EP 138 WTH?!? The Doctor's Chat: Toxic Mold with Bridgit Danner

Hey, welcome back, everybody, to what the health. I am Dr. Greg Eckel and I have my guest, Bridget Danner, licensed acupuncturist, fdnp. She's an acupuncturist turned functional health coach who has worked with thousands of clients since 2004. Her specialty is detox, especially toxic mold detox, which is the topic of today's show. She is the founder of Functional detox products.com and the author of the Ultimate Guide to Toxic Mold Recovery. Take back your Health, Home Health and Life, available on audiobook, Kindle and paper book on Amazon. Welcome aboard, Bridget.

Thanks, Greg. Nice to be here.

Yeah. I am very excited to share. You are launching the Toxic Mold Masterclass here in February of 2023. February 27th is the first day and I wanted to get ahead of the curve and get people educated about this very important topic. And I know you're going to dive in deep with the masterclass, but I wanted to start out with, you know, this is a massive, massive smoking gun for so many people with chronic illness. And how did you discover it? Like, how did you get in? Why are you pinpointing this as a masterclass to educate on?

Well, I came to specialize in it because I went through it. I used to live in Portland, where you still are, correct?

That's right. That's where.

Yeah. So I was living in one of the beautiful old homes in Portland, Oregon, did not know that there was a mold problem in this home and just was dealing with more and more symptoms, even though I was trying harder and harder and harder for my health. And it all just sort of came to a head at one point. And I was actually going to the naturopathic college there in Portland for IV therapy. And I had done a detox at home. And, you know, I already had this impeccable diet and lifestyle, and I was just exhausted. I was like, you got to start testing me for some other things. But one thing they asked me there that was really crucial was they said, has anything changed in your home? It was really the first time a practitioner had asked about my home. It was the first time. And I mentioned, you know, we had this musty basement and it had a little leakage in it recently. And I brought that point home to my husband at the time. And he said, yeah, you know, I've been curious about it. Let's get an inspector. And that was sort of the beginning of the end for us then. It was a lot, you know, remediating the home, making a lot of mistakes, getting sicker Moving, recovering. Um, so I just learned so much. You know, my training was as an acupuncturist, and I was working a lot with pain and hormones, but I didn't know much about the world of detox until I needed to learn it. And then, you know, I just wanted to share. I was already in the health space, so I just felt like, you know, I was called to share what I had learned.

I love it. You know, that oftentimes is the hero's journey. So thank you for being the hero here. You know, what do you see when you are supporting folks? What are some common symptoms that people may be having that they didn't really think? Like, could this be mold?

Yeah, great question. I mean, I think there's a top two, which are brain fog and fatigue. You know about that from your specialty. However, it's really a grab bag. Like, for me, my first symptoms in, you know, the early years. Well, another symptom that I say was common but overlooked is multiple food sensitivities, because it does such a number on your gut, and then you become, like, histamine overload type scenario. But really can be so many things. Like, during that time, I was just getting, like, lots of colds and flus, kind of like chronic back pain, insomnia, anxiety. I would have some issues with my periods. And, you know, when I go to practitioners, nobody ever suggested mold, so there's certainly some. Like, in kids, it could be, you know, picky eating, bloating, adhd, lots of different mental health things. Just even, like, just chronic little allergies. So could be any number of things, because it affects, like, every system of the body. But I would say fatigue and brain fog are the biggest ones. And sadly, those are two that in our culture, we're almost taught that it's, like, normal, right?

Yeah, well, just like, oh, that's so common. Just blow it off. Like, oh, everybody has it.

Yeah, everybody has it. Go to Starbucks, right?

Get your depth charge for shots of espresso and push through it. You know, that is oftentimes, you know, the body in its inherent wisdom, saying, pay attention to me, pay attention to me. And then when we ignore that, it just turns up the symptom picture for people. And this is one of those conditions between mold and Lyme underlying a lot of brain health issues that never, never get addressed for people that lead to chronic, just dysregulation of the innate intelligence. So in your interviewing and in your master class, were there certain themes that you were surprised by that came up?

You know, I Think the food sensitivity one that I mentioned was one that I never really thought about until the class, and I was like, oh, that is pretty much everybody who has mold. It's like, I can't eat these 20 things. We talked a lot about the nervous system, and I think there's a trend now in functional medicine. The idea of, like, calming the nervous system is important for. For recovery. So that was a theme that came up. Talking more about the brain, which is your specialty, again, was really fascinating to me. We have Dr. Mary Ackerley on talking about. She's seen a lot of brain images with mold and. And talked about how areas of the brain can basically inflame or shrink, and then they're talking to each other. Right. With different disabilities. So that was really fascinating to me. And also in my journey, like, at the time I was recording those, I still. I kind of worried that my brain would never be the same. But there's really so much possibility to repair the brain, like, more than I realize. And a lot of it's simple stuff. So that was something that came up. I mean, I think for. For all of us as humans feel our brain isn't working is very scary. So to know that there is hope, even if you know you're losing things, you're forgetting things, all that it. You know, the brain can heal quite a bit.

It is. It's massive, right? It's a massive concern for a lot of people about, you know, either they've seen their grandparents or their parents going through it, or maybe they're experiencing some memory loss or some issues with their brain. And in that aspect of it can be very, very scary. So having the information, attending a masterclass, getting informed in different ways of looking at it. Right. Because this is not something that conventional medicine, really. They don't even address it, like, oh, it's all in your head. Here's an antidepressant. And it is, you know, this mold. I find it to be more than just an. An issue with the mold. It's really how it makes your innate intelligence or immune system just dysregulated and misfiring and confused. That leads to the fatigue and the brain fog and all of these other things. What. What would you say on, you know, I know you're. You've got the masterclass and. Tell us about it. Tell us about it.

Sure. Well, I try to organize it from what would be sort of the beginning of your journey to the end, unfortunately, it's a lot to learn, as you know, and you're already not Feeling well, and maybe you can't even work fully. And now you're like, what? I gotta test my house. I gotta test my body. I gotta find an inspector who I trust. This is also expensive. So we start with, like, some mold basics, and then we talk about testing in the home. I think day one is mostly about the home. So we have different experts on there. I've learned a lot from them as well, but I'll never be quite what they are. Right. So we start with the home, and we get into testing, and we get into, like, kind of simple foundations. Right. Is any kind of naturopath, acupuncturist. Like, you can't just skip to detox. So you have to eat real food, sleep, poop, all those things. So we do. We talk about that. We have boxana, that kind of thing. Then we get into some more specific things. We do have Lyme included because they do often go together. We have parasites included, kind of detoxing the home of chemicals. So we bring in different experts who have different, like, you know, specialties within mold. So it's a. It's a lot. It's. It's, you know, it's a good one to own because it's a lot, and it's a lot to take in.

And you want to go over it, especially if you're having issues with. Does come up, though. I mean, some of the stats, it's like greater than 50% of all dwellings in North America have some mold or mold toxicity. Right. I just got back from New Orleans, where it's like, one. You're just in mold while you're there.

Yeah. I've talked to people in England, and they're like, we just call it damnness. We just like, oh, it's just a little dampness. I'm like, yeah, I went to Florida last winter, and I was like, oh, God, I don't know.

Yeah, it's intense. Especially if you've been sensitized to it and have had some health issues. So the dysregulation. I'm wondering, do you also have. Did you put, like, histamine disorders or mast cell activation syndrome? Like, all of these EMF sensitivities or electromagnetic frequencies. Have you seen that with folks with mold?

Yeah, so definitely, I think, because your brain, your brain barrier can become leaky from mold, and then the brain is, you know, often inflamed, sensitive. So I see that, like, correlation with EMF sensitivity. I think we're all affected by emf. Right. But. Yeah, but some people, you know, really like, they can't even be in the room with the computer or whatever. So, yeah, I see that. It's not for everybody. Histamine. Yeah, almost everybody. You know, it's gonna. I think a lot of the symptoms of mold illness come from histamine overload. Really? Like, and when you're in a flare up, you know, when I think back, because I didn't really understand histamine when I was sick, but when I think back to when I was in a flare up, I was just basically in a histamine overload. So it's headaches. Yeah. And histamine is tricky because it does manifest differently for different people. So you can kind of not recognize it in yourself.

Got it. What would be some for instances there?

Well, I think a classic one is like, different foods make your mouth feel swollen. So that's a really, you know, obvious one. Again, kind of going with those food sensitivities. But yeah, for me, I'll have more like headaches. People can have rashes and kind of red skin. But anxiety is one. I think that's a big one for the mold community. Rapid heartbeat. I can't remember the whole list.

Yeah, well, that's. I mean, that's plenty to not even realize, like, oh, this could be a mold reaction from histamine response.

Yeah.

And it is on the mycotoxins themselves. You know, oftentimes I'll talk to patients and they'll say, well, I don't see any visible mold on the wall. How do you answer that?

Right. Well, I'll tell you about my house in Portland, for starters. You know, most of our mold was in the walls. So the mold inspector came and one tool they have, and you can buy this tool yourself, like Home Depot, is a moisture sensor and they can see if there's moisture in the walls. So our, our inspector was quite good. He did, he did a lot of different things. But what. Basically, in time, we found out that as our house was added to, it had a lot of additions. You know, the old 100 year old house, the windows weren't installed correctly. You know, the additions weren't done properly. So things were leaking in the walls. How can you see that? And then some people think, well, it's in the wall that's trapped there. Right. Not quite that simple. So it's emitting from the wall. It's actually sometimes emitting worse when it dries up. So it's growing when it's wet, it's scared, so to speak, when it's dry. So it's Spreading, you know, once a colony is established, especially when you can't see it's still doing its thing, whether or not you can see it. So, yeah, those. That it's not always visible. You know, people, you can have a very expensive home and still have molds it's been leaking on. You know, your bathtub wasn't installed correctly. So, yeah, unfortunately, it is often not visible. But you can often think of incidents that have happened or look for certain signs, just small ones. They're not going to be obnoxious. You know, a whole wall covered in mold. But you can be like, oh, yeah, it's always wet around this edge. Or like the stain always appears on the ceiling or what have you. So there are some things to check for.

Nice. And you cover that all in the class?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, there might be a couple of things we miss, but yeah, we talked to various, like, inspectors. You know, one of them talks about how air moves around the house. So you can understand that. We have one. One great guy was in there and he said he's inspected, like, so many homes. He's like, old timer. He's like, every single crawl space has mold. You know, there's something to think about if you have a crawl space.

Yeah. And that aspect, I mean, it can get really, really tricky for people really quick because you're just in the. In the soup of the mycotoxins. They're emitting spores. They're microscopic. You can't see it in circulation in your air, and you're. You're ill and not thinking clearly. And so it can be really tricky on, well, how do I get out of this? Because, you know, one of the things that I found is asking, like, if you've taken a vacation or left your house, do you feel better? You know, is there. Do you notice? It's just in certain rooms, you know, I have a patient right now, unfortunately, had to go on a bunch of steroids. She had a chronic cough and sinusitis for a year and a half. And they discovered behind her bed where she grew up in a massive amount of mold in the. In the wall. And the bathroom also, which was next to her bedroom, had considerable water damage and telltale signs of actually black mold on the wall. Now everybody says, oh, it's black mold, and it must be, you know, know, stachyboitrous. And that's the issue. And, you know, oftentimes if you're suspecting this, you know, you should get tested. There's blood work that you can run. There's urinalysis, functional testing that you can do. Nothing beats a taking a thorough history in case of somebody to really understand what's going on for them. But the. It's tricky because it's one, it can be really overwhelming, two, really depressing. And three, you don't have, you have such inflammation on your system and dysregulation of immune system. It's like, well, what. Where do I even start with all of this? So if you had a kind of a stepwise approach on just simple processes, then we can direct to the masterclass, which I'm going to encourage everybody to sign up for because it is February 27th is day one. Get ahead of the curve, get scheduled. I know there are a lot of these masterclasses and summits and we, however, this one, you know, really can save your life, your family's life and loved ones because it's not well understood in conventional land. And you know, here we've got Bridget, who went through it herself, is kind of on that hero's journey, wanting to share exactly what she's uncovered along the way and then really interviewing a lot of experts in the different domains because it is very, it's very complex. On that simpleton path though let's keep it on the high level on people tuning in, what to expect and, and kind of the journey you're going to take them on.

Yeah. And I'll also kind of share if, if you're thinking about it for yourself kind of the journey, because the overwhelm piece is big. Right. So just take it step by step. Even if, you know, you sign up for the summit and you only catch a couple things like don't think you have to learn it all. I didn't learn it all all at once. So, you know, really, like you said, history taking can be a step one even for yourself in your own mind about, you know, when did my symptoms start? You know, where was I living, what changed? Like you said, you feel better when you're away or like for me, I felt better than the summers because I was outside. I wasn't in the home as much. I never put that really together. And you can think about your own house or workspace, you know, again, looking for those water stains. Have you ever measured humidity in your home? If you live in Portland, Oregon, I can tell you we should have been running a dehumidifier in our basement 100% of the time and we were not. So just think about your living space, our previous ones, because you can, you can have a previous one and then you didn't ever really detox. And so it just circulated in your body, it was colonized in your body, or it's just recirculating. So you can think about that and then thinking about testing. And, you know, there is kind of a lot to know about testing. It depends if you rent and you own, and almost the body testing has become much simpler because it's just like one test. So you could potentially start there, but then you're going to have to think about where the source came from, or you can go the other way. If you know you have, you know, you really strongly suspect an issue in your home, you may want to kind of start there. So it depends. So sometimes people need that real, factual information to move forward. And then really, frankly, Greg, you have to think about getting out of the space to heal, whether it's temporary or permanent. That's one I really harp on. You cannot get better. And because people's brains aren't thinking clearly, they don't want to get out of the home. They want to try to heal in the home. I'm sure you see this too. Again.

Oh, it's so hard, right? All of the belongings, the books and the records and the pictures and everything is there, but the mold is also there. And it's everything, right?

It's on everything.

It's on all of the surfaces. So it's really depends on the severity of symptoms. And it's a. It's a tough discussion to have, but really, when it gets down to it, you know, these folks have been labeled as crazy or depressed or it's all in their head, when in reality it's a mycotoxin effect that's happening and playing out, creating inflammation, leaky blood, brain barrier, and all of the symptom picture. And so it's asking those questions I'm psyched to hear and we shared here, like, what is new in your environment? Like, are you using something new? Did you move? Is there a new, you know, personal care product doing new detergent? What, you know, what is happening for you? You know, in the Northwest in particular, I always see a bunch of mold issues happen in the fall, at the end of summer, beginning of fall. And because, like, everything gets so dried out. And like you mentioned, sometimes when the mold gets dried out, that's even when symptoms get worse, it's because they go aerosolized and they're now circulating with the wind everywhere. And that's a really tough, tough thing to see where you have it in your house and then you're going outside, it's even worse. Like, where is this coming from? You know? And so it is, though. I love your message of hope and possibilities, and you're a living testament to it as well. And of that there are answers and there are processes and sometimes it takes a little bit longer than we anticipated. Other times it's much quicker. But it's really engaging. Get educated. Get together with providers who know what they're doing and they can lead the way and have helped thousands, hundreds or thousands of people through the process. So this is really exciting and I really applaud you for putting together Toxic Mold Masterclass. And thank you for sharing your expertise and knowledge with us today. On what the health. Any last parting words that you want to share? Words of inspiration for folks?

Yeah, again, just like, go little by little, you know, follow your intuition, don't overwhelm yourself, create community. Sounds like Greg's a great resource. You know, at his clinic, you're, you're really going to need a lot of people to help you over time, not just health practitioners. You're going to need someone to haul out your trash and just, you know, all sorts of things. So it is a process. So, but if you suspect it, no, it's very dangerous. And just take those first steps to learn and just go slow and know that, you know, in the end it's, it's 100% worthwhile. So, yeah, I just encourage. Because it's very tempting to put your head in the sand on this one. Just encourage people. Yeah, peek out, look around a bit. And yeah, we try. We, you know, luckily the resources are growing, so we're trying to make it a lot easier on you to, to go through this process and not waste a ton of money.

Love it. So everybody, if you got something out of today's class, please give give us a five star review on your favorite podcast outlet and write down what you learned and what you're going to take about it. Also, think about some folks in your life that might be interested or really need this information. And then of course, click on the links below and get signed up for the Toxic Mold Masterclass. Bridget, thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks, Dr. Greg.