167: How I Healed From Mold

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Hey, guys, what's going on? You know, I got some questions recently about some of my episodes where I was talking through my health journey, and specifically a couple of the episodes with Equal Life where I've started going through, like, the testing process and sort of what's going on with me. And so, you know, questions have started coming in when I asked for, for, you know, topic ideas for the show about me asking about sort of my health journey specifically. And, you know, I just kind of realized, like, this. This show has been on for or on, like, it's a TV show. I've been recording this for, like, three years now. And so there might be, like, a good portion of you that don't really know my story very well. So I thought this would be kind of a good opportunity to sort of retalk through my story, then talk through, like, where I started seeing changes, um, and getting better and that sort of thing. So this is kind of like how I even became a mold guy in the first place, this ultimate story. But, you know, in 2008, which is when all of this started, I.

I was working at an advertising agency, and they went through layoffs because there was a recession in 2008. For those of you who don't remember or do remember or how, you know, however old you are, you're listening to this, you know, whatever it might be. And so, you know, I. I was at. At home at that point, and I'm looking for a job, and I'm like, I have my laptop on my lap in my bed. I'm sitting in my bed and I'm typing. Like, you know, I'm on monster.com and, you know, I don't even know if indeed was around then. So, like, I was doing a lot of Monster.com stuff, and I was looking for jobs, and I was looking for a lot of marketing jobs and this. Cause that's what I, you know, that's what I was in. And like, nothing was really.

You know, kind of speaking to me is because I didn't really want to do it. Some little background. The reason why I got laid off, which I don't know if I've really talked about before, I was elevating very quickly in this company, this agency that I worked at. And I think at the time I was like 20, I don't know, 28, 20, something like that, whatever it might be. And I was offered a VP position in the company. And I at first was really excited. And then, you know, before I gave my answer, you know, they're like, you know, take some time, think about it, whatever. So they offer me this vice president job and you know, this young, this young kid or, you know, young guy. Which is so weird to say now because I'm 42 now. For the versus. It was a long time ago, so maybe it was even. Yeah. Somewhere around there. Anyways, I'm thinking, you know, I'm kind of looking at what the other Vice Presidents days look like, right? So like, if I'm gonna be a vp, I'm gonna be one of these people. So what's the expectation of me here? Right? And more specifically, I was kind of concerned about like my time. Like, like, what is the expectation? How much time I'm gonna have to be? Or like, am I going to be working, you know, until 10:00 o' clock at night? You know, beyond, like, what's, what's the expectation here? And that was really important for me because a job that I came from previously, I was like running west coast operations for this other, you know, marketing company. And they basically had me on call like 24 hours a day. There's a lot of midnight launches that happen for campaigns and stuff. So I would have to be awake and like up from like 11 until 3 in the morning to make sure nothing went wrong. Cause there were these huge brands that were spending all this money and it was just like terrible. And I didn't even really realize it. I just kind of got locked into it and caught into it. And a lot of times it happens. I feel like you get into this cycle and you sort of like, you almost get like tunnel vision on it in a way and you lose perspective of like what life was like before this, you know, and it's just like, this is what life is like now. I was living with, with a roommate at the time. He was one of my best friends in high school. And we, when I moved to la, I lived with him. And one day he like pulls me aside and he's like, he's like, brian, you are really unhappy. And I, it was like to the point where he felt like he had to say something to me about it and like had to like, intervene to get me to try to fix it. And by the end of that conversation, he told me, he's like, you need to quit this job. You are not you anymore, and you need to quit this job. And it was really interesting, like, that whole conversation. That's the only time I ever really had a talk like that with somebody really of, like, something of, like, a big magnitude like that. And, man, I'm so thankful that he did that. Um, and so, side note, if any of you are seeing something like that in somebody that you care about, or maybe someone's had a talk like that with you, you know, it could be a really important turning point, I think, for somebody, if they're open to it. So. And I'll just kind of leave it there. So anyways, that was sort of my background coming in. That was my quote, my trauma, my work trauma coming in, if you want to. If you want to say, right? And so I was very concerned. If I'm going to take a vice president job, like, what does my life look like? Like, I need to have balance in my life. There's one thing I've learned from this other terrible experience is I cannot be on call all the time. And so I started looking around at the other VPs, and I was just like, this is not the life I want to live. And so I turned down the VP job, and I was going to be the youngest in his. Like, the youngest vice president in history of this company. And I turned it down. And then a week later, I got laid off. With the reason being the 2008 recession, which is probably not really the reason I was laid off, but that was the reason it was given, right? So. Because ultimately, like, if I'm not taking this promotion and what am I doing there, right? Like, that's the other thing. Cause then I sat down to myself, I was like, hey, I'm going to turn this down. So now what do I do? Because, like, the whole point was to continue to elevate, right? You get more responsibility, you get more notoriety, you get more money, you do all these things. Like, that was. That's like, a lot of people in their jobs. That's what a lot of people, you know, think about. And so when I cut that off, I. I cut off my ladder. Like, okay, I'm at the top of the ladder now. I'm, like, in my late 20s. Like, what am I doing? Like, so I already, in my mind was, like, not wanting to do that anymore. But when you have financial security, being able to pay your rent and all these Things you don't just get up and like quit on your own. Right. That's not something that most people do. Some people do if they have something else in mind and they feel like that they can, you know, kind of support that. But I didn't. And so, you know, I'm actually really, really grateful for this. You know, the, the layoff, the, the excuse of the recession to lay me off. Because it really changed my life and the direction of my life and where I was going, even though I didn't know it yet. Right. And it, and that's where this, the whole mold journey sort of started. And so anyways, I, I'm sitting in my room, I'm looking for a job. I'm on monster.com. i jokingly when at one search, I remember this because I was just so frustrated with like, I don't want to do any of these jobs that I wrote, job that will make me feel fulfilled. Like, literally wrote that in the search bar. Like, that's the thing. Like, of course, like, nothing comes up that's real. And so I'm sitting there. So anyways, I'm doing that and then all of a sudden, like out of the corner of my eye, I see something like fall down, like top, like ceiling to ground, kind of fall down from top to bottom. And I'm like, what was that? And I see something else again. And then I like lift my head up to look. And then when I do that, I feel something on my hand and I look down and it's like a little water drop on my little splash of a drop of water on my hand. And then I look up at the ceiling and it was almost like I was watching a time lapse video. You know, if you're watching a time lapse video, like, whatever you're watching goes by really, really fast because it's recording and it speeds it all up, right? So like if you're watching like a sunset on a time lapse video, you can watch like a four hour sunset in like 30 seconds, right? Cause that's how they speed it up. That's what I felt like I was looking at. There was basically a water pipe that burst up in the ceiling above me and so much water was coming out that I looked up and I see the stain. And the stain is like, as I'm looking, is growing, growing, growing, growing. And then the ceiling starts bowing down and bubbling down like it's filling with water, like a water bubble. And I'm looking at this, I'm like, holy crap, this thing is about to the ceiling is going to fall on me. And so I grabbed my computer and drove out of my bed. And. And as soon as I did that, the ceiling did, like, the water just started flooding down. There's somebody on site that I got in quickly to shut the water off, right. So we turned off the water. There wasn't a whole lot of issue with it, like, spreading all over the house necessarily, because we got to it really quick. Um, but regardless, there was a big water issue that happened. Right. And so, you know, I did what a lot of people do. You call your landlord. Why do you call your landlord? Because, well, one, it's not your job to fix it. Right. Number two, what do you know about fixing it? Right. I was just like everybody else at that point. I knew absolutely nothing. Right. Um, what do I know about doing it? Oh, the landlord, he owns multiple buildings, so, like, he must know what to do. He's like a building professional. Right. Like, these are all things that I'm thinking during the time. So anyways, they come in, they dry out the ceiling. We've all heard the story before. They dry out the ceiling. They say, everything is fine and be on your way. Um, well, then I start getting, like, symptomatic after that, right. And so the first symptom that I got was actually like. Like, brain fog was the first thing that that started coming up. Keep in mind, I'm spending, like, way more time in my room now. Cause I live with a roommate. So you know that that time in your room is, like, the only place where you have your alone time. And I'm looking for jobs. I'm not going to work during the day for eight hours, right. So I'm like, in the house all day. Actually, the same kind of thing happened during COVID when everybody stopped going to work. And then all of a sudden, our phones started ringing off the hook because people were spending, you know, 33% more time at home than they were. And if their home had a mole problem, then they were getting 33% more exposure than they were getting. Right? And so that's what, you know, that's kind of what happened to me. And so I started getting brain fog. And. And that was weird. And so at the time, I was dating. Who's the girl who's now my wife. Her name's Nikki. We'd just been dating for a few months. And her dad, which, you know, some of you may have heard a portion of this story, but her dad ultimately became my mentor and taught me everything that I really know. In the mold world. And she's like, hey, you know what you're describing. Like, your symptoms sounds a lot like the clients that my dad works with all the time. You should have him come look at this. Like, I just met her. Like, I hadn't met her dad yet. Like, I don't really want. I just didn't want that to be the way that I met her dad. Right? It was weird. So. But what it did make me do is go to the landlord and say, hey, I think that there's a mold issue here. Right? So it did trigger that thought process. And so what did the landlord do? They brought out their mold inspector and he came in. I, I say mold inspector jokingly because they don't inspect anything. Like these, these inspectors that come in, they're, they're almost like, like, I jokingly call them like pump jockeys. Like, they're just sample pump jockeys. Like, they don't look for anything. You're not inspecting if you're not looking for anything, right? But he comes in, takes an air sample in the middle of my room, leaves, he's gone within like 20 minutes. And then the next day tells me, there's no mold in my room and I'm fine and everything's fine, right? So then landlord says, there's no mold in your room, you're fine. This isn't your problem, right? And again, I'm like, okay, because I did not know that that doesn't work. And that's stupid, right? So I'm like, okay. And so I just sort of let it go on some more. And then later, you know, a few weeks later, I start getting like, eczema breakouts on my skin. I've shared photos and pictures of this. Actually, the first, currently at the time of the posting of this podcast, the first pinned post on my Instagram is sort of like a summary of this podcast in 30 seconds almost. But it shows pictures of my face and like, what my face looked like.

And so at that point, like, forget the, Forget your brain not working. That wasn't enough for me to like, pull the trigger, which is so stupid, like in retrospect. But like, you know, don't mess with my face. Don't mess with, like, don't make me look bad. And then all of a sudden, that was the thing that got me to, to have Nikki's dad come out, to have Mark come out. And so he comes to my place and he spends hours in my 800 square foot apartment. He spends hours there and he finds multiple things in my in my apartment. Not just in my room, but in other places, but specifically for my room to kind of break down. What happened here? So the first thing that happened is how the water moves. So let's think about this, right? Let's imagine that you're at like your kitchen counter, your island, your countertop, whatever, and you just pour water on your countertop. What direction is it gonna go? It's going to go sideways, right? That's the way it's gonna go. Cause it can't go down. There's no way to go down. It starts going sideways and then when it hits the end of your countertop or your island or whatever, it's then going to go down because gravity wants to bring it down, right? So that's the general flow of how moisture moves. And so in my ceiling where there was that much water that came out, it all hit the ceiling, but immediately started spreading sideways. And when it got to the walls and there was no more ceiling to keep it up, it then fell down and went down all the walls. Ultimately come to find out that all of my walls in my room were wet. There was no visible water damage on any of them cuz they were kind of further from the water source. So like it, you know, it wasn't like the water damage was isolated to that spot, but it had migrated and moved there. All of my walls were wet everywhere and I was basically sleeping in a toxic box for months. And that's why all of these things manifested as quickly as they did. And so anyways, you know, he helps me sort of navigate this situation. I end up getting out of my lease, I end up moving out of the place. Place, right. And that's, you know, that's, that's sort of how my exposure happened. And then just to wrap up the story of how I became doing this, where I am is I immediately afterwards told him I wanted to work for him. Cause again, I was still looking for a job. I was still searching on monster, a job that made me feel fulfilled. And I saw what he did. And then I saw what like the other joke inspector did when they came into my house. And I saw this massive difference in what happened. And I saw how it impacted me. And you know, for where I was at that point in my life, it's like whatever aligned happened to alignment and that was the light bulb. I was like, this is what I need to be doing. Like I can be really good at this and I can help people. I could feel fulfilled and blah. And there you go, there goes the story, right? And so that's, that's sort of how that happened. Um, but, but anyways, I give that story just to kind of explain my exposure. Right. So my exposure was a quick exposure, just a couple months. It was acute. My symptoms were fast. They were acute symptoms. It wasn't like a chronic illness that I was dealing with. Right. So my situation was my situation. Right. And not. And some people are in that one and some people are in more long term chronic situations. Right. Um, but that was mine. And so the questions that I've been seeing are, you know, what was so. So one specifically, what was the breakthrough of when you started to feel better? I mean, for me, it was when I got out of the apartment, like it was like that. Right. And it's because my, you know, I don't have the genetic successability, susceptibility, excuse me, I don't. I didn't have an underlying chronic condition that was being kind of, you know, addition, you know, or, or that's what I'm looking for, that it was being additive to, you know, to the mold piece. Right. When a lot of times when that happens and you're kind of dealing with multiple things and which one do I handle first? And then it becomes, you know, more of a, more of a strategy with your practitioner on how to attack the problem and get to the root of it. For me, the root was I was sleeping in a toxic box. Get me out of the toxic box, I'll start feeling better. And that's what happened for me. And it's interesting. I did, you know, one of my earlier pods I did with Dr. Jill, Christa, you know, we, she mentioned a study where she. It was an occupational study, it was work. But they were talking about.

They, they had people that were symptomatic and they took them out of a building and half of them just started feeling better right away. Right. And there is something to be said for that, right? Like not everybody is going to be this, this individual that has this long term chronic health condition. Right. There are some people who get in, it's an acute thing. They're getting hit with something they shouldn't be getting hit with. They get out of it. And assuming you get out of it fast enough and it doesn't have excessive long term impact on your immune system or how your body identifies contaminants and then creates sort of like internal traumas that then react whenever it sees it, like that can then create like autoimmune issues and things like that. So assuming that you get out of it, like before that happens, which happened with me then. I didn't have any of that. That came afterwards. Right. So for me, the breakthrough, frankly was the day actually I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this back, technically when I left the house, but I'm gonna answer. What was the breakthrough of how I started to feel better? The breakthrough was when I got up the nerve to call Nikki for the first time and start flirting with her on the phone. That was, that was the breakthrough for me because, and I say that jokingly because if I wasn't with her, who knows what would've happened, right? They would have brought in their inspector. I would have thought it was fine. I would have stayed in the house, I would have continued to get sick. I didn't have a lot of money, you know, I, you know, fun. I didn't even know what functional medicine was like. It's a story of a lot of people. And I probably would have ended up with a long term problem if it wasn't for her. Right? So we want to talk through what my breakthrough moment was. My breakthrough moment was when I was in that same room on my bed, pacing back and forth, dialing her number in my phone and not pushing call on it because I was nervous to call her. And then the one time that I finally did push the button and I talked to her for like maybe five minutes and that was like it, right? And so, and I was so nervous, my heart was pounding outta my chest, like all that stuff. So it was, I still think about it today. I like, I remember that moment when I called her for the first time outside of just seeing her with friends. So, and I've told her about it too. Um, anyways, so, yeah, so that's the moment. Um, so then there was, you know, so the other kind of question, like, well, how long does it take to heal? If you get out and you're not taking supplements, can you heal? So I will say again, it depends on your situation. If you were more like my situation. I got out, I didn't take any supplements. I didn't even know about this stuff yet, right. But because the, the of the type of exposure that I had, it wasn't something where I needed to do some heavy detox and I needed to rebuild my immune system and like all I didn't have to do all that stuff, right? Cause I didn't have that much damage. So like, for me it was possible to get out of mold, not take detox supplements, not take all that stuff and be able to, to basically heal at that point, like generally heal. I think, you know, what I'm dealing with now, I, you know, I don't think is from that particular exposure. I think it's then from the next 10 years of being in homes where there's problems. Um, and at the beginning of my time doing this, I wasn't protecting myself properly in terms of wearing the right masks and wearing full coverall suits and all that stuff. Cause I didn't know any better, or I thought I was like too cool to do it or you know, whatever it is. But then you start adding that exposure up and the next thing you know, you now have a more long term exposure that can create longer issues for you. Right. So out of that initial exposure, the healing was pretty quickly. I then think over time I started to develop some more longer term exposure issues, which are some of the things that I'm trying to work through now. But like, generally on the grand scheme of things, like, I'm, I'm in a good spot, right. I'm just trying to kind of figure out, like, where are some areas where I could get a little better. Right. But the, the good news, if you go back and listen to the Equal Life lab result review that I did with Dr. Brawl, my labs are pretty good, right? There's some things there. What's interesting is on the mycotoxin front, yes, I have one that's really high, but generally I'm actually methylating and detoxing mycotoxins relatively well for the amount of exposure that I've had to them. So that piece of it is pretty cool. And then now it's just kind of a journey to move forward. And it's, it's more like incremental stuff. Like, you know, it's, it's not like the finish line, at least for me, the way I look at it. And I actually think it's probably true for most people. It's not like you hit the finish line and like, yes, I'm healthy. Like, I don't think it's like you run through the, the tape at the end of the track and it's like, bam, race over. I'm now completely healthy. Like, I don't, I don't think it necessarily works like that. I think that you're constantly taking steps towards that and different steps you take are more helpful than other steps that you take. And so it's not a straight line. Sometimes it's more of like a, you know, windy road. Sometimes you fall backwards a little bit, you know, whatever it might be. But I Think as long as you're constantly moving in that direction, that ultimately you're going to continue to see an improvement in your health, right? Kind of like the stock market, right? Like if you think, you know, all of us have heard that over a 20 year span the stock market has never lost any money, right? But then you go back and look in like a three year span or a five year span and there's plenty of times where it goes down and you lose money, right? And so the concept is that if you're constantly making efforts toward, you know, your strategy that you have in place in this example, an investing strategy which is, you know, tried and true and just do the average and just kind of maintain, and if that's all that you do that over time, it's a net positive. And I think the same concept works for health too, right? I think if you're making decisions and constantly trying to learn of new decisions you can make and not feeling like you have to do everything at once, but constantly making little changes and decisions that are going to be, you know, help you improve your, you know, your mitochondrial health, help you improve your digestion, help you improve, you know, different, you know, help reduce your inflammation in certain ways, like all these things, if you're making movements that way, then I think that's sort of the path that we need to be on. And so, you know, the reason I wanted to share my story specifically is because, you know, mine is different, right? But there are people who are tied to me. I think a lot of times people think it's like only chronic, I've been sick forever. That's not always true. Um, it could be the other side of the fence, right? So you could be, you know, one of two different types of people. But at the end of the day, the expectation of like I'm going to be healthy by X date or how long does it take for me to heal, like that's what a lot of the questions were is how long is it going to take? What do I need to do to feel X number of better like that, well, you know, will I heal a hundred percent? I'm seeing percentages and questions. I'm seeing, I'm asking, I'm being asked for timeframes, like all this stuff. And I understand why people are asking that. It's like, hey, I'm either been going through this or I'm starting to go through this. I'm trying to understand like, am I making progress or am I not, right? Cause that's really what comparison is all about. Comparison is all about how long is it going to take me? Okay, it's going to take me a year. Well, I'm nine months in. A.m. i close to where I need to be? Yes or no? And now all of a sudden, you're comparing yourself to some weird benchmark that was created. Right. I think all of our timelines are gonna be pretty unique, right. I think as we're having a, you know, a, a, A health practitioner, sort of help you understand maybe what some of the milestones are, what we're looking for, and having testing that goes along the way, clinical testing, that helps sort of track improvement, helps see what's going on. Like, that's, you know, that's all you can do. And then what you do is you optimize and you tweak with your practitioner. Like, if you feel like you're not progressing fast enough, that might be by design by the practitioner. They might think that you can't handle a heavier, let's say detox protocol, because maybe your body can't handle it and you'll end up with Herx reactions and you'll end up feeling sicker. Right. So they might be dialing that, backs on their side, trying to not get you there. Right. But at the same time, you might feel like that you can handle that a little bit, and you might want to push the pedal a little harder to see what you can do and if you can progress. Right. Like, and that's okay. You should have those conversations with your practitioner, you know, and I really think that you should do that. Um, but, but everybody's timeline is going to be different. But what I will tell you and wrap it up here, is that I've been working with people for a very long time, and.

The vast, vast majority of them get better. Um, I haven't really come across a significant number of people who go through a process, you know, go through this process, remove exposure, kind of do these things and, like, don't get better. I just haven't really seen it. Right. At least with our clients, like, the vast majority of them, they improve. And so I just want people to know that improvement is real. I think it can be expected as long as you have the right team around you. I don't think it's this weird thing that's not attainable. Like, you on these Facebook groups, and they tell you that you'll never get better. You have to live in the, in the woods, you have to start camping, you have to burn all your stuff. Like, I don't think that's True. I've seen it happen where that none of that happens, and I see people get better. So I, you know, I just want you guys to know that there's a path for it and you just kind of have to surround yourself with the right people. And for me, the way that I do that is, you know, I always, I always recommend deep diving. Whoever you're considering working with in this type of scenario. This is like a high, high risk sort of scenario, right? A high leverage scenario. It's not like going to, like, get your tire changed somewhere, right? This is like, there's a lot more writing on this. So because there's more writing on it, you should probably invest a little more time in understanding who you're working with and what their philosophies are and stuff like that. And so, you know, with social media and with podcasts and stuff, there's a lot more accessibility to that now, right? Like, if anybody, you know, finds me, they could go listen to me for hours on a podcast. They could see me all over the place, right? And so then if somebody resonates with you and you're like, yeah, this, this actually makes sense. Like, the core concepts that this person has, I think aligns with, like, with me now that they've explained it. And I like their approach and I like their vibe and I like their demeanor and I like their empathy and I like X, Y and Z about them. And like, let's get into this and figure this out. But once you make that decision, the last thing I'll end with is, is trust that person, right? Because once you make the decision, that person has a framework and a process that they've used that have worked. And if you decide that you are going to move forward with somebody, whether it's, you know, a doctor or somebody like me or whatever, like, they have a process. You gotta kind of trust the process. And sometimes it won't be a hundred percent easy. But that, that's why I, I always suggest, like, do your due diligence upfront, right? And then once you're in, though, like, be in, don't be super skeptical once you're in, because that you'll only end up getting in your way at that point. So anyways, hope this was a helpful little episode for everybody. And I'll talk to you next time. So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment, subscribe and give a rating. Wherever you get your podcasts. It'll help spread the word to those who really need it the most.

So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment, subscribe, and give a rating wherever you get your podcast. It'll help spread the word to those who really need it the most.