92: Live in Awareness… Not Fear, with Michelle from Reversal Nutrition

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, everyone, what's going on? We got Michelle from Reversal Nutrition on today. Michelle is becoming a nutritional therapy practitioner, which is super cool. And she's had experience with mold toxicity and gut issues and hormone issues and all this other stuff. And we've chatted before, and Michelle's super cool, and I thought that it would be cool for us to chat. I saw a post that she did on Instagram at. Her account is at Reversal Nutrition. I was like, whoa, this is such a cool, just overall topic that I don't feel like it's talked about enough. So we'll dive into it in a second. But everybody, Michelle. Michelle, everybody. How's it going?

Hey, Brian, how are you?

I'm good. Standing in front of my red light machine right now. Awesome.

Awesome.

Recharging that battery. We're doing. We're. We're recording this like midday.

It's like 2:45, so those mitochondria are loving it.

I know, I know. Instead of drinking another cup of coffee, it's like, come down and stand in front of this thing and get your energy that way.

Absolutely.

So, all right, so I want to start. I'm actually going to read this post. I don't remember exactly when you post this. Wasn't that long ago. I don't think it was like a month ago? No. Like two. Two weeks ago. Three weeks ago. Okay, so I'm gonna read. I obviously can't read the image, guys, so kind of bear with me. I'm not reading pictures, but I'm gonna read the caption of everything in here and then we're just gonna talk about some stuff. But the cool thing about this episode is that it's not like, it's not like, super, super mold specific. It's more about what we deal with in life when we're dealing with chronic illness or not even that. Just like any sort of taxing thing that we deal with in life, like, there's ways to look at it and. And how to approach it. So that's kind of like what this is about. So it's more of like an overarching kind of, like, wellness, how to approach Things type of conversation, which I think is kind of cool for a lot of us. So, all right, so I'm going to start reading this. So here we go. Quotes. All right. Living in fear is a scary place for us and our bodies. The mind and body need to feel safe in order to heal. I see a lot of fear mongering on social media, so I wanted to make this reminder. I can't remember how many times when learning about health that I felt overwhelmed and quite frankly doomed. It felt impossible. Who could transcend the odds of all these chemicals, pathogens and stressors brought on by our modern lifestyle? And even if I wanted to, would I have to live in a restrictive bubble? It just didn't make sense. I suspect this fear is keeping many people back from healing and from taking reasonable action in their lives. There are quite a number of decisions we are in charge of and so let's start with those choices before becoming paralyzed by panic and fear. When we learn new information, we can digest it and then apply that knowledge practically and positively. Call it living in awareness. So that's what we're talking about. We're going to talk about living in awareness today. Oh, sorry, end quote. I started talking living in awareness today. So anyways, I just thought, I mean, this is what like a little three, four paragraph thing and it was just like such like a good message. So I thought it'd be a cool thing for us to talk about. So do you maybe want to start with kind of why you wrote this? Like maybe what triggered it?

Yeah, I think, you know, for a lot of people on the mold journey or, you know, chronic illness journey, I think there's just first of all a lot of information and it's really easy to get overwhelmed by a lot of this information and a lot of it's conflicting information too. So I think that really adds to the state of overwhelm.

So.

And I think people who are in this type of scenario, whether they're discovered mold in their homes, they've been dealing with a lot of symptoms, they tend to gravitate towards like, well, I'd rather be safe than sorry. So kind of hearing the most extreme viewpoint seems appealing because then you're in that scenario, you're going to be presumably safe. But I actually don't think it works that way because we tell ourselves that, but then we go into these extremes, these dichotomous black and white thinking, and then we tend to just live in this fear. And I think that in itself just keeps us in the stress state and prevents us from progressing.

Yeah. And I mean, just biologically, you can't heal when your cortisol levels are jacked up and you're stressed. Right. It stops that process. It doesn't work as effectively. And so it's hard because people are really stressed, and rightfully so. Like, I get it because of everything that's going on and am I doing it the right way? And, like, if I walk into this room, am I going to not feel right? Like, when you start not feeling well and you notice why you're not feeling well.

You'Re afraid to feel that way again, which makes complete sense. Right. You're trying to avoid that. Right. It's kind of like that idea of pain and pleasure. And people typically make their decisions based on either trying to go toward pleasure or go away from pain. Right, right. And. And so we get in that, like, mindset all the time. And, you know, it's not always super black and white like that. Like you were saying earlier that you saw this post. Explain that black and white post you just mentioned to me before, because it was really cool.

Which.

The one that were like, shades of color in between.

It's not black, Right? Right. Yeah. So I was scrolling the other day and came across a post where a guy was talking about that, you know, the in between spot between, like, the ends with the black and white, thinking it's not shades of gray, but it's actually the entire color spectrum. And I thought that was such a beautiful analogy because when we're so polarized on either end, you know, and even if we take mold as an example, like, oh, like mold is out to destroy me. Mold is lurking in every corner in every building. I'm breathing it in. It's causing all of this destruction in my body. That's not a way that's sustainable to live your life. I mean, there is going to be mold in our environment. Mold is everywhere. That's part of the human experience. But it's really about when these things get out of balance in an ecosystem. When we think about our bodies, we have viruses, we have, you know, fungi, parasites, bacteria, etc. All of those things are a natural part of our bodies and should be there to some extent. It's really when those things get out of balance is when we start experiencing symptoms. And the same thing in a home. If. And you could probably speak to this in more detail. Right. Like, the way we build homes today just makes it more likely that things are going to get a little bit out of balance. Same thing with modern lifestyles, you know, the chronic stress, being exposed to so many chemicals, living a sedentary lifestyle, all these things just make it more likely that things are going to get out of balance. But it doesn't, like, guarantee your fate that you're going to be doomed by mold or any other infection.

Yeah, it's interesting. I was having a talk with Dr. Darren Ingalls, which I'm not sure how the episodes are going to come out, but it is an episode that I did with him. So if it came out already, you can listen to it. If not, it'll come out soon.

And we were talking, it was all about Lyme disease. And we're kind of talk. Because that's like such a hard thing to diagnose and figure out and handle. And so we're kind of talking through that. And, you know, it's interesting what he said. He's like, it's really not about the infection, right? Like, yes, Lyme disease is an infection. He's like, and it can, it can stay in your body for years. You could have Lyme disease and it can stay there for years and not become active. It could be dormant, but only when your immune system gets depleted to a point, right? And it triggers it. Like the stress response triggers it. All of a sudden, it can become active. And the whole concept, it's really about balance. He's like, listen, it's the idea of like, terrain theory versus germ theory, right? Like, if you're. If your terrain, if your immune system is in great shape, then it's probably not going to be a huge problem for you. If your immune system is getting depleted and then it triggers, then it could be a bigger problem. Which is similar to what we've seen with, like, COVID 19 too, right? Like, it's, you know, it's. That's what it is. And so you start talking about balance. You know, balance in part is. Is what your internal. Like, so you're. You were talking about like, your gut, microbiome and all these different things, your immune system, how you're dealing with stuff. But then when you're talking about, like the house and the example you gave on, like, yeah, I'm afraid I'm breathing in here and it's hitting me here and I can't get away from it. You're right. It's everywhere, right? And. And you're never going to have a house that has a net zero mold issue. Like, that's just not going to happen. But if you've prepared your body and you're balanced there and you don't have an overgrowth and an overexposure in the house, and you're balanced there. That's when you're able to live and be okay, you know, and heal. And it's. It's a lesson for, like, life, too. It's not just a mold issue lesson, you know, it's. It's all about, like, that balance piece. I think it's really important.

Totally. And I. And I think what's really interesting is, you know, a lot. A lot of doctors have been talking about this idea of, like, a toxin bucket or a stress bucket and looking for your root cause. And I love that because it's really, you know, bringing people's awareness to, like, a wider spectrum of things. But I think we tend to fixate a little bit on the final thing that sent that bucket spilling, rather than all the things that went up into filling it in the first place.

Yes. Such a good point.

Yeah. I think mold toxicity, for instance, it certainly can be debilitating. And I think you and I probably know firsthand just how awful it can be when you're living or being exposed to mold. But I do think for a lot of people struggling with mold toxicity, it may not be the only thing they're dealing with. Mold is just kind of turning up the volume on some of the existing problems they had and then, of course, creating issues of its own at the same time.

Yeah. And it's that what you said is such a good point, and I actually have never really heard someone say it that way. You hear the bucket analogy all the time. The funnel, the whatever. Like, that's such a common thing, and it's great. Right. Like, it really helps you understand, but it's always about when it overflows. It's the problem. The thing is, is that it's typically not one thing that's causing it to overflow. And you're so right about that. Right. So, like, if you're in a place and you're using, you know, toxic cleaning chemicals and you've got, you know, heavy metal issues that are going on, and you got all these things happening, and then you hit a mold exposure. Well, all that other stuff was filling up your bucket first. Then mold hits, sends you over the top. Could be the other way around, too. You could be in a mold situation and, like, kind of doing okay and not really noticing, and then get bit by a tick that has Lyme disease, and now you're just going nuts because your immune system's already halfway depleted before that happened. And so it's Not. It's not. Did Lyme disease cause the mold issue? Did mold cause the Lyme issue? Like, it's not like that. It's. It's. They are both a load that your body is dealing with, and you need to address them both. It's not just like addressing one and thinking it all gets fixed.

Absolutely. Entirely agree with that.

Yeah. So what is. Let's talk. I mean, if you're okay with it, like, a bit about what your mold situation was.

Yeah. So.

2020 was an interesting year, probably for me and for many others. So I'm living in California, so. And in San Francisco when this all happened. And if anyone's been following, San Francisco has probably had the most strict lockdowns, I believe, like, in the country.

So from, like, I want to say, early or mid March, when I was home 24 7, you know, a couple weeks into it, I was just feeling so off, and I just could not put my finger on it. And, you know, first I was telling myself, okay, it's the stress of the lockdown. It's the. The stress of being home. It's the uncertainty. I was right. And I was blaming my diet. I was like, oh, maybe my. My diet hasn't been as tight or some. I was coming up with every excuse known to man about trying to explain why I just felt so off.

And it wasn't until two months into quarantine that I went into my closet. I remember it was like the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. And I thought, okay, it's actually sunny in San Francisco. I'm gonna put, you know, get out of my PJs for the first time in, like, two months and put something on and go outside. And I remember going into my closet and all over this cardigan I was gonna wear. I just saw all these white growths all over the arm. And at first I just thought I had spilled something on the piece of clothing, but then I looked at it, and it definitely was not a spill. And I started to look through other items in my closet, and there was mold growth on other items. So I went into, like, full freak out, panic mode. You could imagine walking into your closet after a few months and discovering all of this mold. So needless to say, I do not have. I no longer have any of the items in that closet. And I know one of the black and white issues, kind of to tie this into what we were talking about before, is people wondering whether or not they have to get rid of all of their belongings.

When they're confronted with a mold issue. Obviously, in my case, there was mold growing in my closet. So for me, keeping my clothes, in my opinion, was not an option. I got rid of them all, but I moved out, See, about a month and a half after I discovered the mold. Within the first month I was out, I kind of felt like I was in a honeymoon period. Like so many of my symptoms had gotten so much better. I thought like, oh, this mold detox isn't going to be that bad. And then about five or six weeks out, it's when I feel like it all just came back. And when I really tried to do some of the detoxing stuff, I started realizing this is going to be like a long term effort.

Yeah. It's not something that happens overnight. And I think that that's one of the things when we're talking about just kind of how you emotionally deal with all of this stuff.

Right, Right.

You have to set the right expectations for yourself. Right. If you're, if you don't have the right expectation, then you're setting yourself up to fail that expectation and then the stress is going to come back and then it's gonna be like, oh, nothing works. This isn't gonna happen. Right. Because you've for some reason set this three month timeline or whatever the timeline is in your brain on like how this is gonna work. Right?

Yeah.

And so I think that's an important part when you're talking about how you deal with this stuff is really trying to understand like real expectations. Right. And don't let external factors shape what that expectation is. Like, let's say, okay, my lease runs out in X amount of time, so you have this weird time constraint that you've put on your expectation or something like that. Right. Like, don't let like this external thing tell you how long something's going to take or how easy it's going to be or how difficult it's going to be. But really try to have like this objective view on it and understand that it's not the same for every person. So if it's taking you longer than it took, you know, Jane, Jane Smith in the Facebook group that you're in, it doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong. Right. It just means that your body might be different, you might detox less, you might have a higher load than she did. You might have a million other things going on that Jane didn't have going on. Right. And so it's really hard to like compare to other people to.

You know, to ask like, how, how bad am I versus Someone else.

Probably not. Every time I'd say maybe like 75% of my inspections at the end.

When I show them what's. What's going on and what we found, it's like, okay, so how bad do you think this is compared to other places?

I mean, one. What does it matter, right? Why does it matter if your place is better or worse than someone else's place? You know, it's. And I know why we do it. We're just trying to understand, like, where we are in the grand scheme of things.

But I think.

I think that that, like, having that immediate need for comparison is. Is not super healthy, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's. That's my thought.

I completely agree with that.

And you know, when you were saying about Facebook groups, I feel like Facebook groups are an interesting place because there's some nuggets of great information in those groups. And there's also a ton of fear mongering and a ton of black and white thinking, like, espoused by a lot of the people in those groups. So I think that's another thing to always, if you're in one of those groups, really be taking that information if you are reading it with like, you know, a heavy pinch of salt, because that person is not an expert oftentimes. And even amongst the experts, there are differing opinions. So it can be difficult in terms of finding your way.

In terms of what is the right solution. And then another thing I wanted to mention when you were talking about the example of Jane is I think a lot of people who discover mold in their home and going back to the bucket analogy, too, mold, they think, is the thing that sent that bucket spilling. So in their minds, they think, okay, I fix the mold in my home, fix the mold in my body should be, you know, smooth sailing from here. And there's. It's actually a little bit more complex than that because mold isn't always the first thing you can go after in your body. You know, there's other things to consider. You know, working on drainage parasites and other things. Like, you know, definitely want to work with a practitioner if someone has that option.

Just so, you know, you keep your sanity when going through the mold detox process, because it's not just like a, you know, snap your fingers and, oh, I just detox the mold.

Yeah. And it's. And. And that order on how you do stuff is different for different people. So again, when we're talking about this comparison piece, it's, you know, I saw somebody on. On social media say that if you have, you know, the. I'm talking about Lyme disease because I just talked about it for like an hour earlier. But like, if, if you have Lyme disease that the first thing you're actually supposed to do is fix the mold first and then you're supposed to handle parasites and then you're supposed to handle co infections. And it's like, I mean, that's not always right. Like, you have to get a look at your body and understand what is happening in your body. And a lot of times it's. Let's address the thing that's kind of the worst and then work our way down. Right? So if you're looking at that bucket and let's say 30% of the bucket is mold toxicity and 30% is Lyme disease, and you know, 10% is this and 10% is CO infection, 10% is parasite. It's like, okay, well, let's try to knock down the big things. Because if you knock the big things down a little bit, then your immune system can recover a little bit. And now all of a sudden you get some more support when you're dealing with the other things. And it's hard to go out there and just say, oh, well, so. And so did it this way. So this is the way that I'm doing it, you know, and they kind of like swing back to the home thing. And the idea that you said earlier where like, if somebody's walking around and like we're afraid that every. Everything, every breath I take, I'm breathing mold and I can't go over here and how do I ever get out of it? It's listening, guys. Like, there's mold everywhere and there's always going to be. And you know, the idea is that you don't want sources of it growing in your house. Right. But the idea that you can, you know, get to a point where you do an army and nothing shows up, it literally has never, ever happened in the history of all the armies I've ever done. Right. I've done a whole lot of them.

Do you. Do you have people who just do like continual hermes to just get it lower and lower and lower, even if. Even if it's at a good amount?

Yeah, I mean, I had people that want to keep an eye on it. I've had people that have been almost kind of directed to do that though. Right. And so that's kind of like just poor direction that they get. And the problem is they're working with the consultant that's not actually coming to their house. And figuring out what's going on, or even if they are coming. They're not really going through the house the right way. And they're just. They're doing a bunch of Ermes. And I've talked about this before. It's like, one of the things that really frustrates me more than anything about our industry is this idea of, like, the Ermi subscription model, where you have a guy, a consultant come in and they say, okay, we need to do 10 armies in your house right now. Which, by the way, people, you don't need to do that many Hermes. It's ridiculous. But we need to do one in every room and figure out what's going on. And they, you know, ring up the sampling fees for all the armies. And then comes back, they're all bad, or most of them. Right. But maybe some of them are, like, worse than other areas. Like, okay, cool. So we're gonna focus over here. Like, no, just because. Again, back to this black and white. Just because this room was maybe worse than this second room doesn't mean the second room isn't a problem. Right. It's like shades of concentration level, but more so doing a bunch of Hermes, you don't actually know where the source is coming from. Like, if you didn't Ermi in every room, that's not telling you where the problem is in that room. It's just saying, this room's a little higher. And so people are getting told to do all these things, and then the consultants telling them, okay, cool, fog your house, wipe it down, and then re ermie everything and check it. Right? Which is not actually fixing the source of the problem. So it's going to come back later. You're just kind of cleaning what's there right now. So if you clean everything right now, like, imagine if you had a really dirty room and, like, you were gonna go clean that room today. Like, today I'm cleaning this room. At the beginning of the day, you do a. You do a Swiffer wipe in there, because you're gonna clean it. It's like a bunch of dust and everything on it. Right. By the end of the day, you clean the whole room. You do that Swiffer wipe again. It's completely clean. Right. Well, the room got dirty for a reason. So what if you didn't clean that room for another three months? You came back in, like, it's gonna be dirty again.

Right.

And you're going to be. And that's why we constantly have to clean our house. Yeah, we're on a House cleaning, subscription plan. That's what we're on. The problem is we're not paying every time we clean our house. And it's also not bad. That stuff gets in our house all the time.

Right.

Like it's part of the house breathing. But when it's a mold issue that continues to repopulate, that's a problem. And so what's happening is that these guys are telling them to do all these Hermes, clean the house this way, post test it immediately afterwards and show that it's clean, to show that what they told them to do worked. And then two months later they go and retest again and it's not good again because guess what? You didn't actually remove where the mold was coming from. And then they're like, okay, we're doing a bunch more and figure it out. Okay, cool. Now you have to clean the house again. Cool. Now we're going to do a bunch of Hermes again and post test it again. And it's like they're on this like subscription plan. And then after two or three times of doing this, the clients realize that this person that's doing this to them is just ripping them off. And then they stop working with them. This happens all the time. And there's literally a couple people, and I know who they are, and I won't say their names. If clients call me and tell me they're working with this person, I'll tell them or people, I'll tell them. That's what's happening. But. And it happens. And it's awful.

It's really bad.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, they're not really addressing the terrain of the home, so to speak.

Yeah. And I know I got off topic, but it's just one of those things that really bothers me. So the point of that whole story was not. Was not that the point of where I was going was even if you're doing everything completely right, you know, there's. You're never going to have an army that's completely clean. And even after remediation, you never have an army that's completely nothing. Right.

Yeah.

And so if we keep. If we start creating this expectation in our minds, we're talking about expectations, start creating this expectation that we're going to get rid of every single individual fragment that's moving around the house that isn't going to happen. It's just not possible to happen. But if you reduce that load by 90% or something, then your body's not dealing with that. Right. So there's still good that comes out of that. So it's not just all or nothing. You know, there's levels in here to work with.

Yeah. And I think maybe, like, one thing we could do is probably give people, like, probably like some examples of, like, what we mean by like, living in fear versus, like, living in awareness.

Like, I'm going to just, you know, create, you know, an arbitrary one. Right now let's say I go into a hotel, I'm traveling, and I need to stay in a hotel. I know, you know, a lot of hotels have mold issues. I can either walk into that situation hyper vigilant, afraid, panicked that that hotel room is going to trigger my symptoms. You know, just really stressed out. Or I could go in calm, knowing, okay, if I notice signs of water damage, my room smells musty, you know, all these other clues that I know and I'm confident about, I can ask for a room change, and I will and go ahead and do that. Right. And I think, you know, all these people who are struggling with illness and, you know, mold toxicity, the thing they want to do is detoxify. And detoxification is something that happens in the parasympathetic state. And parasympathetic is just a fancy word for, you know, you're that rest and digest state. So when you're in that hyper stressed, hyper vigilant mode, you are preventing your body from doing the thing you want it to do the most.

Yep. Yeah. That's why earlier we were saying when you're all stressed out, you're not going to heal. This is the clinical, fancy term for that versus me just saying things. But, yes.

It'S 100% right. And you know what, the hotel example is so good because I literally just went on vacation and came back like two days ago. And whenever we travel, hotel rooms suck. Like, that's just what it is. Right. And every time we travel, we end up changing rooms, usually probably on average, I'd say twice this time we only change room once. But it's the same thing. Like, do we not travel at all? Like, imagine if that if you lived in the fear state to the point where you're like, well, I know hotel rooms are really bad, so I'm just never going to travel again for the rest of my life. Like, that's not. Who wants to live like that, Right?

Absolutely. And Brian, I'm curious, what do you tell the reception desk when you want to change rooms? Maybe that would be helpful for people to hear.

So this time. This time I went a little overboard.

So I posted a story On Instagram. This time I walked in the room. So we're in Mexico, and they literally have signs on the doors that say, don't open. Don't leave this door open, because it's going to create condensation on the H vac system and it's going to drip water on the floor and you're going to slip.

That's as if that was the worst problem, right?

Yeah, that was what it said. Like, this was. This is what we're concerned about. Not the problem that's creating moisture around your H vac system and you're going to be blowing that everywhere. But that wasn't the problem.

But so it's just this thing. It happens in every room in there. And it's because. And because people run their air conditioning systems in their room, but then they want to open the window. You know, you kind of do stuff. You're getting the temperature change. Anyway, so that was happening in our room. And, you know, it didn't smell. Didn't smell terrible. Didn't smell super great.

And so that. That day, I kind of already knew that I wanted to change rooms. And so we were. We were going to look to do that. And they didn't have a room ready for us to even look at. Right. Like, they were super booked. There's weddings going on. All this stuff was happening. But they said there was one opening up the next day. And so the way that we really know, my wife is actually pretty sensitive. So she'll wake up the next day, and if she wakes up the next day and she has, like, nose, throat issues, like all that stuff, then we know that there's something happening.

Right.

So that happened, let alone my wife is six months pregnant right now. So because my wife is six months pregnant right now, I went a little overboard on these people.

Yeah.

Also, I was in Mexico. And so, like, while the people that work there, they speak English, they have to. They're, you know, it's not like their primary thing. Right. So. So we're in there and I'm trying to explain, like, what's going on. And like, well, there's nothing here. You know, you can't see anything. Right. It's not visible. Not that it matters. And so I go. I kind of go on this tirade. I don't know if I'm super proud of it, but. But basically I. First off, I started talking about how my wife is pregnant. I'm like, I'm not going to let you make my wife sick and cause birth defects in my child because you can't provide me a room that doesn't have mold in it. This massive, very expensive building. Like, I started going off and I was. And then at the end, I was like, secondarily, I'm literally the leading mold expert in the entire country of the United States, like you are. So I went a little overboard on that. You know, I don't know if that. If that's it, but I was, like, trying to, like, hammer the point in. Like, you can't mess with me on this. Like, yeah, it's going on.

Yeah.

It's easier to kind of flip out when you got the pregnant wife thing going on, because if nothing else, people will respond to that component of it.

Yeah.

But normally. Normally when I go in. So, like, my kind of hotel tips are I really try to not use the air conditioning system as much as possible. Like, if I'm. If I'm anywhere where it's somewhat moderate temperature and I can get away with it, and maybe I'm even a little uncomfortable, like, warm or cold, but I could deal with it. I would prefer not to run the H vac systems because they're just all a mess. They really are. And so I try to avoid that. I do a sweep around the room and I look for basic water damage stuff. And for those of you who've seen Mold Finder's Method, who are in the program, you guys see, it literally shows you everything to look for. So all that is in there so you can get a feel for that stuff. So I kind of do that first.

And, you know, if there's an odor, obviously there's an issue. And then I end up. What happens now is that we kind of set the expectation with the hotel that we're not accepting the room that they're giving us yet. That's kind of how we set it up. So they're like, okay, here's your room. It's like, okay, so I'm gonna leave all my stuff here, and I'm gonna go look at this room. And if it's suitable for us, then I'll let you know and we will move in. And. And that's kind of how I do it. So my wife doesn't even come. So we're leaving the bags. We're leaving my wife downstairs, and I'm going up and I'm deciding if it's good enough or not. And so I think by changing the dynamic a little bit that way, it's not like, oh, I'm lucky enough to have a room here. It's like, oh, Let me make sure this room works for me before we decide that we're good, you know, And I think that helps. It kind of sets the stage of like, okay, we got to make sure that everything is good. And then if I come back, I'm like, listen, guys, there's things going on here. My wife is really sensitive, even if she's not pregnant. I talk about how she's sensitive and I'm like, listen, we're not trying to pay all this money and get sick on our vacation, you know? And I'm telling you that it's going to happen. So can we figure this out?

Yeah.

Usually people are good about it. I usually don't flip out like I did on this last one, but I flipped out a little bit. I was just concerned. I got a kid in there. Got to make sure it's okay.

Yeah, I haven't. I haven't been to.

A hotel since my mold toxicity issue, actually. But when I was looking for apartments. And.

For those of you who've been to San Francisco, know that a lot of the buildings in San Francisco are not well maintained. And the ones that are new are definitely those eco efficient buildings that do not.

Do a very good job at letting the building breathe. So I feel like San Francisco is a little bit of a mold, a moldy city to begin with. But one thing I just started doing is obviously no landlord or property manager was going to understand mold toxicity. I would just call before and be like, I have an insane allergy to mold. And for those people listening, I actually don't have a mold allergy at all. I don't, but they're not going to understand mold toxicity. And I'll ask, has there been any type of leak, any type of mold growth in this unit? I was shocked how many people would be like, oh, yeah, we had a leak two weeks ago. Or oh, yeah, mold grew behind the last tenant's bed and we just painted over it. So many cringy things. And I'm like, well, thank God I asked that and didn't go in. And like, you know, I mean, I just saved myself a bunch of time by having that conversation over the phone. And the place I did end up leasing because of COVID they didn't have someone walking me around. It was just kind of one of those lock boxes that you go in with a little code.

So I could. I mean, I came back two or three times and just did a complete visual inspection to my heart's content.

Love it. That's. That's actually what a. What A cool tip. I've never really thought to ask somebody that. But you know when you say that, like, most people don't think mold's a problem, so they'll be like, oh, yeah, there's a leak, or more. So most people don't think that leaks are a problem. It's like, yeah, yeah, there's a leak, whatever. Because they probably don't think it's going to sway your decision at all.

Right, right. And then, like, you almost be like, I'm going to ask you, like, a really, like, unusual question. Like, I have extreme sensitivity to mold. And they'll think like, oh, okay, well, we don't want someone living here who's gonna, like, hyperventilate or something. Right. So they'll just tell you.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I found that saves a bunch of time.

That's actually really a really cool idea. The way that we screen for apartments is that because, you know, when you're. When you're doing it by yourself, it's different. But I would always bring my wife with me. And so we kind of had my wife distract the showing person, the showing agent or whatever. And then I would go look through other rooms while my wife was talking to the showing person in whatever room they were in. And so, yeah, she would, like, be in the kitchen talking about the appliances, and I would go look at, like, two or three bathrooms really quick and scan them and make sure they were okay. And then I would come out and, like, nod if everything was okay. Then my wife would then strategically move the leasing person into a different room so they couldn't see me. And then I would start looking somewhere else. And that's, like, how we. That's how we did it.

No, it's definitely weird because I have done this where I'm just, like, going through underneath the sink, like, in, like, detail just to see if everything's okay. You definitely get some weird looks. But you know what? It's. I think going into that situation with confidence, just knowing, like, you know, if I'm seeing a lot of problems in this apartment, if I don't get a good feeling when I'm in this apartment, snow, it's not for me. I don't have to live in fear. Of course, if you can test the apartment or the rental, absolutely, that's a great option. In a lot of rental markets, you may not have that option. So I wouldn't necessarily think that, oh, if I can't test it, you know, before signing, I'm doomed. You know, things aren't that black and White and it'll all work out.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm going to go back to your post. I'm going to read the picture now.

Sure.

I didn't read it earlier, guys. There was actually just a lot of words I could have read it. I don't know why I said I can't read pictures, but here we go. So this is getting back to the fear versus awareness thing. And basically what Michelle did, she just made two statements that are kind of talking about the same thing, but it's how our point of view looks at it, and then how it empowers you to not feel trapped by something and to kind of make decisions, which I think is really important. So this is the first one. I must eat the perfect diet or I'll never be healthy. And then the alternative to that is as my body evolves, my nutrition choices may too. Right. So it's like I could choose what I'm eating, right? It's not that I have to eat perfect or I'm going to be sick and die. It's like, well, hey, why don't I just choose to eat some other stuff?

Right, right, right.

The next one was like, pathogens are out to destroy me. And then the next one to that was, my positive lifestyle habits will boost my resilience. So again, like, pathogens, parasites, all this stuff, they. Yes, they. They can live in us. Like, they. Mold is in us. Like, there's more. I mean, I'm dealing with mold on a separate occasion, but, like, parasites are in people. It's not like the super uncommon thing. But if you just feel like that they're always in there, like, destroying you, like, you're gonna get into that state that you're not able to heal. Whereas if you're just like, listen, I live a good life, I'm healthy. My immune system's developed. Like, yeah, this might be going on, but I'm gonna be okay, you know?

Right.

And so there's just a number of, here's the mold one. And then I'll kind of stop off of this one. So mold is so common. I'm doomed, right? I talked to so many people that feel like, how are we ever gonna find place? Right? Like, it's just everywhere. And then the flip of this is, I could test my home for mold. I can trust my body when something is off. And basically it's like, listen, I can be empowered to, like, handle this. It's not like it controls me, you know?

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. I mean, I. One thing I thought I had lost Was like, I once I went, like, my molds, you know, in my body was bad. I used to be able to just walk into a building, and to someone who doesn't have mold toxicity, this is going to sound crazy, but I would have, like, a spidey sense. I'm like, there's mold here. Like, I just knew. Like, I was in the UPS store. I'm like, a month ago, and I'm like, there is mold in this. I was waiting in this line. I'm like, there is 100% mold in this building. And you just know. And I think, you know, as I detoxify more, I'm going to lose that, like, hypersensitivity to it. But I think trusting your instincts is so important.

Yeah. I mean, I've literally gone into homes and had clients point to the wall and say, there is mold in this wall. And I'm looking at it. No water damage. It looks perfect. There's. There's no way I would have known. Literally no way I would have known. There's something in that wall. There's nothing. Like, on an infrared scan. There's no moisture in the wall. There's no damage. Like, I would have just walked by it, not thought of. Not thought of it, you know, because how do you know if there's no signs and nothing showing you? And this person points at this wall and is like, I want you to test this wall. There's something here. And sure enough, man, there was a big problem in that wall. Right. You're like, wow, it's crazy. And it just goes to show, like, you could be the best that there is at doing this. And, I mean, I'll tell people all the time, I'm not gonna guarantee that I'm gonna find every single little thing that's gonna happen in a house, but I'm gonna find probably most of it, and that's gonna. That can make a big difference, you know? And I think that's all that you can ask for, really, you know?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Hey, so I wanted to ask you those. Those who've been listening to this for a while know that I'm. I'm trying to deal with the SIBO issue.

Sure.

So selfishly, I ask everyone who's on about it.

So you reverse Sibo?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had Sibo back in 2018, actually, before I knew about mold toxicity. And I probably did a million things wrong that didn't work. So I Probably a good SIBO resource.

That's amazing. So you probably can't tell me everything, but, like, What'd you do? How did it work?

What did I do that.

I would probably give people advice against doing?

Sure, start there.

So sibo is also one of these like tricky beasts because.

Not everyone's root cause for sibo is going to be the same. I'm willing to, you know, put money on most people's sibo cases that, you know, you have like a bile issue, but you have to understand like what's causing that you have some type of motility issue. Whether, you know, things are going the system too quickly or too slowly. There's obviously inflammation happening, but the actual cause of that there's can vary a little bit. So I think really understanding that will, will change how you approach it a bit. But I think like to the areas that are overlooked a lot. And no one, at least none of the GI doctors I spoke to in 2018 on this topic ever spoke to me about bile. And that needs to be just front and center in your mind. Bile is the thing that is going to help sterilize the small intestine. It's also going to. And actually I need to rephrase that. The small intestine is never sterile. There's always some.

Gut bugs in there. We just don't want things to overgrow. And when you have a bunch of poorly digested food particles in your small intestine because you're not having the proper digestion and the proper bile to help your body digest those food particles, that is actually going to have and spur bacteria or other gut bugs to overgrow. And that's part of your intestine and that'll create a lot of symptoms. So I think if someone had explained that to me years ago, I think a lot more light bulbs would have gone off in my mind.

That's interesting. So I read in Jill Christa's book and I've talked to her offline about stuff too, but one of the things that she talks about to stimulate bile is a few drops of bitters before you eat. Like 10 minutes before you eat.

So it's interesting.

What did you do diet wise? I see all. There's the fodmap diet, then there's elemental diet which seems pretty intense and there's a lot of stuff. What did your diet look like?

Yeah, I couldn't do the elemental diet because I when I had Sibo, I was already so underweight that doing the elemental diet just was not a realistic option for me. I was just losing pounds every week. I just don't think I was absorbing things very well, but I had done low fodmap. I had done the specific carbohydrate diet Gaps Paleo. I was like, combining all four of these diets. I thought, oh, well, you know, if I do this, this is surely the quickest path to recovery. It was not. It wasn't until I started expanding my diet more that I actually started seeing, like, improvements. I mean, there was definitely, I'd say, like.

Maybe four to eight weeks of just discomfort because your body is still like, get used to eating all of these foods and these fibers that you weren't eating for a long time. But I think what people need to remember is even with the low FODMAP diet, is if you're not able to handle all these different fibers, that is not the sign of a resilient gut. Like, all those fibers, all those different molecules that you're having a hard time digesting, those aren't the problem. The environment in your gut that is creating bloating and symptoms and pain when you ingest those foods is the problem. So understanding, like, why isn't my bile flowing as well as it could be? And really looking at digestion as this north to south process begins in your brain and your mouth, and it goes down each step of the way. And if your digestion isn't working properly at each stop down from basically the mouth to the colon, there's opportunity for imbalance and there's an opportunity for symptoms to emerge.

Did you do any sort of, like, antibiotic treatment at all or.

No, I did. I did the rifaximin and neomycin antibiotics. I had the methane dominant sibo.

I mean, I posted on this the other day. I don't regret much in my life, but I completely regret taking those antibiotics. And I'm someone who. I had chronic tonsillitis and had my tonsils out in my 20s, so I'm no stranger to strong antibiotics.

But, oh, my God, those antibiotics. I don't think I was able to eat anything more than meat, eggs, steamed kale, and boiled carrots for like, two or three months after I took those antibiotics. And I was just a skeleton.

For me, that just really. It really backfired because I don't think SIBO was my actual issue. I need to figure out why my digestion had, like, come to a screeching halt. And for me, my thyroid dysfunction played a role into that too, because, you know, low thyroid goes hand in hand with, you know, gut issues and, like, motility being slowed down.

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, because I Was talking.

I think it was Jill Christa I was talking to. Might actually even been on the podcast I did with her. And so she was explaining why she thought. She's like, we know all the houses you're in all the time. And I've already. And I've done mycotoxin testing on myself. I had three. This is, like, two years ago. But so maybe it's not as bad now.

She's like, but that's gonna slow down your digestion. She's like, those are neurotoxins that slow down the nerve reaction to push food down. She's like, sabo is really common in people that have mold issues, right? So kind of just what you're saying, like, the sibo wasn't the problem necessarily, right? Like, there was something else that created the environment that then allowed that to happen. Which then brings up the question of, like, okay, well, what do you treat first? You know, like, do you. Do you try to knock out the sibo? Or do you have to do the other thing before, you know, whatever the root cause of it is before you get there? And, I mean, I don't know. What. What was your experience?

I mean, I think for me, things got more complicated because I moved into my moldy apartment.

While I was going through my sibo, you know, journey. So I think, like, for me, like, you know, within. Even though my sibo ended up getting a lot better after, like, doing herbs, right, Working on liver health, doing a lot of those things to kind of bring me back into balance, then it's like my thyroid went haywire after. And I think. Another thing I wish I had been told many years ago.

Is, like, if you have a gut issue, you have a lymphatic issue, and to just bring this back to mold. A lot of people with mold actually struggle with edema. I polled my audience on this the other day, and I think the majority of folks struggle with edema. And for those who don't know that word, it just means you get, like, water retention and swelling, and it can be throughout the entire body. It can be, like, localized to the face or the legs. A lot of people get it in their limbs or. Or in their abdomen. And.

Your body, your brain is actually really smart, and it's holding on to all this water to dilute those toxins. I know Jill Christa says this a lot, that the solution to pollution is dilution. So your brain is actually taking that concept and putting all this water to pad you from all these toxins in your lymphatic system. But, you know, having all of these high concentration of toxins within your lymphatic system makes it sluggish, makes it congested. So that's another area that if you're struggling a lot of gut issues, like, really understanding where your lymph nodes are and doing some more targeted lymphatic movements, for me, dry brushing wasn't enough. For some people it is. But, like, really understanding where those lymph nodes are, finding them, pushing down, doing, like, lymph specific exercises, really helped with a lot of my motility and a lot of these issues that, I mean, when I was going to doing that carousel of doctors back then, no one was talking about bile, no one was talking about lymph. And I think for all those who are struggling with sibo or any type of gut issue, these are areas you really want to be focusing in on. They're so overlooked.

I actually didn't really know the connection between lymph and the actual gut health portion of it. I just know that lymph is another detox pathway. Right. But yeah, so basically, if your lymphatic drainage is slowing up, then that's actually creating more of a gut problem. Is that kind of what you're saying?

So a lot of your lymph nodes, well, your biggest lymph node is actually like, about a few inches, like, above your. Your belly button. So you have a ton of lymph in your gut, and there's a big, like, liver lymph connection and a big lymphatic connection to your organs. And understandably so, because when people say, oh, most of your immune system is in your gut, just because that's where most of, like, your lymphatics are. Even though we have most of our lymph nodes in our neck, most of our, like, lymph fluid is in our gut. So. And when you think about.

If we want to get really nerdy until, like, the B cells, T cells, like, a lot of our immune system, you know, those are called lymphocytes. Right. So, like, these people who have autoimmune conditions, you know, a lot of folks with mold, you know, you probably need to look into your lymphatic system as well. And that's probably why you're struggling with detox from mold, is this system is compromised and a little bit sluggish.

Yeah, it's crazy. There's a lot of different detox pathways. Yeah, it's kind of like. It seems like one of the early steps is to make sure that you're opening those pathways so that when you do start detoxing, there's somewhere for it to go.

Yeah.

It doesn't just get stuck in there.

Totally. And I. And another thing I just want to quickly mention is I think people sometimes look at drainage as like, okay, before I start my protocol, I'll work on drainage and open up these pathways. That kind of has to be a concerted effort throughout your protocol, because it's not like you can just do it at the start and then stop doing it and you'll be fine. Like, that is something you need to. And, you know, potentially, as you ramp up some of your.

Your detoxification efforts, you also need to ramp up some of those drainage efforts because things can get clogged up again.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I know being regular is one of those things. I wasn't and haven't been for years, and actually, I never remember ever being regular, and I just thought that that was normal. Like, when I was in college, my friends would make fun of me. Like, I would go, like, three days sometimes. Like, how are you not going every day?

I'll tell you an embarrassing fact about me, Brian. I did not know until my mid-20s that humans were supposed to use the bathroom once a day. I had no idea. No one ever told me that.

I actually don't think that I knew that either, because I didn't complete.

I was. For me, it was a complete shock to me. Like, I was like, what? Really?

I had no idea.

What's even crazier is that, like, one a day is, like, on the low end. Like, it's like one to three times a day. Like, I thought, if you're going three times a day, like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like.

Yeah.

Are you okay? Apparently that's normal.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think we've had some motility issues building for a while.

Yeah. Which is crazy. Well, this has been a fun little shift talking about this stuff. I may. I may talk to you offline about some of this stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because that would be cool. But we're, like. We've been talking for a while now. I feel like we got a lot of good stuff. Is there. Is there anything else that you feel like you'd like to kind of throw out there as. As like a final, final tidbit or thought or anything?

I mean, the. The mold journey and the healing journey are, like, overwhelming. And there's going to be points where we're. We're going to feel fearful, overwhelmed. There's going to be uncertainty. We're not sure if things are going to get better. Um, and this is where, like, living in faith and living in awareness rather than living in fear can, like, really help in those situations to just like, push you to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

Yeah. It's amazing what just, like a shift in your mindset does for you.

Absolutely.

Just, like the way you think about something all of a sudden makes something seem not so bad. It's so weird because you're actively thinking differently, yet that active thought, like that decision to think differently then has this subconscious effect on you. It's so weird. It's like you're tricking your own body. It's so interesting.

Totally.

We could do that, right? You have the ability to do that. Awesome. Well, where. Where do people come see more of you?

Yeah, they can find me on Instagram. My handle is eversalnutrition. I'm likely going to be launching my client practice in the second half of this year, so stay tuned for an update on that.

Yeah. What type of work are you gonna be doing?

I'm thinking to start off with one on one client work and then go from there to see if, like, doing, like, some type of, like, group program or, like, online program would be beneficial for my audience.

Cool. Cool. Well, that's awesome. I'm gonna try to get some freebies from me behind the scenes.

Anyways, thank you so much for taking time to chat with me today. I feel like. I don't know, I feel like this is a good kind of change of pace on some stuff, so it was really nice for you to take the time.

Yeah, absolutely. Take care.

All right, we'll talk to you later. Bye.

Bye.

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