just like this, this gas that is slowly just suffocating the function of your body. And the problem with it is, is it’s hard to find cause you can’t see it often. You don’t smell it.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Sometimes, but.

Jaban Moore, DC

Sometimes you can smell that mildew smell. And it’s oftentimes where somebody else does. Yeah, they come into your home. That’s what’s going on here. But. But it’s suppressed your olfactory nerves. You don’t smell it, ever. It’s something slow. Or maybe you just didn’t know that it was a problem. I mean, myself, I’m guilty of it. I live in a moldy basement college, which I think is what really wore my immune system down and allowed me to then develop Lyme. And I was just this guy like, I got to save money. I’m living in a basement. Yeah, I smell moldy, whatever. Like, my girlfriend can deal with the fact that my place smells a little moldy. That’s. That was my, like, my mind. So, like, if that’s the worst part of it, she’s complaining. It smells moldy. We’ll just go upstairs, the living room with the guys, and, you know, I’ll be out of here at some point, and then. Then my health crashes around me afterward. So mold is a wrecking ball to your energy and immune system, and it allows for everything else to just take off. So your Lyme, your parasites, your EBV, everything else just can skyrocket because of it. Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Well, you know, I believe that fibromyalgia really is a series of triggers. It brings it on. I mean, there’s different that it can be can be mold, it can be Lyme, it can be a virus. There’s several things, but really it’s just the stress. The body can’t keep up with the demands of what stress is being put on it, whether that’s chemical stress, physical stress, whatever it is. And it’s usually something that, you know, is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, something comes along and that’s it. And then they start to developing these symptoms achy pain, fatigue, poor sleep. And then they bounce around, you know, they get on the medical merry go round and eventually someone doesn’t know what else to label it’s. They say fibromyalgia. 

But mold is really a particularly big problem for fibromyalgia because of what you just shared, the fact that it sabotages the mitochondria. And we know in the fibromyalgia community oftentimes that they have less mitochondria just the way God made them genetically. And oftentimes their mitochondria are not working like they should anyway. And these trillions of power plants that are in the cell that control how well how poorly the cells working and communicating, if you’re already at a disadvantage, you don’t have as many mitochondria. But now you come in contact with mycotoxins that are shutting down what little functional mitochondria have. It’s no wonder you have brain fog and you know, feel really fatigued and started getting diffuse achy pain because the symptoms of mold are very similar to fibromyalgia, right?

Jaban Moore, DC

They are. And that’s and that’s what’s so hard for someone with fibromyalgia or Lyme or mold, like how do you differentiate these things out to get that name title, to get that diagnosed, to make sure you’re doing the right thing right, to get yourself well, because isn’t that really what we’re all searching for? It’s How do I get well? It’s not who really cares what the name of the thing. As long as I get better, it’s just identifying what path we need to go down. And that’s why I mentioned earlier, it’s like, okay, oftentimes these things are stuck together, right? So if you have Lyme and you can’t get better and you’re working with a great Lyme doc, have you checked for mold? Have you looked into environmental toxicities? Has it triggered a genetic shift or an epigenetic shift or a shift into fibromyalgia, like trying to identify what all these pieces are that you can really get under them and get started?

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, a mold can be very complicated and hard to get rid of as well. You know, mold like land can develop these biofilms where they get this glue that protects it. These toxins, you know, most toxins are sequestered into your fat cells. So they’re just kind of sitting there and your fat cells are generating inflammation already. Most doctors don’t really know a lot about mold. Right?

Jaban Moore, DC

Most doctors don’t pay any attention to mold. They think, well, you know, did you have that air test at your house? And that’s the extent of their testing. And then our mold can’t be that big of a deal. Like it’s not a huge problem. It’s 25% of the people on this planet are genetically predisposition to be very, very weak to mold toxins like there are genetic tests that you can run. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I’m going to be more sensitive to mold. So we have a lot of evidence and knowledge, but it’s just something out there. And I don’t know if it’s if it’s partially the lack of knowledge, the lack of just is not being taught in medical schools. But then also I think there’s something about like we just know that molds around and sometimes it can be complicated to remove and I don’t want to talk about it like I don’t want to think or learn or talk about it because it’s tough. Just like Lyme disease. So many doctors like, oh, Lyme, you know, that’s not go go to someone else. And I just feel like sometimes I’m the collector of the someone else.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Or the star. Well, yeah, I’m the collector of the fibro people. Yeah, I know. Yeah.

Jaban Moore, DC

So mold. Mold is that thing where it’s just a slow drip for a lot of people and it makes your body feel like it’s at war. So nervous system wise. So if you’re if you feel unsafe in your environment and you don’t know why or if you feel like you’re just constantly stressed or overwhelmed and you don’t really know why and your health is declining, I see that as a really common early symptomatology of mold. Other molds, normal symptoms are going to be more of the breathing trouble, the fatigue, the brain fog, the acting as some skin rashes and that dark circles in the eyes. But what some people don’t realize is they can even leave that environment and go somewhere else and mold can colonize your body, just like Lyme disease can, so it can get into your sinuses and start regrowing like it’s growing on its own, putting up mycotoxins on its own in your body, it can colonize your digestive tract. So this is colonizing mold in your body. And that’s also another piece that people don’t understand, because I’ve had people where we test their home, their work, which has everywhere around them. We can’t find where mold is coming from, but it’s in their body, so they’re carrying it along with them and that continues the toxic cycle and so we remove it.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So again, seven years ago I probably would have missed my mold disease. Now, you know, I’m really good at picking it up because that’s one of the first questions I ask my patients is, you know, have you ever seen water damage in your house? And I think the statistics are now 40% of the buildings in the US. Just, you know, this the survey in the U.S. have had some type of water damage. What I find now, though, is that I have patients that will tell me, oh, yeah, we have water damage. Ten years ago in a house we moved out or we had it two years ago, we had it remediated. They cleaned it all up. But what did you do to clean your body up? So, you know, people are they clean their house up. They still got it inside them. They still got these microbes, toxins that are there that are being walled off by biofilm and other things that periodically are giving them problems. And it’s a missing piece of the big missing piece of the puzzle that’s often missed.

Jaban Moore, DC

It is definitely a huge piece. It’s a mess. And it’s just going back to that beginning stage. It’s like, okay, we ruled out that you live in a safe place that were ruled out, that you’ve done some nervous system work. Have we gotten your nutrient levels back up and then going down the infection list like, okay, what infections could it possibly be? And just keeping that open mind is such a key point for people because you know, everybody gets a0i test positive for Lyme. I’m done. The search is over there. Well, no, that’s one of your things. Like, did you rule out some of these others? And that’s the mindset that I keep is like, let’s rule out the big players, the Lyme, the parasites, the mold, the toxic waters, rule out all these things because you cause for a condition people think root cause a singular and I start saying root causes because sure you moved into mold and that’s the pressure immune system but then it allowed Candida and Epstein-Barr and Lyme to take hold, which are individually root causes. So now you have root causes to deal with before you can get back to that optimal vibrant wellness.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I think that’s a very key paradigm. And if in the end, those that are the viewers that if you just walk away from this interview with causes, plural, and understand the fact that that really what what I see and I think what you’re saying is this explains why somebody can go through life and not have any symptoms, be, quote unquote, healthy and all of a sudden start to experience symptoms. They start to show up and then they just take off. And it typically is preceded by again, in fibro. Typically some kind of stress stressful event. The alarm was already there, the Epstein-Barr virus was already there, the parasite, the heavy metals, whatever it was. But once that body, when your body feels threatened, nysa goes back to the cell danger theory and survival paradox spirit on once it feels threatened, now it turns on reactions that drive inflammation and inflammatory reactions start to become chronic because it can’t be turned off until you clean everything up, you can’t get rid of it. 

So if you have lamb but you still got mold and you don’t get rid of the mold or you don’t get rid of the heavy metals or you don’t get rid of the leaky gut or whatever it is, it just continues to fester. So it’s a it you have to really look at all the root causes and deal with all the root causes, which is no fun. I mean, it’s a lot of work, but that’s there’s no way around. It is it’s kind of like when I tell patients, you know, what we want to try to do is get you healthy and that means different things to different people. And part of that is changing your diet because, you know, that’s the long game. But you can’t be healthy with an unhealthy diet and you can’t be healthy with a toxic mold inside of you. You can’t be healthy if you’ve got heavy metal toxicity or these other things that are just waiting for you to get run down under stress. And then they reared their ugly head.

Jaban Moore, DC

Exactly. You have to do you’ve got to do the what I call the homework, which is making that home hygiene, food, water clean. You got to do the head work, which is the brain, and you got to do the nervous system piece, too, with the head work. And then you’ve got to do what we love to talk about, or at least what I love to talk about, which is now the detox, the drain is antimicrobials, the the root causes work, and you can’t leave one of those pieces out, although there’s always the exception to the rule. I say that I was like, Well, all I did was take antibiotics and I felt better. I’m like, Well, great. That happens on an occasion. But more often than not, we’ve got to do this whole picture. And it’s not just for right now, it’s you have to do the homework and the hard work to keep yourself well, not just because you had sickness before, not just to keep yourself from going back into being sick, but because that’s what’s required for all of us to stay. Well, long term, like I still detox. I still live in a clean environment and check my home. I still do relaxation techniques because that’s not because I feel like I’d get Lyme back, because that’s what it takes to stay well. And that’s why today in our society, we’ve lost a lot of that. We have this toxic food that we, you know, food like products that most of us have ate. We have dirty water and a tap. Now we’re not drinking clean because we haven’t because, you know, 200 years ago it wasn’t a toxic stream right? 

Then you could drink mineral water out of now it’s oh, well, what plant is dumping junk in the water? If I went and tried to fill my water up on the Missouri River, that’s not going to work well, which I’m in Kansas City, so that’s why I comes up. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s you’ve got to do that homework to stay well and that’s the really important thing that you can take away if you have Lyme, if you have mold, if you have fibromyalgia, sometimes it’s a blessing because it teaches you to because because you have to you have to turn around and look deep and go, okay, what does it really require of me to live a vibrant, healthy lifestyle? Which, you know, for me it was I wasn’t sick for decades. I was sick for a couple of years with not feeling well. And then it’s allowed me now to live since I got better, probably ten times better than I would have. So it can be a blessing. And, you know, everyone who’s listening is fighting for their health because they wouldn’t be on the side that they weren’t. They deserved to be. Well, they just need the right tools given to them or presented to them because they’re their own health advocate, if you’re listening. So for all those listening out there, take this information, latch on to it and start implementing today.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So as we wrap up, I want to point out, I think and I use this analogy that fibromyalgia is kind of like a puzzle. You know, it is I mean, it puzzles many, many practitioners who try to solve it, but it’s this thousand piece puzzle that we throw out on the table. The where do you start? You know where you start. So there’s some key things that I’ve found over the last two decades of specializing, fibromyalgia, deep restorative sleep, adrenal fatigue to prevent, to increase stamina, resiliency to stress and prevent road flares, nutritional supplementation where you saturate the cells with high doses of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids supplying, these raw ingredients that allows the body to be able to run like it’s supposed to, bouncing the neurotransmitters in, particularly raising serotonin levels, which raises pain threshold. But then once you do those things, you still you still got the rest of the puzzle put together. 

And what I wanted just in closing to say is that you got to keep digging. As Doctor Moore has talked about, there’s other underlying triggers, causes that can keep you from getting that puzzle put together. Don’t neglect to entertain the fact that you could have or could have Lyme disease. So work with a functional, functional medicine practitioner. He or she, they can test you for lab work with somebody that can test you for mold. I mean, you’ve to continue to look at what else do I need to do to lighten my low, the stress that’s inside of me from these toxins or from this bacteria or these heavy metals, whatever it is. So you then can get to the next level and stay healthy. And then once you get there, as you said, you got to practice good health habits so you don’t go backwards.

Jaban Moore, DC

That’s it. That’s what it takes.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So, Jaban, thank you so much being part of this summit. Before we finish, where is the best place to find out more about you and your practice?

Jaban Moore, DC

So my Instagram tik-tok Facebook and website, which we put content out on every single day, is Dr. Jaban Moore, and it’s called J. BS and boy, and because I know it’s a different name there. So Dr. David Moore and we are just here to serve the community and continue to give a ton of information every day about Lyme old parasites nervous system work because that is my passion and every day from the fight that I had to to make sure others don’t have to go through that fight if I can, or to get them out of it where I can, too.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Jerod, thank you so much. This has been great. It’s obvious that your alarm expert, passionate about what you do, is you help thousands of patients over the years. And really, I think this is going to be an interview that people hopefully are going to perk up and this is going to provide some answers that they haven’t been able to shore up here. So thank you so much.