EP 175 WTH?!?: Unveiling Mold's Hidden Menace with Dr. Jill Crista

Foreign.

Welcome back everybody. I'm Dr. Greg Eckel and this is what the health. Our topic today is mold and mycotoxin testing with the world renowned Dr. Jill Christa. She's a pioneering naturopathic doctor, best selling author, devoted educator and creative innovator. Her superpower is to make complex medical concepts simple and digestible for the average person, which is you and I. Dr. Jill's passion is to elevate the well being of the planet by assisting in the healing of her inhabitants. Her books and online courses support those wanting concrete steps to conquer health challenges. Dr. Jill focuses on conditions that cause injury to the brain and nervous system, including mold, pans, pandas, Lyme disease and concussions. Welcome aboard, Dr. Jill.

Thank you so, so nice to be here.

I love having you on our show and you know, we went to medical school so many moons ago and I have really, I love your support of providers worldwide and patients as a result of that. And I really, you know, we've been getting in on these discussions clinically here at our CENT in Park City. And I said, you know what, let, let me ask the expert. Let's get Dr. Joe Christa on here and let's talk about mold and mycotoxins. And in particular, what sparked this conversation was mycotoxin testing. And I, I know, you know, these things go together when you're talking about the brain and nervous system. You know, you, you gave me a, maybe a, a text that said, you know, I don't have a favorite test. So let's start there, maybe like we'll put it in the meta of mold, mold toxicity symptoms and then we'll talk about testing of like what to do if you think you might have mold.

Yeah, great. Cool. Yes, that's the, that's the most common question that I get is hey, quick question. What's your favorite test? Yeah, involved. And I say that's not the right question. The right question is what is the right test for the patient in front of me to answer the question we're trying to answer. And that is often a cluster of tests that we want to look at. So when we're saying I don't pick favorites because it's going to totally depend on the individual patient, their excretion ability, their detox ability, their immune status and then what question are we trying to answer? So the way that mold can make you sick is with the spores, the spore fragments which can lock into the lung tissue and cause permanent allergy and irritation. So those are kind of the things we would Think of as the classic cdc. Mold related illness is like allergies, allergies, asthma, post nasal drip itching, you know, that kind of thing. And then they take it all the way to the other end of the infection. So toenail fungus, infectious aspergillosis of the lungs. And in medicine, they think, well, that, that only happens with people that are undergoing immunocompromised.

Right, right.

The problem is mold can make you sick with some other things, such as mold chemicals and the toxins. And those are two totally different things. The mold chemicals are being made and off gassed when mold is eating, metabolizing and it's just excreting these gases. So I jokingly call them mold farts.

Nice.

You know, that's kind of what they are.

Yeah.

And those things, unfortunately, are very immunosuppressive. So if you have that impact and you have some spore impact or exposure, that's how we can have people end up with Aspergillus, penicillin, penicillium, that can end up on their respiratory passages, in their lungs, on their gut lining, and they don't have to be immunocompromised. So that's one of the ways that we can see a lot of histamine issues, sinus issues, a lot of cognitive problems, because we're breathing those kind of toxins right up into the nose, which can get an elevator ride right up into the brain. And then mold does this extra dangerous thing that it does that it can spit out toxins. And these are called mycotoxins and they're spit out on purpose for mold to defend its territory. So the lesson there is, when we're doing our testing, if you're only finding one mycotoxin, you can be sure there were other molds in that environment. And as you start to excrete and, you know, improve your patient's ability to detoxify or your body's, we're going to see more toxins, we're going to see more mycotoxins, because that means there were more than one animal in the, in the environment. And then of course, in a damp building, there's also bacteria, which has a whole other story. So when people say, well, what's your favorite test? Well, what question are we trying to answer? Yeah, you know, for most people, the most important one to know is, am I being exposed right now in my building? Because that's the most important part of treatment is to get the person away from the mold exposure. So, so we can kind of look at a cluster of Things that point more arrows to, yes, you're in mold, or less arrows to, yes, you're in mold. That gives us a little more confidence to say, okay, we need to devote some real resources to testing your environment. And with a good inspector, people that really know what they're looking for, because mold is very stealthy. It can really hide.

Yeah. It's not just seeing it on the bathroom wall. So that whole component of the. The acute. So it is. You know, how. How quickly do we need to act. Do we need to, like, all hands on deck. Get out of your environment? It's toxic. Right. That more times than not, is. Without the testing, we have no idea. So what. What do you recommend on that acute testing? Because there's qualitative, quantitative, like on gr. On sensitivity, the person's ability to secrete. So, you know, we actually had some questions on times of binders or, like, the glutathione challenge. Is that. Where in the world did that come from? Taking glutathione and. Or a sauna a couple days before doing a urine challenge test. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that, but I'm. I'm hitting all the big ones.

Yes. I'm so glad you're asking this. I think I've done the most split sample testing of anyone that I know, and I've done it over years and years of time. And I also have a very unique situation where I have identical twins, so I can kind of do my own research. That, you know, it's. It's.

That's a fun fact. I did not know that about Dr. Joe.

Wow. So that's kind of. I mean, my kids do tease me. They're like, you're a little Hitler. Like, mom with this. You know, you take this and you don't. But, you know, we have good information. And the funny thing is, is I was thinking. I was trying to think like a scientist. I have a friend with identical twins who did not have a mold problem who was. I was like, would you be the controls? I'll pay for the testing. And, you know, I just. And that was when we were doing just single lab testing, just with one of the labs so that I could kind of see. Sure. Was that thing that I saw in my twins, is that just an anomaly or is this a twin thing? Well, so we had them as normal controls, and then they got mold in their house. So I have two twins, and. And then, you know, other patients where I was like, wow, you would be a perfect case study because you have this classic Picture of mold can Would you be willing, you know to. To split your urine sample into to three boxes and we'll send that out and do a blood test on the same day and then we're getting more information about how does at what tests bring which value and then what kinds of things will actually interrupt and disrupt the lab sample? Because the labs could be doing this testing but they're not. So that's very frustrating to me. I think the big picture here is everybody pressure these labs to do this kind of testing. We need sample sets than just me playing around, you know?

Right. Yeah.

At least my playing around has taught me quite a bit. What it taught me was glutathione will under report falsely re. Under report mycotoxins if you're using the mass spec method. Who does that Mosaic and Vibrant Mosaic used to be called Great Plains and this is back when they were Great Plains and I presented this at their conference and since then they have given the advice to doctors do not use glutathione challenge with our test. I also presented that data to Vibrant and I do believe they're still saying that as well. Like don't provoke with glutathione. Now this. That's a, that's a pretty broad statement. Again, we're doing individualized medicine. So glutathione, mycotoxins, the toxic part of mold, which in my patient population accounts for about 70 to 80% of their symptoms. The spore stuff is just a small part, like 5 to 10%. So in that group with the mycotoxins, if we they all mycotoxins cause mitochondrial damage and mitochondrial dysfunction by affecting glutathione at the cell level and the mitochondrial level. So it makes sense that you might want to do glutathione in a patient where you've pre tested their glutathione status. And they're a terrible excretor. They're sensitive to everything. They can't pump gas because they get a headache. They can't go into a big box store because they get neuropathy or brain fog or headaches or you know, the people that are like the canaries in the coal mine extraordinaire, usually people that's my trigger for myself to pre test their glutathione status. So. And by the way, any doctors listening the quest in LabCorp Glutathione test is not an accurate test. So I use either doctor's data. Red blood cell glutathione, which is a better marker or my favorite is Health Diagnostics Research Institute, which is they look at the glutathione, but also how much is reduced in air quotes, meaning active ability, and how much is oxidized or spent. So if a person has good reduced glutathione status, then we don't have to worry so much about loading them up to be able to show us that they have mycotoxins. So that might be a reason for giving glutathione for a week or so and then taking a period of time off and then testing. So you've kind of. You've kind of stimulated the mitochondria and rounded up the toxins and got them to the liver. But not all mycotoxins go through the glutathione pathway in the liver. Some do. And so if you're using a mass spect, which is literally a camera looking for a shape, a molecule.

Yeah.

And you give glutathione, that's just changed that molecular structure and now the camera doesn't recognize it. Isn't that wild?

That is wild.

So if somebody has to be on glutathione, I haven't used the real time lab, which as an ELISA and is not as affected and actually in that case could be opening up more antigen for the lab to find. So if you're using glutathione as a big challenge before a real time lab, you may be over reporting mycotoxin. You're breaking it into pieces. And now whatever antigen the lab has decided is mycotoxin could be being read twice. Is that wild?

Read twice? Yes.

Yeah. So we could be over reporting. So that's a potential. It's not as strong a potential as the former, which is the mycotoxins being underreported on the mass spec.

Got it.

So if someone's on glutathione, I have no problem using real time. I'm like, there's a possible risk of that happening, but of, you know, over reporting. But we'd rather see it if it's there than miss it. So that's what I learned in my split sample test. Just one of the things I learned. The other thing I learned was that one of the labs does not control for creatinine. And that really. Yeah. And that's real time. That really changed. The results could be real high if someone's chronically dehydrated. Well, one of the things that mold does is reduce your antidiuretic hormone, meaning that you don't trap water as well. So people are chronically Cellularly dehydrated. And so if that is the patient population we're dealing with, hydration status and creatinine. Controlling for creatinine is a really important part of the lab.

Why don't they put that on there? They're getting it. They're able to measure that.

They're not controlling for it.

Yeah, that's, that's most not.

No, that's real time.

That's real time doesn't do that. Ah, yeah. Okay.

So that's what when people say what's your favorite test? I don't actually really have one because limitations.

What about the antibody testing?

Yeah. So I have one more thing to say about that.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. For the split sample testing, we also found that if someone, and this is actually Dr. Joseph Brewer did an in clinic study with one patient and then I repeated those results and found the same situation. He had a patient do a sauna, pre tested the urine mycotoxins using real time, had the patient do a sauna 125 degrees, I think like 20 to 30 minutes, then collect urine from the sauna for the next six hours. So a six hour urine collection, what they found is a 10 times higher mycotoxin excretion from sauna. Which is really good news for treatment for testing because guess what if she would have waited and taken her urine test the next morning.

Yeah.

Getting her trough level.

Right.

Not her. So you would have been then clear a big dump.

Right.

You'd be looking clearer than she really is.

Is right. So yeah.

The fact that like each mycotoxin kind of has its own way of getting through the organs of detoxification. Some of them run through kidneys first. Most do actually. That's how we can test urine mycotoxins. And if they, some of them will run through glutathione pathway. Some are sulfation, some are hydroxylation. So it just. And glucuronidation gets used by a lot of the mycotoxins. So for only giving glutathione and pressing one pathway then you're not necessarily doing a true provocation. Whereas if you're using sauna, that's basically just doing a radiator effect of, you know, move all the blood to the surface and then we're going to push all the blood back to the organs of detoxification. Then you're treating all mycotoxins equally, so to speak. Because the, the liver and the kidneys are handling them the same. That's my favorite way to provoke and I'm collecting six hours after the actual sauna and then taking an aliquot of that sample and sending that in. And that's for any urine, mycotoxin testing and you know, whatever lab you're using, that's what I'm using right now. Because we also see that, you know, my big question was, is 24 hour urine going to be more accurate than on first mornings?

Right.

Vibrant has actually done this study, it's an internal study, and they compared a First morning, a six hour and a 24 hour and they found that the first mornings was accurate enough, reflected enough of the 24 hour, although was not perfect a 24 hours, still a better, more accurate lab. What reported was the positives were still positive, the negatives were still negative. But the there was some variance. Some mycotoxins looked in the quote, normal range in the first morning. Just on the verge in the 24 hour.

It was actually kind of dipped into it. Got it. Yeah. So with any of these, you got to put a big asterisk around it, utilizing your brain and your clinical judgment as far as the constellation of symptoms coupled with the testing at the right moment. And not like it's not an absolute.

Right. It's a data point.

Yeah.

One single data point. And that's why when I say the F, the leading thing needs to be, what question are you trying to answer? That's how we develop the cluster of data points that tells us the answer. So the mymicolab antibody, it's a mycotoxin antibody test, not a mold antibody test. So a mold antibody test is a mold allergy test. And that's what most normal ents, allergists, immunologists, that's what they're running. And maybe, you know, your primary care doctor would run that like a family practice doctor might say, yeah, if you're allergic to mold, that's a really helpful thing to look at for someone because if they're actively being exposed to mold, they're going to have a higher rate of being allergic to mold. We shouldn't be allergic to mold. It's a natural substance.

Right.

But when you're, you know, toxic load, the toxic bucket gets fuller and fuller and fuller of something. And that can be a toxin, but that can also be an spore. It can also be an environmental allergen. If your body's having to deal with that all the time, it starts to lose discernment that that's not a thing threat that mold. You know, a mold spore allergy is a Useful test. A lot of people say, oh, just throw that out. That's not catching mold illness. I'm like, well, it does. It does point some arrows towards.

So the allergy testing for mold. Right. Which is different than the my Mico labs, though.

Exactly. Because that's spores.

Okay.

Test is only testing spores, whereas the my Mico test is testing mycotoxin reaction. So those way. Those four ways mold can make you sick. Spores, spore fragment, chemicals, mycotoxins. We want to take a broad enough look that we're looking at all those aspects. So a mold allergy test is looking at the spore part. A mymycoantibody test is looking at a mycotoxin reaction, antibody reaction. And that is very helpful to answer the question that's on most people's minds, coming first to see the doctor when they're like, I think you have mold illness.

Yeah.

The IGE will be high if you've had an appreciable exposure to mycotoxins in the previous two to four weeks. So, wow, does that really help answer that question? You know?

And then they also have the igg on there, which is more of a hypersensitivity delayed reaction, just showing past exposure. Right.

The. The reaction. Antibody reactions to toxins are a little different than antibody reactions to, say, a hepatitis virus.

Sure.

Just kind of like how Borrelia or Lyme. Those antibody reactions act differently than the classic model that we all were taught.

Okay.

That model is based on basically, hepatitis or, you know, that family.

Got it.

Line breaks those rules, and toxins break those rules. So the. The IGE for my Myco lab or the mycotoxin antibody gives us a really strong argument for the person being, you know, exposed it in the past two to four weeks. The IGG speaks a little more to body burden and continuous toxin load. What we want to see and what we do see with treatment is that both come down. Both of them come down with treatment.

Right.

What we can see is that if we get someone out of their exposure, their IgG still might be high for a while because their toxin load is still high. And so we're still detoxifying them. We're still getting it out of the body.

Wow.

Yeah. Okay, so what is the cluster that I like for answering the question of am I being exposed right now? I look at a cluster of four things. That's the VCS test, which is visual contrast sensitivity. The military designed this test, and Dr. Shoemaker was brilliant in saying, oh, wow, this is a biotoxin illness. This mold thing, we can use the biotoxin test that the military uses. Yeah, we use a company called vcstest.com it's just. I like that they calibrate the screen. So if it's a visual test, you want to make sure you're kind of calibrating first before you do it.

Yeah.

And I like their results. They're just easier for people to read and understand.

Sure.

So that's a nice cheap 15 bucks. You can get an annual subscription. So if you need to repeat it, let's say you're mid remediation. You want to know if it's worked, and you want to retest and retest again. You can retest yourself. So that will be bad if you're exposed to mold, the biotoxins of mold. So that's the mycotoxin and the chemicals part that will be abnormal while you're in the mold. And what I've seen is when patients leave and their insurance sends them to a, you know, hotel or something while they're fixing their house, that. That VCS test should get better pretty quickly. So it's a. It's a now kind of exposure quickly now can you have. It can go. It can get worse when you've had a. If you're in the middle of a Herxheimer reaction. So that's where like every test has its, like, asterisk, as you're saying.

Right.

It. It points an arrow that says, I think it might be mold right now.

Take a look at this.

My mica lab. IGE and I usually run IGG and ige. I think that's the only way it's offered now these days. So if that's high, there's another arrow pointing toward its mold right now in your environment. And then we use a urine mycotoxin, but it's actually not a mycotoxins. That's called MPA or mycophenolic acid. This is on the mycotoxin urine test panel for Mosaic and vibrant and the mpa. What's unique about that is it's not actually a mycotoxin. So where there's growing mold, there will be mycophenolic acid, but not necessarily mycotoxins, because the mycotoxins need. They're expensive. They're energetically expensive for mold to make. So mold only make it if it's feeling competitive, but it will off gas mold, fart mycophenolic acid. So that's another arrow. If you have a high mycophenolic acid. This gets out of the body through glucuronidation. So if you're. If your doctor's, like, you know, doing a big estrogen detox with you, like. Yeah, you know, and you have high mycophenolic acid, that might be part of just excreting body burden. But if it's high, and we have these other arrows. If it's high in your urine, there's another arrow that says you're probably being exposed to mold right now. Because we excrete this very easily. It's water soluble. We don't bioaccumulate it like we do the mycotoxins, which are fat soluble. That's how we get those buggers in the brain and the nervous system. But mycophenolic acid doesn't really have that same problem. And it's not a mycotoxin, It's a mold. Yeah. So high bad BCS, high antibody reaction, IgE to mycotoxins, an increased MPA on your urine, and then a mold allergy test that's positive. If three out of four of those are looking bad. Yeah, it's probably in mold.

Got it.

And that two out of four, I'm kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's like the M. I in mold cluster. And then there's different, you know, different questions. Like, some of my patients will say, well, how long do I have to be on all this stuff? And then we might do just a urine mycotoxin test to see what their body burden is. And whether we provoke or not, that's really dependent on, you know, the health status of the patient. Again, if they're the person that's like, I. I can't even pump gas. Or I get.

Yeah. Like, super chemically sensitive walking. Can't go down the chemical aisle. Mast cell activation syndrome as well, like, those hypersensitivity react. They're. They're in it deep. Their cup is full. We'll say their cup is full.

And they may not be able to excrete that. That test might look more. More healthy than it really is. And so those people may need to be provoked before you test the urine.

Got it. And so then one extra layer nuance. What about, like, methylation issues for folks? HLA subtypes is there. I've heard some controversy now from the HLA subtypes component here. What's your thoughts on those from.

I can speak from my own patient experience. Yeah. Is the best way that I can speak for. And I, you know, I get to talk to Lots of doctors, Yeah. I would say that a lot of the, my own experience and many of the doctors that I work with have not found the HLA situation to be as dreadful a problem. Yeah, you know, the dreaded gene is the, is the, the phrase.

But yeah, I, I haven't found it either to correlate very well out of our personal experience. But they're, you know, a couple of my providers have, you know, had, had some testing and, you know, it's still out there. And it is different for everybody as well. It's, as we're seeing, it's multifactorial here. Okay. So not as dreadful. That's awesome.

And that is. That can have a little asterisk there too, because what that makes them though, is a slow responder. They take a while to get sick, which means they could be taking on more body burden than someone who has a really florid and strong, nice, robust reaction to these kind of things. In my patient population, the people that struggle the most are people who can't detoxify the methylation, the sulfation pathways, like CBS and suoxide, you know, glucuronidation. So the glucuronide pathways, GST and things like that. If there are SNPs in those kind of liver detoxification places, these are the people that have a harder time because we're working to try to figure out, you know, how do we slow the role of phase one detox so that phase two can get caught up because they're running slow on phase two. And the problem with mycotoxins, which is with many toxins, is that they get more toxic when they go through the phase one, so that intermediary metabolite is more toxic. So most of the things that are really, really good for mold toxicity are inhibiting the phase one. And some people would say, wait a minute, why is it doing that? That's bad, right? So green tea, milk thistle, turmeric, globe artichoke. I mean, all of these things will slow down phase one, and that's a good thing because then phase two can keep caught up. And with most of those plants, the reason we love them is that they also enhance phase two so that intermediary. More toxic. Like we've just made that mycotoxin more toxic as we're trying to detox it. That part gets the. The liver gets protected from those toxic things.

Yeah, yeah, got it. So that though methylation issues, SU walks the GST, SNPs, all of those, they do matter with regards. And that may be more of the people that have the higher sensitivity to molds and have more of the symptom picture.

Yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna save everyone.

Yeah.

I always say that's not a problem. That's your superpower. Because if you're reacting sooner, you're the one that's saying there's a problem here protecting everyone else. So the, they're actually probably protecting the HLA people because they're saying, you know, there's a problem in this school or there's a problem in this hospital or this military thing. Their bodies are reacting and if we can listen to those people and honor it. Yeah, we're going to be protecting all the normal people and the good, the good metabolizers, you know.

Right.

George Burns is out there that are just like, you know, cigar mold, whatever, you know. Right.

They say nothing. They're all dead. Yes. What are your doctors say, George? So that component. Yeah, it's so of course life is like this. Right. There's no cookie cutter approach for molds and mycotoxins. And you know, interestingly enough, I, you know, I moved from Portland, Oregon to Park City, Utah and I thought I lived in the mold capital of the world and lo and behold, it's everywhere. I mean you, you knew this long before I did, but I just thought living in a cold, damp environment for nine out of 12 months, I'd see a lot more mold. And there was a ton of mold folks up in Portland, but get. There's a ton of mold folks here in Utah too. It's everywhere, right?

This is, it's a building problem, not a location problem.

Yeah, yeah.

Goodness, that's a big shocker, isn't it? Just like.

Yeah, yeah. Over half the buildings in the, in North America, right. They're saying over half have had some or have a mold issue and that level of toxicity. So it's just bringing out these pieces of our individual physiology, biochemistry, anatomy, maybe our bioenergetics as well. What are you seeing constellation wise? Well, I don't want to move off of any other insights on the testing. I mean that has been like. That's chock full of amazingness right there. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, that's all, that's all covered in my updates course with it's upcoming with you know, kind of handouts and schematics. You can kind of go through the algorithm of like, well, what question am I trying to answer? And what are the limits? Love it. So that's all in creation right now. Anything Else about testing? Not that I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure if it, if it pops up, I'll just roll back.

What about like the immediate extreme reactivity and in environment. I mean, maybe just comment on that front.

The people who are hyperreactive.

Yeah, the hyper reactivity.

Yeah, that's really, I think quite mast cell mediated. And the lovely thing about being an antibath, as you know, is we have such a huge toolbox. I didn't have a lot of patients who had a lot of mast cell issues because I use antifungals and I don't have to wait for someone to have a fungal infection to feel comfortable using these plants or even these pharmaceuticals. So I think that if we understand what a mast cell is, it's the backup system for our organized, healthy immune system. So when the organized, healthy immune system starts to get compromised on our mucosal surfaces, on our skin, that's when the mast cells get recruited. So we go from a discerning specific antibody reaction or macrophage action. So it's saying, I know you are the problem. And so we're just going to envelop you and digest you and whatever. Or an antibody, you know, where it says that's the problem, we're going to tag that cell, it's got a virus. And so we can come and, you know, cause that cell to die so we can put a new healthy cell in there. That's our normal immune system. Well, and when that's not working, the cluster bombs get, get called in. They are, they're not discerning, they're non specific reaction, which means they're going to blow up healthy cells at the same time as they're trying to blow up the, the offender. And mold and fungi tend to be very, very effective inducers of mast cells. They're very good at the whole evasion of the immune system and then invasion. They're just kind of, I kind of have this I story in my head of, you know, like can leap up on the balcony and then hide from the.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. You know, yeah.

Where did that thing go? You know, and it can't track. And so fungus is very good, very potent inducer, just like parasites are. So if you have a fungal parasite combination that is a, you know, fungally burdened patient who, because of the fungal burden, had enough immune deficiency. Now the microbiome is no longer a commensal microbiome. It's a dysfunctional pathogenic biofilm. And the parasites say, thank you. You Know, I love that reactivity. People I'm seeing are heavily fungally burdened and the faster we can get them on antifungal help, the better. And many of them have kind of low lying parasite problems, especially since COVID.

And you feel, you think that's secondary to the fungus that evaded immune or it's like chicken of the egg there.

Well, I think what's happening is what's really unique about a fungus is that it doesn't necessarily stay on the surface. So the way the fungi infect being that they will root down or cause a hyphal root to go down into the basement membrane to get a hook. And when that happens, that breach happens, that's when we call in the mast cells. That's when we say, okay, barriers are breached. Now we just need to explode the barrier and start over.

Got it?

Yeah. And that's where you and I have talked about bitters, how brilliant they are. The bitter taste receptors. When we stimulate those on our tongue, that not only helps to replace the next cell, kind of like a shark tooth, when they lose the tooth, the next one pops up. Well, if you didn't have these bitter taste receptors induced, that cell can take a while to come back up and, and replace how parasites can happen from fungal infection. The other thing that bitters do is they help to make sure proteins are folded appropriately, not just on the gut wall, but in the brain. And that's how we see them help with reducing prion diseases. Yeah, just bitter on the tongue. Simple.

Love that. I love. Bitter is better.

Bitter is better. Yeah.

The. Are you seeing more mast cell activation syndrome components? You kind of said just. And especially since COVID and just our immune systems like there is where I'm seeing that as well. It's like there's a lot more reactivity happening for so many people. And I'm kind of putting that in the boy. Our, our vitality has gone down quite a bit from exposure, stress, you know, all of the things the myco. I mean the, the spike proteins and that reactivity of the great experiment that has been unleashed on us here, it's made our jobs much harder. Differentiating and understanding, well, what is the immune system doing now?

Right, right, right. And how is the bioweapon morphing? Yeah, it is. It's figuring us out real, real, real quick.

Yeah.

You know, our dear mentor, Dr. Paul Anderson, really it was just such a profound statement that he said is it's never going to be the before, never going to be the time before COVID ever Again, because the whole world is exposed right now. This thing is morphing and mutating and changing. And what it figured out is how to use the dendritic cells of our immune system as a delivery system to the vagus nerve. Really big deal.

That is a big deal.

It's a huge deal. Huge deal. So now you've got this spike protein which has little venom like peptides on it that can answer receptors in the nervous system. Nicotinic receptors that change our entire cholinergic acetylcholine structure. So that's how more ehlers danlos, more pots. More mast cells. Why more mast cells? Well, this invader isn't supposed to be in the central nervous system. It's not tied to the vagus nerve. And then it can ride into our central nervous system and one of. And if the microglia, which is our. Our eaters. Eater immune system in our brain can't address it again because it's hiding on this nicotinic receptor. Well, call in the mast cells, we'll just.

Yeah.

You know, and so then there's a ton of mast cells in the. In the central nervous system.

It's. Yeah, right. Adding to more inflammation and degradation and acceleration into dysfunctional states. You know, it's interesting. You're. You're talking about the nicotinic receptors and we. We've been really getting into methylene blue nicotine actually as helping folks with long Covid. And along those lines, I'm wondering if you're activity in those realms too.

Yeah, I've been using nicotine for a while. I had a whole email series about it. If anyone wants to wants it, they can just email me. And we have a how to. Here are the precautions. Here's like when you're using nicotine, you can upregulate the receptors actually. So that can leave more docking stations for more spike, which can make someone sort of like a spike sponge. So you want to make sure you're using theanine to keep the receptors to their normal level. So just all those kind of nuances I have written. Yeah.

Awesome.

I love nicotine. Like I'm in love with it. I'm like, this is the antidote. This is the antidote for the poison that we've been exposed to.

Yeah, it's a biggie.

Huge.

How about. Have you seen any of the specific mycotoxins in urine that correlate with Marcons? Just kind of changing it up here again.

But yeah, no, that's a great question because Marcons is. That's a whole Controversial area too, of like, oh, you know, colonization isn't a thing.

Right.

If you talk to an ENT doctor, they'll say, oh, we don't treat colonization. And I always show them the papers that show that for chronic rhinos sinusitis patients, if you do not address biofilm post operatively, those patients have to have another surgery. They have more infections, more inflammation. And you know, it's just like, why wouldn't you treat that? If we know that that's the outcome.

Yeah.

Of having it. So I'm a big fan of treating the sinuses. That's a big part of the antifungal stage, the how I approach it. Because if we're not addressing that this is the seed in our nose, we have post nasal drip and if you have a bunch of spores there and you're swallowing, you're seeding the gut. The controversy makes sense because ents will say, well wait a minute, healthy people have fungus in their sinuses. And they're right. So there's another study, Dr. Joseph Brewer did a study that if you and they took healthy controls compared to people sick from a water damaged building. And when you test everybody's nose, lo and behold, we all have fungus up there. So it's not the presence of the fungus. The difference was the healthy people had no mycotoxins in the washings in their lungs, in their urine. And I think they even did a brain biopsy and a gut biopsy. Like, wow, some good testing. The sick people made sick from water damage building had mycotoxins. So when I read that study, it was like 2013. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not taking care of the source of the problem. Like the sinuses are at the top of the tube.

Yeah, right, right.

And when you do energetic testing, the sinuses are a source of like a frequency block for a lot of patients.

Yeah.

So I think it's a really important part. Now are we chasing Marcons? Maybe, maybe not. To me, marcons is an indicator species of biofilm presence. So you won't eradicate the Marcons unless you eradicate the biofilm.

Yeah.

There are lots of things we can put in the nose to do that.

Got it. Yeah. I, you know, I think that the energetics. I'm excited to talk more energetics in the future with you and what your, what you've evolved in your practice. I'm finding them to be very potent and you know, so now I say that and then I'm going to ask you about a drug.

You can Use drugs. Energetic. Energetically. I mean, that's the thing. I don't use antifungals without herbs because, yeah, wisdom.

They're the energy, the tip of the hat to. I have a second brain in the room, Dr. Ken Wolkoff. And he keeps pumping me with questions for you, which is awesome. But I wanted to just give him a shout out. He'll be on the podcast soon enough and it'll be very fun to share with everybody. Itrazanol. Yes. Reading that. Does that help with the detoxification as well?

It. I don't know if it helps with the detox, but it is a game changer for a lot of multic people. This is something that Dr. Campbell, Andrew Campbell, who is the medical director for my Michael lab, he does a lot of consulting as well, and he uses itraconazole. I know Dr. Neil Nathan and I. And, you know, a lot of people treating mold in the more holistic way.

Yeah.

Includes some pharmacy, you know, people, they need it. And yeah, it's not necessarily the non sensitive patient that needs it. It's usually the sensitive patient who's really fungally burdened and needs a break from the invasion.

Yeah.

A really mast cell affected person. I'm thinking more the pharmaceutical way first.

Yeah.

To get that burden down and then, you know, we can move them into the herbals or things that are a little softer.

Got it. So, yeah, get their head out of water, let them bre. Kind of recover a bit and then start building. Yeah. Wow. How about just one more on. Off the cuff here on the ivermectin realm in mold. Mycotoxins. I know Dr. Campbell mentions it in some of his protocols. What's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I've used it with Lyme forever, so that was what was really sadly entertaining. I will say when they're like, it's a dangerous drug. I'm like, right. Using it for almost 20 years.

Yeah.

So that and hydroxychloroquine, those are all things that, you know, people treating chronic Lyme have been using forever have a lot of comfort with.

Yeah.

I don't see making a big bang for mold. So I think these are probably people who are mold affected to fungally burdened to. Now they've got biofilm to now they've got mast cells, and now they're more susceptible to Covid.

Got it.

So that where I was talking, like the mold parasite picture. This is like a chronic mold Covid kind of thing. Chronic mold MCAs to Covid sensitivity.

Sure. And how About. I'm going to bring us into the station, I promise. But I'm wondering, on Parkinson's disease and mold, have you seen many patients with that combo?

Yes. And there's a lot of correlations, like low glutathione status in the nervous system, central nervous system. So that's where you know if somebody's responding to IV glutathione. But the minute you're done with the protocol and everything comes back, I'm like, why mitochondria not recovering? You know, like, you need to take a look at mold. And the correlation there is that. And this is with Pandas and Pans too. So the way I think of pandas and pans is like, it's the pediatrician autoimmune attack of the dopamine receptors that sets the stage for Parkinson's formation later when you now don't have the receptors functioning. And they. And we need to, like, we don't have enough docking stations for dopamine. So I, I do see Pandas and Pans and Parkinson's being very correlated. The. The change is that the mold, mycotoxins, those induce something called TH17 for your listeners, which is an antibody that has a high rate of. It's correlated with autoimmune activity. The way I see th17 is it's actually a sign that the extracellular matrix is being breached and the body is trying to break that down. That's like MMP9 as well. With mold, the matrix is trying to break down so we can move this fatty toxin out of the body. I think there's a lot of high TH17 that if we went to look, why is that getting induced? We're going to see, we're going to get answers. But what happens when we have mold in the sinuses? It reduces the normal commensal microbiome of our sinuses. It leads that microbiome into starting to act pathogenic like a biofilm. And now we have immune deficiency. Now all you need is a regular respiratory exposure. And Th17 is induced from all intranasal infections across the board. Th17 is induced. Now you have also a fat soluble mycotoxin on those nasal passages that. That TH17 can ride. And ride the olfactory bulb right back into the central nervous system, into the basal ganglia, into the limbic system.

Yeah.

And so that moves by gradient. So the more mold you're breathing in, the more mycotoxins you're breathing in, the more you're taking it on. And it'll bump by gradient. It'll bump it back farther and farther into the brain the more you're in that environment. And we see that those mycotoxins go right into the basal ganglia, the hypothalamus, the same area where we see effect with both pandas pans and with dopamine. Or with Parkinson's. Sure.

Wow.

And Alzheimer's.

And Alzheimer's. Yeah. You know. Yeah. It's interesting times we're living in and the correlations and constellations of these coming together. I really appreciate our. Our understanding naturopathically of, of our bodies and innate intelligence and wisdom. Any last closing remarks that you want to to share with our listeners and viewers has been so phenomenal. Thank you for sharing your. Your knowledge and wisdom with us, Dr. Jill.

I guess just to tell everyone this is all treatable because if you're listening, you could be really freaked out right now. It's all treatable, you know, so these are things that we can get you away from the mold, we can get out of your body. And the body has an amazing innate healing capacity. So the big thing is find it if it's there and then take care of it.

Hear, hear. Thank you so much, everybody. If you enjoyed the show, give us a like share us. Give us a five star review. Get out there. This is the information coming from us to you. It's not from the top down. It's really from us to you. And we wouldn't be doing it without you. We will see you soon.