188: From Chronic Illness to Coaching with The Biotoxin Lady

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.

We're going to have a fun talk today, especially about the role that health coaches play in the grand scheme of the healing journey, which I think is really important. And a lot of times, you know, like, where does that start? Where does it end? You know, what's the role of that? So I think that part's going to be pretty cool. And then to dive into some more specifics of some of the things that you're looking at, you know, in homes when you're working with people. I feel like actinos and endos are this thing that people don't really understand very well because it's newer.

Yeah.

And so I'd love to dig into that. So. So for everybody watching, we have a mutual client, Lauren and I, and my client was talking to me after. She's like, lauren is amazing. She basically was telling me she was raving about you and her doctor both. Right. Which I thought was really interesting because she said that you both played, like, really important roles and what's been going on with her and how she's recovering and healing. And then we handled the house part of it. So there's kind of like three. Three roles that were in play. So I'd love to just kind of start, introduce yourself maybe a little bit of kind of who you are and how you got into this, and we can sort of jump in that way.

Yeah, absolutely. My name is Lauren and otherwise known as biotoxin lady, which just kind of came to be. I myself was dealing with chronic health issues.

Sure, I can see you.

Are we good? Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it just kind of came to be through my way of. Of my chronic health issues, which. No. No one ever suggested or kind of put on my radar. Mold. I feel like you don't know what you don't know. And, you know, I was guilty of a little. Mold never hurt anybody. Right. And it just wasn't something that I even took into consideration for my entire household's health issues. Not just mine, but my kids as well. They also had chronic health issues, a lot of behavior issues. And I was, you know, facing a diagnosis of Ms. Because my neurological symptoms were so severe and little did I know, oh that you know, mold was kind of hiding in the shadows, quite literally. It wasn't something that we could see. Our entire H Vac was just, you know, infiltrated with mold and in our walls that we couldn't see. So it's mysterious and no one really thinks about it. So through my diagnosis, it really just led me to wanting to put it on other people's radar so that they're not dealing with what we dealt with for five years without anyone pointing us in the direction of our environment.

Yeah, it's like it's such a common story too, right? And I was just watching one of your reels and or one of your most recent posts and it was the one where you're just putting all the prescriptions you were prescribed over a year and talking about how medical school, medical school doesn't actually teach. Which, you know, I feel like, feel like if you're in this world and you're researching it, you've seen everybody say this, it's almost crazy that it doesn't get talked about.

But yeah, yeah, that's what, you know, hoping to change one day and that it's mainstream and you know, more importantly than, and mold is just all biotoxins really. So that's kind of my focus is the genetic component in Chronic Inflammatory Response syndrome. So anyone can develop chronic inflammatory response or SIRS, but about 25% of the population has HLA variations that make them more susceptible to developing that once they are exposed to biotoxins and not just mold. So there's these other biotoxins in our environment, in our home, in a water damaged building.

That play a very important part in the healing journey and making sure that you are out of exposure. So there's a lot of people that even if they don't, if they have their focus on mold and they're chasing mold for a very long time, no one's ever put that on their radar of hey, well have you tested your home for endotoxins or you know, are you dealing with actinobacteria? And without that information they will stay stuck in a cycle without healing. So I just, that's my goal, to bring this information to people and providers, medical doctors, so that it, you know, is, is recognized.

Yeah, I love that. Especially the newer. I say newer, but I mean it really is newer, I guess the understanding of the other components, you know, when I, when I talk with clients like directly, I'm sort of explaining like the panels of testing. We look at and you know, I'll ask a lot about their health issues and what's going on with them and say, hey, listen, you know, I want to understand this a little bit. You don't have to go crazy into it. Right. But like, I want to get a good feel because I want to understand like the panel of testing that we should be including to make sure that it's relevant for what's going on. Right. And a lot of it is trying to dig into are they multi system, multi symptom issues where we know there's a higher probability that you're going to be sensitive to additional things and that the body is reacting in multiple ways and that your body isn't just like looking at mold and saying mold's the only thing. And everything else I'm cool with. It's, it's almost like we've done now such a good job of like knowing the mold part of it, at least within kind of this like sub community that's like been created that it now, like that's the only thing, as opposed to what the doctors have really taught me over the years is it's, it's really shifted and transitioned into more of a, an environmentally acquired illness that's the result of, of a water damage building. And the thing is, is that bacteria grows faster than mold does. And so if you have enough moisture, you can get bacteria that grows in hours. Right. As opposed to days or longer than that. And so, you know, we've, we've been including this stuff in our panels for a long time and H Vac systems in the house because at the end of the day it can affect what the remediation looks like. Right. And, and I, you know, I've given this example before, like, about H Vac systems specifically. Right. Like, I, I kind of look at H Vac systems. I'll get the labs. But in my mind I just reduce it down to like a scale of 1 to 10. And I'm like, 10 is really terrible. One is amazing. And then I kind of look at it and I'm like, where's the fall on here? And if it's the, where it falls kind of determines do I think that we need to replace it or components of it or do we think it can be cleaned? And in my mind, cleaning can give you on this scale maybe a negative 2 or negative 3 on your number because it's just very, very difficult to clean it an entire H Vac system. And so if we're trying to create that scale because they're two different things. You could have actinos or endos that are there, but you have mycotoxins that are not. Or you could have your mold load that is actually not terrible in a system like that. And then that would shift the recommendation ultimately on that scale. So it's really important for specific people, not for everybody, but I think it's really important for us to know that and to be able to consider it. I'd love to. If you wouldn't mind.

Talking a little bit about like the health coach compared to the doctor, the roles that, you know, how you work together with one, you know, kind of where one starts and the other one finishes. Like why does somebody need or, or do they all the time A, a, a health coach that's going to be more one on one coaching beyond just going your functional doctor.

Yeah, I think that, you know, just as you had said with our mutual client is that, you know, she had been struggling for a very long time and I believe, don't hold me to this, but I believe it wasn't until she found me that a diagnosis of chronic inflammatory response syndrome wasn't really on her radar. And so even if, you know, we know that the knowledge about mold in the medical space is lacking, there are some who have it on their radar and are addressing it and others are unwilling to admit that it could be the culprit of so many health issues.

And so, you know, my focus is even if you're working with a prescriber and your, your doctor really coming in and being able to guide the patient and advocate for themselves on the educating part of things, because there are many brilliant service providers out there who can do a really great job at prescribing and working through the protocol with someone, but they also don't have the time to sit and educate their patient. And I think that what I tend to see with a lot of my clients is that there could have been more success earlier on in their journey if they, their provider had just been able to take the time to educate them. And you know, when you don't understand your diagnosis or you don't understand your labs and you're really with, with sirs and understanding your HLA genetics is that, you know, oh, you're multi susceptible. Well, have you even considered testing your home for these other biotoxins? No, you know, no one told them to do that. And so there are other aspects as well of not just testing the home, but also making sure that a patient understands the process of what is chronic inflammatory response, what is the Shoemaker protocol testing for Mark Ons. I kind of try to make sure that all the puzzle pieces are fitting together properly. And so if there's any oversight on their provider side, I can make sure, hey, let's not overlook this because this is one small step that could really set you back in your journey. So whether that's me walking them through a protocol or just as a coach walking them alongside their provider and prescriber, often I have conversations with their providers. So we kind of just work together as a team to make sure that they've feel supported and, you know, we're not. We don't have any loose ends.

Yeah, I think, I think it's a really good explanation of it. And there's the coaching industry in general is a very huge industry and it continues to grow. A lot of it's like business coaching. There's other kinds of code. There's all kinds of coaching that can happen. And it's really around like what you said. It's. It's especially like complex stuff. Right. Like, airy. It's.

Yeah.

It's hard to go find the information. First off, there's no, there's a lot of information that's not even true right there. Right. So now if you're searching around trying to find stuff, it's like, well, is this actually real? Is it not real? You know, do I make a decision off of this thing where I'm not? Like, what's it based on? Like, what do you know? Right. And a lot of times you can sort of become paralyzed with that. And like anything.

Absolutely. It's so overwhelming. You just kind of shut down. And, and I was there once and it was a lot of information to try to retain. And when you're dealing with such severe neurological effects and the brain fog, it's like, well, just forget, like it's too much to, even to, to take on. And so having the experience of being gone through it myself, I, I feel that I can kind of hone in on these areas of what information these people, you know, people need to really focus on and kind of cut back on all their time and research that, you know, and deliver that information in what I call a very kindergarten approach, because it is so complex that I try to deliver it to where they can retain it and receive it and not feel so incredibly overwhelmed with all the technical information.

Yeah, I think like the hidden quality in a good consultant or a coach is to be able to explain stuff in a way, like you said, that anybody can get it. Right. And I, I Spend all this time, like on my own, like, like running different analogies of things. I like, like, like a workshop. I'm like, oh, this work? Oh, yeah, this one lands, this one works, you know, and I spend a lot of time on that because that piece is so important, right? And the, and this, this ability to have someone you can tap into, to ask questions into, you know, your, your doctors, even the functional ones, like, right. So like, everyone's like, go to a functional doctor, go to integrative doctor. They get it. They get it better. Which know they do. They get it better, but they only have so much time in a day, right? And so like, their business model isn't set up to be, you know, I don't know how you operate per se with people, but like, some people have like the Telegram channel, some people have like, all these things. Like, that's not how they're set up, you know. And so if, especially with this population that we're talking about, like, the neurological impact is like, you need the hand holding, right? And it's not. Absolutely not because you're high maintenance. It's because you don't retain stuff because your brain doesn't work super well. And so it becomes hard. And so, yeah, having that resource. Yeah, having that resource is, is really, really good to have someone to lean on, which is, which is awesome. And, and I think it's like such a good. This, this role that sort of emerge. What you do and what others do is, is a really cool role that has sort of presented itself over the last, I don't know, five years or so, maybe longer, however long it's been. And so I think it's very helpful for people.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that I get the question a lot, like, why do you have this information and my doctor doesn't? And I mean, I, I wish I knew, like, may. But it, it happened to me. I experienced it and then I felt like hell to get through it. And all this information that I uncovered was not just, oh, here's this mold protocol. Like, there is so much deeper than that. There's biotoxin illness. Like, mold is, is one of many. And I didn't know that. Like, I knew nothing. Had someone told me, you know, okay, at this point in time, you're going to know all that you do about the environment, indoor air quality, the H VAC system, the design, you know, biotoxins. No, like, call me crazy, but here I am. And like you said, I mean, it is just, it isn't taught in medical school. So you can't be seeking answers from someone that doesn't know how to identify, treat, you know, and address. So. But, but that's my goal is just to educate patients. And there are a lot of providers who come to me as well and I respect that wholeheartedly if they're willing to learn.

That's really cool. Do you find that you that. So like those providers, do they come and sort of ask you to supplement as like more of a day to day one to one contact with their patients? Like it comes in as like an offering for them?

Actually, no, it's more of.

You know, I'm, I've gone to medical school. I'm, I'm pretty smart, but I don't know what the hell you're talking about. So will you explain to me? And I'm happy to do that. Like nothing I share is, I don't gatekeep anything. I think the majority of my audience and followers appreciate that. It's just, you know, it's just the hours I've invested in the research and the literature and so just directing how I can, like, you know, sending them information. Here's this, here's these resources so that they can understand it and better help and screen their patients as they come in their office. Because SIRS affects one in four people. So that's a lot of people coming in for, for health issues.

That is a lot of people. You said earlier that you can develop sirs. It's not specifically tied to the genetic. Can you talk about that a little more? Because I think some people are of the mindset like, oh, I don't have the gene mutation or I don't know if mutation is the right word, but the expression. So it can't be me.

Yeah. So I mean, and just to be clear, because people have called me out on this before, but everyone does have HLA genes or human leukocyte antigens. And so it's more of the presentations that you have and the different haplotypes.

There's about 10% of people that will develop SIRS without having certain HLA haplotypes. So it's just triggered by, it can be triggered by environmental exposures or a virus. Just something at some point in time is going to trigger that chronic inflammatory state where your body, the cytokines are going to continue flooding your body and that inflammation as well. So. But yeah, I think a lot of people will think, you know, well, if I don't have these haplotypes, that can't be what I'm Dealing with. But absolutely it can. It's just that percentage of the population, 20, about 25%, I believe it's larger than that. But who are more predispositioned to having to developing sirs.

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. And you know, it's so interesting because there's like all these other know serves as like one piece, right? Then you know, there's mass cell and there's like all these other things and. And there's some crossover and then sometimes there's not. And then you're like, oh, well, if I'm dealing with pans or autism, that there possibly might actually be like a histamine mast cell thing that's triggering that for the brain. That's then creating the problem. Like there's so many like, ins and outs of these things that it's hard. It's hard to figure all of this stuff out. But the, the through line that I've seen anyways, when people are referred over to us is your body's being triggered by something and you gotta stop the trigger. Right? And so, you know, if you're breathing, you're taking 20,000 breaths a day.

And.

And those things are, you know, it's the equivalent of a. Of a swimming pool in someone's backyard that you're basically breathing every day. So it's a lot. Right. And. And that can be a big trigger.

Real quick. Anybody watching, by the way, if you want to throw questions in here, if we can get, maybe we'll take like little breaks and dive into them. So feel free to that. I feel like the mold stuff has been talked about a lot. I talk about it all the time. I'd love to like, put that on the side over here. And let's just make the assumption that it's not just mycotoxins. That's not the only problem. Mold at its very minimum is, you know, creates allergic reactions at its very minimum and can trigger things in our bodies too. And a lot of times that's the trigger that's causing things and not necessarily a toxin component of stuff. I'd love to switch over to the bacteria side of things because I think, like, this hasn't gotten enough conversation. And like, when I talk with people about it, I always feel like I'm starting at ground zero with like, explanations and like, what's going on. So I'd love to kind of hear your. The way that you talk about it. Right. And how you explain what they are and.

You know, the importance of them and the role they play in the overall you know, all of it.

Yeah.

I couldn't agree more. I mean, I, I think I, I try not to overwhelm people because a lot of people will be like, well, hold on, like mold's enough. And now you're telling me there's these other things that I have to actually have on my radar, you know, so not to overwhelm people. But yes, if you have these on your radar at the beginning, that way you're checking all your boxes, right. So that as you're trying to heal, you're not pouring into a cracked bucket. And so with actinobacteria, you know, endotoxins and actinos is, you know, endotoxins are gram negative bacterias and actinos or gram positive bacterias that are both found in water damaged buildings. But, and it's important to make note too that endotoxins can all. There can be different sources. So, you know, I just had someone.

We know that they do have water damage. It's, there's kind of a whole, it's a whole situation. But their ERMI looked really good, like too good. And then their endotoxins were off the charts. And so my first thought goes to, like, more so to plumbing and potential sewage that is somewhere in the home that there is not even on their radar. Sometimes it's, you know, in basements where there's sump pumps and different things like that. It's. Yeah, there's all these different sources that, you know, it could be from water damage. Yes. But it could be from faulty plumbing that's been compromised and things like that. You know, I would say people become alarmed, like, oh, it's another thing I have to take care of. But with actinobacterias and endotoxins, it is easier to tackle. I think once you can identify that source and address it, it's an easier solution. You know, mold is the, the real jerk here. You know, it's, it's difficult. It's got to be remediated and removed. And, but that's also the importance of these small particle cleans after any remediation is, you know, not just the mold and the mycotoxins, but it's all those bacterias that come along with it. And so I think many people believe their remediation failed because they're not cleaning the home accordingly after you have removed these colonies and address the issues. So cleaning the, the whole home, every, you know, surface of the home, the building material, your belongings is really important. And you know, with actinobacterias it's also. Are they elevated in the home? Well then that kind of points to we need to be checking the body. There's a way to check the skin for actinos and those actuaries really harbor in the oil and sweat glands and you can sort of essentially become your own exposure at that point. So addressing the skin is really necessary as well. So it sounds overwhelming, but it's, it's very eye opening. Once you can kind of narrow it down and pinpoint where is the exposure coming from.

Can we talk about that last piece? Because human sources is an actinosource. Right? And so when we're talking skin. So is the idea that, that like why would somebody be heavily producing from the body? Like what, what, what's the thought behind that? Or what's happening?

I would say if the actinos are high in a home, if you're looking at the different.

Bacteria that really produce these mycolic acids and stuff, you know, it really can just penetrate, harbor in that skin and get into those oil blends and sweat glands. So if you are living in a home where these actinos are so high, it's this cycle of, you know, your, your home is giving it to you and then you're shedding it and giving it right back to the environment. So it's necessary to do a whole, you know, it's a home actino protocol and then it's a body actino protocol so that you're hitting it from all sides and you know, because if you're just addressing the skin, but the actinos are high in your home, you're, it's, you're going to be stuck in that cycle. So with SIRS, it's estimated that 47% of those diagnosed with SIRS are actually, it's 47% are impacted by the actinobacterias where only 7% are mycotoxins. And that's why I'm so passionate about, you know, having that on people's radar. And it, it's important to, there's, there's different.

You know, it's. Actinos are still not well understood. There's still so much research that needs to be done and I feel the skin protocols are always changing. You know, what, what's working and what do we need to change it up to, but addressing it with different types of soaps to really get these bacterias off the skin. It used to be defense soap and now it's lava soap. There are.

Zinc based soaps, different things that are trying to strip these actinos off. But you have to be careful because you don't want to completely strip all bacteria. Some is good. So you'll never get rid of all actinobacterias, but you don't want to have actinobacterias in the millions on your skin.

Is it coming out from the inside? Like out of your sweat glands on, like, are you creating it in the body and then it's coming out? Is that what's happening?

So you have actinos in your gut as well, and you don't want to necessarily destroy all of those in the gut, because a lot of them are good. So, you know, antibiotics are made with actinobacteria. So it's not so much about addressing the actinos in the gut from within, but essentially, yes. I mean, they're. They're within the gut, they're within the body, and then they're in the skin as well. So it's not so much targeted as how do we address it and get them out of the body. Even though when you're going through the Shoemaker protocol and using cholestyramine or different bile sequestrants, that is the goal, to bind to these different biotoxins and pull them out through the bile. And so when you're dealing with high octane, it's really in that skin. People who are dealing with a lot of acne that, you know, whether it's like, it could be full body acne, chest, back, face, a lot of the times that is at those actinobacteria. So you're wanting to. To really address the skin more than anything so that you're not shedding, you know, regularly HEPA vacuuming your mattress, if you're going through an actino protocol because you're shedding all those actinos as you sleep as well. So it's really more about the skin.

Got it, got it. Do you see that when you're. You're seeing it on the skin in higher levels that the environment is also really high? Is that kind of a correlation, you're saying?

Yeah, yeah, got it.

Interesting. I seen some questions come in about how you handle the house. You were talking about the body real quick. So just the house component of it, the fine particle clean is. Is the big piece of it. Right. And, you know, bacteria is water damage. Right. That's where it comes from. And so if we're going through the house and identifying areas, and this is actually something else I want to talk about real quick, too. But if we're going through the house and we're identifying source areas in a wall and a ceiling, in a cabinet or whatever where mold might be. So water creates that. Right. So we're not testing for bacteria and mold in the same spot. Like we're like, that would be doubling up and spending way more money than maybe you really need to at that point. So we're using, you know, the testing that we have to kind of validate that there is a water damage issue there which can validate the protocol that gets written to properly, you know, remediate that there's one thing about water damage in home so that I, that I do. And this part of it's so important is tied to the bacteria stuff. And I really haven't seen a whole lot of this talked about. Actually my father in law, Mark, who is the guy who taught me everything that I know, you know, a decade ago, he really started banging this drum with us internally because he was working with my team on educating my team on stuff a few years ago. And it was, it was actually not even mold specific. It was looking at the, there's a, there's two different industry standards for, on our end of stuff. There's the IICRCS 520 which is a more of a mold focused one. And then there's the S500 which is more of like a water damage water restoration focus one. And what's interesting on the water damage one, which is not mold at all, is if you really dig into it, there's different condition or different categories of water that, that there could be. So if anyone's maybe heard clean water, gray water, black water, right. Those are kind of like your three types of water. And what happens though, which is interesting, is that if you have a clean water leak, let's say clean pipe or something leaks, as soon as it hits building material, it starts turning to gray water. It doesn't stay clean because you have microbes and insects and feces and all these things in your walls and all these places. So water immediately starts getting more contaminated, right. And then the longer it stays there, it could even transition into a grossly contaminated water which would then be a black water. Right. And when we go through and we actually do this, when we prioritize things, we kind of create like priority documents for people to kind of show them. My house is cat three, so we're talking about it. So category three is also known as black water, also known as grossly contaminated water. Generally it's referred to when water comes from the outside. So like you have you have water coming from like a storm or wind driven rain or something like that? Generally that's sort of where they do it. Or if you have like a sewage loss or something like that, they would call that the same thing. But you can transition into Cat 3 from other things too. So the thing that's, that's interesting about this is again, like if we go in, we're looking through a space and like, oh, we think that there may have been water damage here, right? There's a bubbling baseboard, there's something that's going on and we test it and let's say the test result comes back and it's nothing, right? Like the actual lab for mold itself looks like there's nothing going on there. Right? Well, the, the general thought is, oh, there's nothing there, you don't have to do anything. Right. And I think what you're talking about and expanding the view on like these other things that can happen and understanding that water damage can, can kind of transition into more contaminated moisture. Really. I think when you're, when you're looking at situations like that, the way we talk about them is you might want to do like an additional thing for further investigation over here. Maybe it's not as disruptive as like a full on, you know, something, but like if it's that baseboard, hey, pull the baseboard off the wall and just make sure there's like nothing going on. Because there could be a bacteria sort of accumulation issue that's going on that would not come up in a mold test. But you could still, you know, potentially see signs of that. And when you're like thinking through prioritizing, you know, what, what do I run at for remediation? Right.

Part of the cons consideration is the health piece, right? Which is what you're talking about, right? So if you're somebody who is multi sensitive to a lot of things, you're going to want to think more about addressing even some of these historical water things that may have happened. Even if the mold lab doesn't come up like with a massive problem, we always still tier that in like a middle tier. So like if we go and we, because we'll t from like A to E. So we have five different tiers. So A is most, you know, most severe. It's all mold specific because we're testing mostly for mold at source level. A is most concentrated. E is, you don't, we don't think you need to do anything. And then there's kind of like variance in between. And if there's like a, A, a significant water staining or something like that, or like a known issue. We're really never going to tear it lower than C for, you know, because you have this whole other world of bacteria and the stuff that could go on over there. And I feel like if we do that, then we're kind of doing a disservice for people by saying, oh, you don't need to worry about that when potentially there's something going on. And so I do think the individual and what they're dealing with and their health condition is like really important when you start thinking through what's my plan of attack of what I'm seeing. And even in a case like that, if you have like A's and B's and, and some water damage C's that came up with nothing on mold, but like a couple of those Cs are like in your bedroom, for example, like, I would still want you to open that up because it's in a place where you're spending the most time. And what if you have another thing that's going on there? And these are like a lot of the conversations that sort of happen like in the follow up consulting chats and things like that, like, like once these things go through. So I think it's, I think it's a really good like conversation on the bacteria stuff. So I don't know how I got.

On that tangent, but no, I could, I appreciate it because, you know, again, having been kind of on both sides of this as a, you know, consumer and someone who has had multiple inspections and I've had, you know, a good inspection and a really lousy inspection and it's just, it's appreciated that you're at least putting it on their radar. So, you know, even if it's, hey, we're not going to like send all the alarm, it's still something to, to look at and to consider. But I think what you said is important that you have to consider the health of your home. So, you know, I'm not going to tell someone if I'm not telling everybody who's, you know, watching, hey, you have to go test your home for all these things. No, like, I want to be cost effective, but if you are struggling with your health, if you've been diagnosed with autoimmune issues, if you have a child with pans, pandas, if, you know, you know that mold has been a situation for you and you're not healing from it, these are some other things to, to consider and make sure that. Okay. They're on our radar. If we're not healing, if we're not recovering, if that's. We're going to pull that out of our back pocket and make sure that we address those issues. So I think.

Yeah. Well.

You.

So that's it for today's show, everyone.

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