125. Can Mold Exposure and Mold Biofilms Be Wreaking Havoc on Your Brain with Dr. Jill Crista

Welcome to the Holistic Inner Balance podcast with Dr. Nicole Cain and Happy healthy Hadley.

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Hey everyone.

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All right, today we're going to be talking about Biofilms with expert Dr. Jill Christa. We're so happy to have you here. This is the Holistic inner balance and Dr. I'm Dr. Nicole and I'm here with Happy healthy Hadley. So let's talk about biofilms. Microorganisms get together and they protect themselves with biofilms. And usually where there is moisture in your body, you will find a biofilm. So think about your experience with biofilms. Have you been diagnosed with them? Or maybe you've never actually heard of them until this moment. If you've been to the dentist and your dentist has scraped plaque off of your teeth, then you have had biofilms. Originally we noticed them in dentistry and we're starting to see that biofilms occur all over the body. Your digestive tract, your respiratory tract, inside of your blood vessels. Biofilms are everywhere. It's a part of life. But the problem is when we have a lot of infections that are hiding really well inside of the biofilms, whether they are clinical or you experience them overtly or they're subclinical, meaning they're hiding from your immune system. That can be a big part of the picture. And so when a biofilm forms, we can get chronic infections and they could be tricky to catch and diagnose. And so we are really lucky to be hanging out with Dr. Jill Christa.

I know.

Hadley, you've been expressing particular interest in this topic yourself.

Yeah, I have shared with my, my audience on the social medias and I think on this podcast as well that I've had multiple mold exposures throughout the past four years and even maybe potentially before that. I, I suspect that, and it is something that I have talked to so many people about that they are like, oh my gosh, Wait, I have had that, too. And I think that people don't really know about mold specifically. People don't really know about how impactful it can be for our health. You know, people are like, oh, yeah, black mold, obviously that's toxic. But, you know, any mold can be really toxic for us. And you had done an episode with Dr. Jill Christa before I joined the podcast. So this is way back, episode 32. So if you guys want to go back and listen to the episode on mold, it is so enlightening. And I felt so seen re listening to it, because there have been experiences in my life where I'm like, I kind of hit this rock bottom where I'm like, am I even doing what I want to be doing in my life? You know, kind of having this existential thing? And then I realize a couple, you know, weeks or months later that, oh, I've actually been exposed to mold. And then I get out of that environment and I start detoxing, and I'm like, oh, no, everything's fine. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing in the world. I just had mold exposure, and it made me feel terrible. And so. And you guys talked about that on. On that podcast episode. And so if you are. If you suspect or are experiencing mold exposure, I would highly, highly recommend listening to that episode. And then obviously, we're going to go into that today as well, but we're going to specifically talk about biofilms, like Dr. Kane was just describing, because sometimes when we've had mold exposure, we think, oh, I'm out of that environment now. You know, maybe you've been doing some detoxing, but sometimes because of biofilms, it actually makes it so that the mold is kind of hiding from your immune system and from those detox practices that you may have been doing. And so I'm really excited to dive deep into this today.

So let's talk about our guest. Are you so ready?

Yes. I cannot wait to meet her.

I love Dr. Jill. Christa, I think you guys are going to, too. She's a naturopathic doctor. She graduated from National University in Portland, and she has completed training with the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society. She loves plant medicine. She's worked with some of the best teachers of integrative medicine in the country, like Dr. Jill Stansbury. And she has a practice in Wisconsin where she does a lot of education and teaching and advocacy about mold biofilms. And so if you're interested in learning more, she's on Instagram. Dr. Christa but her website is jam packed full of information. I highly recommend her Mold quiz, which is a free quiz there. It's D R C R I S T a dot com. And definitely check her out. And when she gets on this conversation, she'll tell us a little bit more about how we can learn from her. And so, without any further ado, let's meet Dr. Jill. Dr. Jill. Christa, it is amazing to be here with you.

Thank you. It is a huge treat to be chatting with you, my friend, again.

Yes. But this time we get a Hadley from happy, healthy Hadley with us.

Yay.

I'm so happy to be here. And the last episode was phenomenal. So I can't wait to dive into all things biofilm in this. This episode.

Mm.

That biofilm. Fantastic.

So can we start? I always love the personal connection. First is just in case someone didn't get to hear our conversation together. This is the first time they're meeting you. I'm curious about one thing that sets your soul on fire. And then the second thing is if you could only eat one food every day for the rest of your life.

What it would be? Okay, what sets my soul on fire? Usually dancing. Just an easy. Yeah. And the food would be soup.

Yeah, I like that answer. That's a good answer. Because you can change up the soup.

Exactly. Even if it's the same soup. You can, you know. Yeah. So that'd be. I love that. That's my desert island food.

That's your desert island food. I love that.

You didn't even have to think about that. No, no, I've thought about it. These are the things that, you know, brain games I play with myself on long drives.

Mine is always a. Would you rather. But it's always like two horrific options.

Right.

Hadley, we talked about this. I feel like, because Paul's always like, why does your brain do this? And I'm like, I just need to be prepared just in case. So it's like, would you rather have mold or ly or, you know, it's.

Like, oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Hopefully not.

Yeah, right.

It's never like, would you rather have a million dollars or a million puppies? It's never something fun like that.

Right, right. Unicorn or a pegasus? Which one? Yeah. Right.

I got in an argument with a 10 year old about the difference between a unicorn and a pegasus.

Of course you did. Who was the authority in the end?

I think she actually was the one who is correct. I think I lost that argument, which was really disturbing for my inner 10, 11 year old. Because I've had pegasus unicorns on my wall as early as I can remember. But apparently I thought that only pegasus had wings, but she said unicorns could have wings. What do you guys think?

I don't know about that.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think you might be right.

Am I right?

I think so.

Let's ask Lisa Frank. So Lisa, if you're listening, what. Please weigh in. What do you think?

I love it. I love it.

Oh my gosh.

Or you could have a cross between a pegasus and a unicorn that would create one with a horn and.

Yeah, it feels right.

Yeah.

The most important things, the most important questions weighing on our audience minds.

Yeah, that's why.

It does kind of speak to why anxiety and vagal health and all of that is a focus for you because you have this button. I used to talk to my sons about this. Like when, when there's pandas, pans or mold or those kinds of things, it puts you into this. Like there's a button that gets switched where things go bigger and batter. I said that's your bigger batter button. Turn it off. The bigger better. So if you're like your would you rathers are terrible things. It's like, oh, you might have one of those buttons that's really, it's big sized and other people have it but it's tinier and so they don't have to have all the skill set that you've learned in your lifetime to like keep that button small. Keep that button.

Yes. I resonate with that so much.

Yes.

Yeah. Like, I think my button is pretty small, but the times that I've experienced mold exposure, it gets so big and I catastrophize so much. And my husband is like, who, where did my wife go? Like, what, how, how is this impacting you so much? And I'm like, everything is horrible and it's going to be horrible forever and it will never get better. And so it's. Yeah, it's, it's huge.

It's huge.

That's where you get into like every space is sick. There's no safe place to be. I have to live out of an rv. And you know, some of those situations are true as far as like there are whole neighborhoods where they put in every bit of drywall was moldy. You know, there are, there are builders that, that can create an entire neighborhood with a problem. But you know, there are plenty of safe places. Like we just had a water damage in my, in my own new build home and it was it's minor. We took care of it. There's a little bit of mold, but it's like one board. And we're just going to remove the board, we're going to put in a fresh one, we plug the leak. You know, it's just like not everything has to be chaos, but when you're in the middle of it. I quickly went into that thing of like, the hole room is going to have to get tore out again. And you know, it went back into the story of having to do full remediation and it was just like, okay, use your skills, use your skills. You've got skills for this. Like, calm down and keep your head on and just take one step. That's the only next thing I had to know is what was the next step. And I love that you're sharing this.

Because I think it just makes it so human for everyone because I same like, I will go into the spiral of we have to, we have to move. We have, we have to get out of here. We have to, we have to leave.

And that is my first thought. That's so funny that you said that. And I and my kids were like, seriously, you just moved. Like, you know, that's when I was like, oh, right, right, right. This is, this is limbic looping. This is the anxiousness that mold can create and the irrational thinking and the freak out. And. And then I had to just remember, like, and I am a mermaid. I'm a mermaid incarnated. Water loves me. It finds me everywhere that I go. It will find me in my new build that we did all the precautions. We did the thermal camera before moving in. We did the, you know, the inspection and water found me because I'm mermaid. So this can be a part of my life. And I just have to like, never finish a basement. Like just have all of my precautions in place and also have my skill set. So, yeah, so I just want to share with people. I have a guided visualization that I lovingly call breaking up with mold. It's called the clarity pep talk. And it's a guided visualization because mold will get you on an energetic coherence with it. And so that is the person that when they move, they move into another moldy space or when their insurance says we need to remediate. We're going to put you up in a hotel. The hotel is moldy. So this like perpetual mold experience thing can be a coherence thing. And so it's really important that you address that coherence and get off the radio station that mold is listening to. Like, you have to move the vibration off, otherwise you will continue. And in my case, my coherence is with water. Mold can be a result of that. But that's what I was just like, okay, here's me being a mermaid again. So I'll just recognize that. So it wasn't that I was still on the coherence with mold, but that can happen. And that then you're moving from moldy space to moldy space because you're. You're in that coherence.

Okay, I definitely need to start with this meditation because, yeah, I've had four different. I've lived. I've lived in many, many houses for the past, like, three years just because I've been doing the digital Nomad thing. But many of them have had mold in them. So I definitely want to check out that meditation. Thank you for sharing that. And we'll put that in the show notes.

Yeah, it's completely free. You do have to, like, buy it for $0 so that you listen to it within because, you know, lawyers and things, they want it under the umbrella. But. Yeah, but Dr. Kane, you have some amazing meditations.

Thank you. Yeah. Insight Timer. They're all free.

Yeah.

So that's so nice of you. I'd love to actually expand more on this coherence piece. So let's say that someone's listening and they're like, I don't know what this means. This is the first time I've ever heard of it. How do I know if I'm incoherence? What is. What is all of this? So can you share more?

So this is kind of going into the world of quantum biology where we are. And this is, you know, based on a lot of nerdy scientists. But the person who's, I feel like, is the best translator is Dr. Joe Dispenza that he's able to just say, you know, all this complicated quantum science stuff, how is it affecting your biology? It's the particle wave situation. So we are both particle and we are both wave. And when we are observing or we have some say in what we are manifesting in our particle state by our thoughts. So, you know, he has a beautiful phrase like you. You think and you become it. You know, basically. So it's. It's not. I think it was Wayne Dwyer who coined this, that it isn't that. Well, I'll believe it when I see it. It's actually, I'll see it. I'll believe it to see it.

There's the right Way to believe it, to see it.

Yeah. So you are changing your energetic imprint. And that's where things like meditations that you offer are so important, is that it's that moment where you get to just like move out of your particle form, go into a place where every reality that could exist does. And which one do you want to choose and manifest? And then which one do you believe in? Because if you don't believe you're worth healing, well, that's. That's the first step, you know, because then when you go into that energetic state, you pop back out of it, and then your I'm not worth it takes over and just rewrites what you're manifesting. So this is the coherence of mold is not that you called it in the first time. Sometimes, yes. Some. You know, that can happen. Like, I've got a lot of junk either physical, emotional, whatever, that I'm not willing to deal with. And we'll just like, I'll help. I'm good at that. That's what I'm on the planet for. Let me help. So, you know, I vilify it a lot, but it is really trying to, like, we're confusing the heck out of it because we're building our homes that are way too humid, full of organic material that. That's its job on the planet, you know, let's break it down. So sometimes you can call it in, but usually not. Usually it's just something that happens to someone. But then when it is happening to you, that the things that it changes in the brain, limbic system, that. That it can actually go along the olfactory ball, which is a nerve in our brain, to the brain stem. And it can change how our brain functions. And that's then where you lose that or you. I won't say lose. I want to. I don't want to project that where it's a little more challenging. You have to be more intentional about what you're calling in, what you're. What vibration you are choosing to be on that coherence thing. Because mold will put you into anxiety, you know, anxiousness, restlessness. I'm not safe. Nowhere safe in the world. Limbic looping. And then you get into vagal dysfunction, which is, you know, and it's all from real stuff. It's these chemicals that are interacting with your nose, your respiratory system.

But you.

It doesn't smell. There's no tiger. You know, you can't see it. You can't smell it. You can't hear it. It's not like, mold has a song or a roar. You know, there's all these things. You can't feel it, but your wise body is saying, whoa, there's poison in the air. Get out. And so your. Your conscious mind looks around and is like, that makes no sense. Why do I have to move? It's just fine. It's beautiful. We're right by the beach. Or, you know, you start, like, discounting what your intuition is saying, and then you get that split of, like, the cognitive thinking brain from this wise limbic survival brain, and they aren't talking anymore. And that's where then mold can say, no problem. I'll tell you what you need to do. You need to just stay put. I'm helping. I'm here to help.

Just stay.

Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah, I've experienced that.

Where it's literally like, I. I just don't want to do anything. I don't want to leave my home that has mold in it. I don't want to go anywhere. I just want to, like, lie in bed and, you know, watch my favorite Netflix show and not leave.

Yes.

So wild.

Not even get outside.

Yes. Yeah, Exactly. Wow.

That's the most rebellious thing you can do to get better is get outdoors, get actual fresh air, balanced air. Because what happens when mold gets in an indoor space now, it doesn't have all the nature forces to keep it in balance and in check, so it starts acting competitively and, ergo, biofilm. So usually there's sunlight, there's air movement. There's critters that like to drink up all the dew water. That's what nature's gift is of dew. It's like, okay, little spiders that would have drowned. Here's a little bit of drink of water for you this morning. And so it all disappears. And there's one way I'm trying to think of, like, all the things. Sunlight, air movement, water, you know, so you take mold. Oh, and the most important thing, the mycelial network underneath all of it. What do. I don't know if he's doctor. I just. I just elevated him to Dr. Paul Stamets, who's an amazing mycologist. He calls it the wood wide web. So there's this wisdom in nature that is, like. It's the thing that is communicating all the balance between the trees. This is how trees talk to each other. It's underground. All of this is happening underground. Well, when you bring mold indoors, just like a person, and it's ungrounded and there's no air movement, there's no sunshine. There's no critters mopping up the water, and there's no mycelial wisdom saying, hey, by the way, you're just here to kind of digest that leaf and then move on. You know, like, not. Not to take over the whole space. But mold will get in, and it will start to act competitively, and that is where we get the mycotoxins. Mold makes those as a weapon to compete out the other microbes, because it's like, whoa, I have lakefront property, and I have nobody telling me what to do. And so it'll just start acting naughty. And that's you. You know, every home kind of has a microbial normal balance, just like a body. You know, our sinuses have a microbiome, our gut has a microbiome. But when mole gets in that space and it's like, got enough moisture to. You're watering it and all it takes is humidity, then it'll start acting really naughty, making these mycotoxins. And that creates a biofilm in that place.

Okay, so the biofilm can happen in our bodies and also can happen in the home or in the workplace or school or wherever it is that we're going to.

Yes. So that's what happens with water damage, is that you will get species that will get more than what they would have gotten in nature, and they start acting greedy and. And it becomes toxic. Yeah. And then you can become the moldy building. So usually the biofilm starts in the building, and then you take that on.

And then they can seek support from the other critters out there. And so these biofilms can contain the mold, and it can contain virus particles and bacterial particles. And then they can all be like, we all want this beachfront property. We're gonna put up a fortress and keep everyone else out, and we're just gonna get bigger and bigger.

Yeah. And they do it by you know, putting minerals outside, like a crust. And so it becomes this impermeable little fortress of. It's competing with each other, but kind of also helping each other out, because it. There's something called quorum sensing, where they'll. They'll be sampling the air to say, okay, there's. There's more moisture, so this is probably a good time for us to take over a little more territory and spread. So who's going to do it? You know, and they all kind of work together, but they kind of compete at the same time. And that's why you get mycotoxins, endotoxins, all of this mix of chemicals in the air.

Wow.

Okay.

And so when the biofilms occur in our bodies, how does that, how does that form? Where does it form? And like, can you kind of give our audience like a picture of. Okay, so what is actually happening in my body as this occurs?

Yeah, so the, the easiest biofilm to think about is plaque on your teeth. That's a normal biofilm. And I mean, not necessarily it's normal, but it's not healthy. And we're going to have more plaque on the teeth if you have a more cruddy diet that is feeding species in your mouth that like that kind of diet. And they tend not to be the most commensal, meaning they're not really working for the benefit of the whole organism. There are more microbes in our body than there are cells in our body, which is wild to think about. You know, that's wild. Even a DNA count, like DNA to DNA, there's more that belongs to the microbes in our gut than our own tissues, our own cells, which is amazing. So that's all usually working for the benefit of the planet they live inside, you know, because they want, they want to help us survive. And so there's this nice commensal relationship with our, with the bugs in our gut. And when they're happy, our brains are happy, which is very easy. That makes it easier to like manipulate our brain if we can just like make our gut happy. So those guys, usually we would call the ones that are working for the benefit of the body, the commensal ones. And the ones that are not working for the benefit of the body that can kind of grow out of balance or might even be foreign microbes that have invaded in the body. Those would be the non commensal, so they can be more pathogenic. And so what happens with the, the whole. We have microbiomes that are unique to different areas. So we have, we have a nose or sinus microbiome, a mouth microbiome, a lung microbiome, a gut microbiome, a skin microbiome. When we're breathing moldy air. This is now not just spores, it's also all those chemicals that they were making to compete with each other. Goes into that indoor air and that then comes into our passages and we will actually smell by having a physical contact with a molecule. Our smell nerve is really interesting. It winds around the survival part of our brain, the brain stem, the limbic system, and then it reaches all the way forward and then these bare nerve fibers come down through our nose when we're Smelling. We're actually touching the molecule, and then the molecule is sending a message to the brain. That's a beautiful flower. Okay, that's asphalt or a baby diaper. And what's actually happening is that molecules touching the nerve fiber to send the message. And then usually we have snot. It's very, very effective at digesting these kind of things. And then you just kind of either use it as a nutrient or, you know, blow it out, that kind of thing. So the problem with mycotoxins, though, is that it will impair the immune system of our nose and all of our microbiome, all of our respiratory passages, the skin. So you can see skin rashes, more breathing problems, sinus problems, because it's manipulating the immune system. Remember those Mycotoxins are made to compete with another microbe, but we have a ton of microbes lining these spaces. So when that mycotoxin goes up in there, when we breathe it, it's now impairing the immune system of that area. So it's knocking out the friendly microbes, and it's bringing in the more pathogenic ones or allowing them to survive. And that kind of. I think of it as a continuum. The more of the toxins that you're exposed to, the more the pathogenics that we get, and then eventually the pathogenics become the ones in charge. And that's when they start making this thick slime layer that's called a biofilm. I. That's really a microbiome gotten out of control. And so when we can take care of digesting the slime, their protective layer, and knocking down the pathogenic guys, it helps then the recovery part so that your body can get back into a commensal microbiome. I hope I explained that it's long winded.

Yeah, that was good.

Oh, my gosh. So then once we kind of get that slime out of the way, do we. Do we then have sort of like a spilling out of all of these things that we then really need to get under wraps?

Yeah, that's a great question. Because when I first kind of understood that mold was causing fungal burden in the body, I was like, oh, okay, this is mold. And they have, like, you know, not just candida overgrowth, but just a fungal burden in the body. It's like, okay, I get it. I'm going to put them on antifungals. Well, the problem with that is that they will defend themselves by making more toxin. So they. They try to defend themselves with the poison that will hurt the other microbe. Because it doesn't know who's attacking it. It doesn't realize it's like a pharmaceutical drug or an herb that's really good at knocking them back. They'll just be like, whoa, that doesn't feel good. I'm going to spit out all these mycotoxins and that more biofilm slime layer, because then it will make more of a mucus lining to defend itself. So when we're talking about biofilm, we're dealing with the junk that's inside of that. But also the matrix needs to be dissolved. And so it's like a two pronged way to get at it. But if your whole body is burdened with a microbe and we open up biofilm, the slime layer now, we've just increased the body burden of the pathogenic microbes. So what I typically do is I kind of have a, it's called peel the orange is kind of my method. And it's like, first of all, you got to get out of mold. And then how do we get your body detoxed a little bit and nutritionally supported? Because we know mold's going to get mean when we start going after it. And then we take care of the first layer, like the top layer of bad guys, and then we start digesting the slime layer and stay on the anti bad guy thing because we know that we're going to uncover more of them. So. Good.

Yeah, I think. Well, and I'm also curious, do, do symptoms vary for when you have mold exposure? Do they vary based on the type of mold that it is, or is it mostly just wherever it is that, that your weakness is in your body and the mycotoxins from whatever mold will come in and just kind of target whatever is the weakest part of your body? Because I know that that was, that was a question that, that I had, like listening to your, your last episode. And I think it'd be helpful for.

People to, to understand mold is very good at highlighting your weak points. So whatever your Achilles heel is, it will just make that worse. And that's how it can go undiscovered for so long. Because you'll think, oh, okay, well, I'm, I'm just a generally anxious person. So this anxiety that then you go searching for all the reasons why, you know, you're like, oh, well, maybe I'm just a little more stressed at work or maybe it's because I'm a new parent or, you know, you start making all these excuses because if that's your nature and it just enhanced it. You're going to come up with all the reasonable things because again, there's no tiger. There's no, you can't see it, smell it, taste it, feel it. There's no other thing other than the, the wisdom of your intuitive brain saying there's a poison in the air. But I don't know how to tell you that because the brain can only say ouch in a few ways. You know, it can only say ouch by being anxious or depressed or inflamed. So how does, how does it tell you that unique message? And what if your, your Achilles heel is that you've got kind of a, a grumpy gut? You know, then if it's a little more grumpy that then what do you do? What did I eat? Oh, I, I probably need to not have grains. I probably need. So then diet change to control the grumpiness of your gut. And so there's all these ways that mold can make you sick. So yes, it's going to highlight your Achilles heel. But we also are finding in our research and we're just at the beginning of this preliminary research and Dr. Neil Nathan and I are working with the Change the Air foundation on a study. We got IRB approval and you can find that@moldiq.org help us out, fill out your symptoms. What we're finding is that and it's consistent with what I found in practice, certain molds cause certain, a certain cluster of symptoms typically. So there are some that we know cross the blood brain barrier and so they're going to have more of the brain effects, mental health effects, cognitive effects, movement problems, dementia, those kinds of things. And one of them is ketomium. It makes a mycotoxin called chetglobacin or ketoglobacin and you can test for this. This one we know crosses the blood brain barrier and I can almost tell in the patient who has it because they will be the most cognitively challenged. They won't be able to follow the directions by my staff. They won't be able to figure out how to log in. I'm stuck on the captcha. How do I get off of this thing? This mold brain is real for starters. That's one of them. That also it, it causes a lot of cognitive but it causes a lot of anxiousness. So the people that are just like over the top anxious, they're like, I don't know, I'm just not handling things right and they self blame, you know, must be me, I need better skills and yeah, better skills are great. And if you have mold in your brain, you're not going to feel good. So, yeah, I think we're finding what I have found in practice, that certain molds create these clusters. Now, not all the time will they make this mycotoxin or that mycotoxin. And that's the confusing thing is that some molds make multiple mycotoxins and some mycotoxins come from multiple molds. There are these pictures that we can see that it's like, okay, if you have this one, this one, and this one, you're going to be loaded with ochratoxin. We know that that's gotta be our target. And it's going to cause certain types of symptoms.

Oh, that is great.

Yeah. Watch for the research. I do have fact sheets on some of them. I have in my br. Have the symptom clusters, and I've gotten the brain dump down on certain ones. If you go to drchrista.com put in the name of the mycotoxin, I have a fact sheet that has the symptom cluster that we see.

Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, that'll be great for people to be able to. To dive deeper into it. Yeah, yeah.

And then the biofilm validating. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah.

And you're like, oh, my gosh, it wasn't all in my head.

Oh, this research is so valuable. I read in, there's this news article that came out in 2024 where they're expressing that biofilms are emerging as one of the greatest health crisis in our modern era. And so they're trying to. The NIH is providing grants for people who are doing research labs, doing research on what do we do about biofilms? And they're trying to develop solutions, pharmaceutical solutions, to try to combat this issue, because just straight up, diploucan just doesn't cut it anymore. And so what do you do? So someone's listening to this conversation and they're wondering, what if mold is underneath all of this? For me, maybe I don't have a deficiency in serotonin and need more Prozac. Or maybe I don't need the Adderall because I have mold grain. Do I have mold? And if so, how do I find out? What do I do?

So for starters, the how do I find out is I have a clinical questionnaire. It's completely free. And that is the thing that you can fill out in the study. But if you're listening later and the study has closed, that's at my website, drkrista.com questionnaire. Get your mold score. You will get a score that says for sure or this is probable mold. And I won't want to say for sure, but probably this is a mold problem. Then there's a middle of the road. It's possible it's mold, but it could be a lime mold combination or it could be other things, but it's possible it's mold. And then there's a, nah, probably not mold. So it's most reliable if you're not on a whole bunch of treatment for mold because the treatments actually work and they reduce symptoms. So you want to fill it out as if you didn't have any help at all. How would you be feeling? Like when you run out of your glutathione or your resveratrol or that kind of thing, how do you feel? Or if you, if you don't get to take itraconazole, do you bloat with every meal? That kind of thing. So fill it out as if you weren't doing any treatment if you're deep into it. But if you're at the very beginning and you're like, huh, I wonder if this mold thing is, is what I have going on. They can fill out the questionnaire, get their score. So then the biofilm piece, that's. We have so many tools for that. And when we think about it being a slime layer, it's got both proteins in it and it's got some minerals in it, and it's got some. It's like this mixed matri and it's. Each biofilm will be a little bit different in each person depending on who the microbes are that moved into their body. So you become the sick, building on your sinus passages in your gut. Because every time you swallow a little post nasal drip, you're seeding your gut. So whatever's in the nose is going to end up in the gut. That's why nasal treatment is so important for treatment. When I added nasal treatment, people got better so much faster and they, they were able to tolerate tiny mold exposures a lot better and weren't like, you know, in bed for two weeks. So when, when I read Dr. Brewer study about colonization, I was like, oh, I'm missing a huge part. This is like 2013. Put all my mold patients on intranasal therapy and they got better so much faster and their brains cleared up faster. So when we think about what do we do for the biofilm part, we can't just like throw antifungals in there, if there's biofilm, that they're going to figure out a way to resist it. So that's a big problem we're having is fungal resistance to the pharmaceuticals. So we have some little, wonderful little hacks that we can do. So if there's, if you've been on an antifungal forever, forever, forever, and you still can't get off of it, you can either add garlic, which has been shown to reduce drug resistance to these guys, which is amazing. And it itself has antibio film activity because it has enzymatic activity. So garlic is like my first, like, well, it might be that the critters have figured out how to work around the drug. But when you add garlic, we see that it, we don't take away the drug, keep the drug and we add the garlic and then there's more killing ability we might say. And part of that, I think, is not because of garlic's antimicrobial activity as much as it is its antibiotic activity. So that's a little like, that's a first step. And then if that's like, yeah, it helped and we're still not seeing improvement in symptoms, then that's where the biofilm is the barrier. So we make sure to add things to the whole body. Some of these things we can't put in the nose. We can do it as essential oils, but most of them we try and get the anti biofilm activity in the gut. And then if we can really knock down the gut biofilm, it helps the body take care of the sinuses. So there are some herbs that are wonderful for this. Ginger is one of them. Like ginger is very warming. That's not something I want to necessarily snort up somebody's nose. However people do, they make ginger kimchi and they will take a little bit of that juice and you know, do the snort of each, which sounds very Bernie to me. But some people say, well, you put essential oils up people's nose, so you know, maybe it's the same, I don't know. But you can take a lot of ginger orally so you can swallow it. And ginger has anti inflammatory properties, but has anti biofilm properties. It's amazing. Rosemary is another one. Rosemary is lovely to smell. You can do rosemary steams, steam inhalation of rosemary. What we find in studies is that when you steam some of these aromatic herbs, it will actually amplify the antimicrobial activity. So that could be a way that you could get it in the nose and then just, you know, take Rosemary as a supplement or eat a ton of it. It's a wonderful thing to add to food. So but we are looking for it in, like, you know, pharma doses. We want to be using these herbs as medicine. So add it to food. Yes. And take it as supplement so that we can get it high enough in your body to knock down the biofilm. And these are just ways that you can just persistently chew away at that slime layer. The other thing is boswellia, so frankincense. You can have the essential oil up in the nose and then you can take it as a supplement as boswellia anti biofilm activity. So those are three plant ways to do it that are taking care of the non proteinaceous matrix, the protein part of it. Then we add the enzymes, and enzymes are going to chew away the protein part. So when you combine those together, it makes it a very impressive biofilm peeler. And I've had people bring me jars of these biofilms that they've excreted. It's always fun. As a naturopathic doctor, people bring you worms in a jar, but when biofilm comes out, it is just like they just lost a chunk of their colon. The whole thing peeled off. Usually there will be some blood. That's a really aggressive biofilm peeling. And I've learned, okay, I don't have to be that aggressive. I don't have to smack them with the high enzymes and try to get this to peel off. We can chew away at it with these plants. And that's when I went searching for the plants, because I was like, first of all, that was extremely painful for the person. It's alarming. To be bleeding from the colon is a bit of an alarming moment. So let's find a better way to do this. And it's a long game, but it's an effective game. And then you get that slime turns back slowly into a mucosa that has, you know, nutrients that your commensal species like to eat and that kind of thing. Yeah. And aloe is beautiful to mix in there, to nourish what we want in there. And then those other plants can take away the things we don't want.

Wow, that's incredible. I had not heard about doing that in the nose. That's such a game changer.

Yes. And I have to echo that because I have referred hundreds of people to your quiz. And then I had a woman and she had really high orchid toxin and it wasn't coming down. And I was like, go to Dr. Jill's website. You have a nasal treatment on your site. And so she bought that and started using it. And that's when she started to notice more progress because she was doing the other things. But that nose piece, I didn't know till I learned it from you more recently. And it's like, it's an obstacle to cure. Yes. And I, I love that you've given us some tangible herbal hacks because herbs have so much compositional diversity that it's more difficult for the body to create a resistance to an herb, especially if you're throwing it in rotation as opposed to like, I'm just going to give it one mechanism of action.

Right.

And then, and then the, the fungus is like, I got you and I'll raise you this.

Yeah, I'll raise you a whole castle of defense that you can. Yeah, I love, that's what I love about the herbs. And, you know, and I was trying to figure out like, what is the. Of course, you know, because every drug company is trying to figure out how do we make a drug out of this thing? So they were finding, oh, it's the rosmarinic acid in rosemary. And then they were like, oh, no, but it's this other thing too. And, and there's this other antimicrobial thing and there's this anti. Inflammatory and this anti Neuro. Inflammatory. So it's a whole.

Oh, it's actually the whole Rosemary. Rosemary.

It harkens back to what you were saying about how mold is, is supposed to live outside with the dew and the critters and the plants. And so it's like when we take it out of this natural environment with sun and rain and wind and all of these different variables, and we put it inside of a building and concentrate it. And then in our body that is compromised, whether by trauma or other forms of toxicity or you have it, then suddenly it's in this unnatural environment. And so then when we're trying to extract components like rosmarinic acid and just give us one component, it wasn't intended to work that way anyway.

Right, right. It was made as a whole plant. Maybe there was some wisdom in that, you know. Yeah, totally.

Well, and Dr. Kane, you just said doing it rotationally. Do either of you want to speak to that a little bit? Just so that our audience knows like what that, what that means and how they can kind of do that for themselves.

Dr. Jill, you take it.

Okay, I was gonna say either. Yeah, it's, it's a fun way to do it because first of all, you Will get tired of the certain of certain things. So typically I'm doing about three or to four weeks of a remedy. And then we shift gears three to four weeks more shift gears. So I like to have two to three, ideally three different ways to do these antifungal, anti biofilm things because you're in this for the long game. So is the fungus, you know, it's a survivor. And so it, I call it the Navy seal of the microbe world. It'll just like hunker down and wait. It'll be like, okay, well this Itraconosole will be gone pretty soon. And now we know what the weapon is. So now we can build, can bite our time. And when the weapon's gone, then we can build the fortress against it. And that's where I'm. You can have different perspectives with the Lyme and mold and antimicrobial therapy. Whether it's antibiotics or antifungals, whether it's plants or drugs, There's a lot of people who say staying on them long term creates resistance. And what we actually find in the research online is it's the on off, on off. So we, we keep too short for that first course and then we take it out. Now the Lyme knows how you're coming for it and it'll actually switch out a genetic cassette on the surface of its, of the, of the bacteria. It'll take down the one that the antibiotic worked against and it'll put up a new one. So it's got all this backup. It's got all this backup. So what we really want to be doing and thinking about is you're going to have better success long term if you go low and slow in a long time. Some people have to be on these for two years. That's why I like to use plants and rotation. Usually we're talking nine to 12 months in their time frame that it takes. But, you know, it depends on how impacted your, your microbiome has become. It may need more help. So it's much more effective at getting at it if you, you will develop less biofilm if you stay on a lower long term continuous dose than to do a big dose and then take it away. Now you've just told all the critters in that biofilm what's coming and they'll figure it out. They'll, they'll figure out a workaround.

I love that. I'm wondering too about testing and some people are talking a lot more about giving somebody a biofilm buster, if you will. Before a test so you don't get false negatives. Tell me your take on that.

I think that we really have to hold the testing. I talk about this for 45 minutes in my course because there's so much to say about it. I do a lot of split sample testing where I'm taking the same person and then testing their different methods. So it would be all the various ways to test their urine and then also testing their blood for antibodies against mycotoxins and also mold allergy. So when we look at all of those, I've learned that each way that we're going to test dictates what we do before. So what's the prep? And I have a handout. It's free on my website. It's in the footer. The urine mycotoxin test prep, that is one of them. You need to really know and understand what the prep is because your diet does affect what you're peeing out. We do eat some mycotoxins every day. So there is. That's a totally normal part of a diet. If you've ever had a thing of raspberries and one of them looks a little funky and you're like, it's probably fine. And you ate it. You ate mycotoxins. That's just natural. That's going to happen. So we are a little bit mycotoxin exposed every day. I say we're a little mycotoxin obligate. It just keeps all the systems running, you know, detoxification systems. But a moldy, moldy house or a moldy workspace or a moldy gym or moldy camp for your kids, or a moldy car or a moldy coffee machine. Keurigs, a moldy cpap, moldy fridge filter. These are all places where you're getting more than we would get in a typical. And that's going to make you sick. Whereas, you know, a little bit of dietary is not going to be a problem. And now I just lost track of the. Of the question because I was trying to make sure I thought of all the moldy humidifiers, too.

I know that that's a really big one.

Yeah, you were answering that. We were talking about how we're getting mold in and to be mindful about what are you eating before you do it. And you have a test prep on your website in the footer.

Yeah. So when we think about what do we use to provoke? It depends on what you're using to test. So for the blood test, you don't need to provoke because it's just the immune system doing its thing. If I have a person who's really displaying immune deficiency symptoms, and what does that look like? That could be. You get sick all the time. When you get sick, it never goes away. It's like three weeks of a cold and then it goes bacterial or you have chronic sinusitis and it's an itis. It's an infection. Those people, I test their total antibody formation before I would run that test. Because if they're not making good antibodies in general, then asking, hey, of all of the antibodies that you're able to make, let's say you're supposed to make a thousand, they can only make 80. Are you upset about mycotoxins with those? Like, we're not going to get. We're not going to find out the answer. So that's not a good match for that person. That's when we would want to use an excretion test. Conversely, if somebody's a really bad detoxer and they're not good at excreting, we may choose the blood test because that's going to bypass that system. So when we think about when we're excreting from urine for a urine test, it doesn't make sense to me to play with what the liver does for detoxing it because we're not testing the poop. That's what the liver would be doing. It makes more sense that we help the kidneys clear it, which is bioflavonoids. So I will do a bioflavonoid burst for like a week, or we might do a big. A couple days of. For like, if it's ochratoxin in specific, it's astaxanthin or zeaxanthin is really good for that. And what that's doing is it's just allowing the kidneys to clear these things out. So I like to use all the colors of the rainbow. I like. I put them usually on a product that is just like, it's got the purple bioflavonoid, it's got the green, got the red and the orange and the yellow. And so whatever the mycotoxin is, no matter color that it is, that helps the kidneys clear that, we're going to get a better view of provoking that out of the body. If we pay attention to what is the organ that is actually clearing it, and that's the kidneys. If we use bioflavonoids and then we have them take the test, then we get a better provocation.

Oh, My gosh, that's so good.

Isn't that, like, when you stop to just think about, like the simple thing of, like, wait a minute, the urine test is all about kidney clearance. It's not about the liver. Yeah, it's just kind of like, yeah.

It'S so good because you're thinking through. It's like if you just understand the physiology of all these things that we learned in naturopathic medical school, school and studying herbalism and biochemistry and physiology, it's like you can work your way through understanding, like this is what's happening. This is going through the liver, then that goes through the intestinal tract. So I want to do this or this is coming out the kidneys going through the bladder. So of course I would want to do that. And then you're proving that with the research that you're doing. And each time that you do that sort of split comparative test, it's just amazing. I just love, I love that, like, as you're saying that, I'm like, yeah, yeah.

Well, I didn't think that way at first. I, I had to, you know, kind of got slapped in the face when I did the first blood sample testing with my own twins who are identical and we were all living in the same house and one of them was on glutathione and one of them wasn't because they were both supposed to be on glutathione, but one was good about taking it, didn't get it done. So, you know, it was my own sort of like, sort of case controlled study. And we found out that the one taking glutathione cleared the mycotoxins into the next metabolic form. So on the mass spec, which is a camera that looks at the molecule, it missed it because it was already further down the metabolic pathway. So his mycotoxins looked gorgeous. Like, he didn't, he didn't have very many. Some of them went up and some, most of them went down compared to his brother, who had identical genetics, wasn't taking glutathione and had all of these mycotoxins show up. And as I sat back, I was like, well, right, Jill, because you just took the mycotoxins that use that pathway, you've just changed their molecular structure to be less toxic so the body could detox it. And so you're not going to see it come out in the urine because we've just moved it down the poop. So we should be testing his stool, not his urine, you know, and that was like, that was my mom. Like, oh. We have to really understand what provocation is doing and what each of these systems is doing. Like, not all urine mycotoxin testing uses the camera method. Sometimes some of them are using an antigen method, the elisa. So which lab are you using and what, you know, and then what. What organ system is actually pushing that out? And so for urine, I'm like, well, that's easy. It's kidneys and doesn't matter. Pick up bioflavonoid from every color of the rainbow and you've just cleared it.

Yeah. This is so good. Hadley, is your, is your head exploding? I can see the wheels in your head turning right now. Oh my gosh.

I'm literally, I am so excited about this.

You guys are getting this hot off the press thing because this is all going into my. I have like a short, very short updates in mold course coming up and I'm putting all of this in. I'm trying to talk really fast and have a lot of handouts so that it's like short. You know, you're getting all of it. So you're getting my hot off the press. I just created the slides a little bit ago and I was like the finally, you know, get, get what's up in my head down on paper and yeah, help.

So grateful for the work that you're doing. I know that it's personal. It's a personal passion for you and what is service to people? There are so many people that are sick and they're suffering and their doctors are scratching their heads. These well intentioned, brilliant doctors, they're just scratching their heads. And so thank you for the work that you do and that you make it so available. You give us a quiz. You give us this information on your website. You're training doctors. You have a training program.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Training lots of doctors. We have.

I know I need to get, I need to get trained by you. I need to get in there and take your course.

I think you will love it because it's all naturopathic. You know, our fellow NDs are just like, I loved it. You were speaking our language. You know. But it's very rigorous. It's, it's loaded with PubMed studies, but you know, it's also coming from a naturopathic doctor.

So.

Yeah. Yes. But also like the perfect. My nerdy brain. Like my, my. Wait a minute. You know, why did that? Because I am just such a curious soul that when I ran those split sample tests I was just like, okay, I got to think about what just happened. There, you know, why did that. Why are those so different? What were you taking? Did you exercise that morning? Did you, did you do a sauna? Did you, you know, so I was trying to get all the data and I didn't know. So then I took my friend who has identical twins and I did her twins as a case control study because they didn't have mold. And then she teases me, she's like, you cursed us. Because then they did get mold in their house. And then I had another set of identical twins that I got to experiment on and it was the same finding. I was like, okay, glutathione and mass spec, no, that can't be done together because it messes up all that. Why aren't the labs doing this? That's my big question. They could. They have the funding, they have a lab. They should be doing all of this. So anyone that's listening, pressure the labs.

Absolutely.

Doing all of this. Every other test that we trained in medical school, that is a, you know, CLIA certified regular quest, whatever we are told, what are the factors that manipulate and change this test? If you're going to do a glucose finger stick, don't just give them an IV vitamin C because it's going to mess it up. We need to know that about these labs because there's people really struggling and they're spending their hard earned money in a time when they also are having to remediate their house or move or change a job because they won't change the building. All of that stuff financially affects them. And you know, they're spending their money on these tests. They need to be good tests and well matched for the person. So that's what I'm passionate about.

So for people to figure out, to find out like all of, with all of the different tests and stuff, like what, what they should and shouldn't be taking beforehand, is that in your course? Is that the best place to go for that?

The. I put that on the handout in the footer on my, on my website. So you can just pull that handout. Yeah, awesome. Change the. Your diet does make a difference. And I, So I will change the dietary things on there based on the latest research that I find. So if you get frustrated at change, just know that's actually progress and that's important. So if you're like, wait, but last time I did it, you told me I couldn't eat cantaloupe and now cantaloupe's not on the. It's like, that's because they got Better about managing the mold or whatever. So there's going to be changes on that and that's okay. And that is also an encouragement. Like if you got it two years ago and you have the handout already, because a lot of people, you know, download that before you do your next mycontoxin test, urine test, just pull it and see what the latest thing is. So because it's different and right now I'm not doing a single urine sample. I'm taking a six hour total sample. Shake that up really good. Pour that into the little sample thing. And we're getting better results because the, the excretion goes up and down.

Wow.

Thank you so much. This has been incredible. I feel like I could just sit.

Here and ask you questions for forever.

I am going to get a chance to little. Yeah. Last time.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. No, this has been, this has been absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for. And sharing all of your wisdom and all of this very new information that people are I'm sure just going to be mind blown by.

Yeah. And I hope not scared or just like my whole thing is empowerment. That's why I have so many resources for people because it's, there's, there's a lot. What happens when we don't have good, solid human clinical trials, which we can't do, by the way, because mycotoxins are known carcinogens. So we can't poison people to say, oh, for this poison that we're going to keep poisoning you. You need to take milk thistle and quercetin and fish oil and you know, but we're doing it to animals, we can't do it to humans. So we don't have the clinical trials. What happens with that is practitioners left without guidance can get a system or a thought in their mind and then get religious about it. Like, this is the way and there is no the way. With mold treatment, everything's in flux until we really figure out how to do this, until we get enough human clinical trials. And the way that I want to do it is working with remediators because they're in it every day, all day. And their respirators do not clear mycotoxins. So I'm like, there's our sample set. We could be. Isn't that scary? I know. And so all of them fearless, saying, please take milk thistle every day, please take quercetin every day. Please, please protect your bodies. Yeah. Like there's no in mold that will protect you. Wow.

Yeah. And I've had, I mean, I've shared my story of multiple mold exposures, you know, with my audience and stuff on social media and everything. And, and my clients and my. I mean the number one question is like, well, do I have it? So I'm really excited to be able to point them to. In your direction to.

To.

Because you are about empowerment and not just like the fear. There's so much fear. And so. And you have just so many solutions. So thank you so much for the work that you do.

Yeah, thank you. Happy too.

Yeah.

I wake up at three in the morning. I should put this on the. I love that I do that.

And then I take a theanine and I go back.

But do you write it down first? Oh, I.

Absolutely, or I wouldn't remember anything. I probably need your. I need some like anti plague formula, milk thistle quercetin in the spray. And I want to encourage everyone, after you listen to this conversation, let's get you back in coherence. And so go and listen to the clarity pep talk is what you called it, right?

Yep. Clarity pep talk. Yeah.

Yeah. So we just consumed lots of information and we want to put you back in a place of centered, empowered coherence and you can get better. Dr. Jill is here. She's here to guide us. There's lots of people that are really working hard and your body is absolutely incredible. You can heal.

Absolutely. Absolutely. We are wired to heal.

Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Jill. Soul Sister. Thank you. So grateful for you. Thank you for being here. Yes. All right, we'll see y' all later.

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The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a Master's in Clinical psychology, and Happy Healthy Hadley, an Ayurveda expert with a master's in health behavior and health education. While these opinions are based upon literature, counseling, education, medical training and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911 or call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-827-38255. If you are in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole and Hadley are passionate about you becoming the expert of your own emotional and physical well being. If this resonates with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode episode of the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast.