ERMI vs Air Quality Testing - Which is better?

One tells a story of why someone's sick in the house. The other gives the all clear, don't even think twice about it, which is extremely dangerous. So you want to check your house to see if it's mold toxic. Maybe you've already run a mycotoxin lab and have seen that there's toxic metabolites from mycotoxins coming out in your urine. But what's the process? Is there a right test, a wrong test? Are all tests the same? Can you just call any mold inspector and get this done quickly and easily? You know what? There's two tests. There's the ERMI and then there's the air quality test, also known as the sport trap. Are they the same? Are they different? Which one's better? What are the pros and cons? That's why I'm making this video. So many people aren't sure which one to do or. Or if one's even better than the other. And you know what? Even many mold inspectors don't know. So I'm going to break these down for you, and then I'm going to actually put these tests head to head for you. Okay, this way. Head to head for you. And I'm going to show you a house that was tested with the air quality test, the sport test, and the same house was tested with an Ermie. And I'm going to show you how they line up to each other, and then you'll know which test you want to do to find out if your house is contributing to your health conditions and if it is indeed mold toxic. All right, so I've got ermi versus Sportraft. What's the difference and does it matter? So, spoiler alert, again, there is a difference, and it does matter. Okay? Because like with Lyme disease testing, the only thing worse than not testing is testing using an inferior lab or test. And it actually throws you off the trail you were on, which was going the right way. But then you've got false or negative results when you shouldn't have. And that's what I think you're going to find here when I actually explain to you the difference between an ERMI and air quality testing, which is a sport trap. So let's jump in to my slideshow. Okay? Okay, first of all, if you need an ermi, most people watching this video, I probably sent you the link and you know the difference already and you just need your ERMI. If you need an ERMI, go to pharmacy.com ermi or maybe you're not a client and you just want to check it on your own. That's great too. Or you're another doctor practitioner that sends clients to me to hone in on the mold issue for them. So go to pharmacy.comermi and you can get an ERMI for yourself. And that also includes the interpretation of the results so that you don't have to post them on Facebook and ask what people think. Please don't do that. All right, so mold is. Mold and mold tests are all the same, right? Wrong. Okay. They are not. That's the whole point of this. I'm going to walk you through what an ermia is. So it's an environmental relative moldiness index. So what it is, is we take the dust from your house and use DNA. Well, I don't. The lab does. I use Envirobiomics in Texas and they take that dust and look for all the DNA of different species of mold, especially toxic molds that we know are toxic to the health, to your health, and determine which molds are there and at what concentrations. So the ERMI is dust collection. You can do this by Swiffer 99% of the time. There is a vacuum option as well, but I don't recommend it for a number of reasons. So that's what the ERMI is. And this is how simple it is. This is what you get. This is from a kit I have here in the office. I threw the pieces out on the table so you can see what it looks like. You get a Swiffer sealed in a bag. You get blue gloves sealed in a bag. Don't touch your ERMI without your gloves. And then you get a chain of custody form which is super simple to fill out and some instructions. I also did a big long video on instructions where I go through the do's, the don'ts, where to collect. And then the second half of the video, I actually walk you through our house and I do the collecting. Show you where I collect and why I collect there and where not to collect. So be be sure to look up that video as well if you're doing an ermi. Okay. So the air quality testing is a spore trap. So that's where instead of collecting dust and looking for the spores by DNA, what they're doing is using a foam cassette to run air through it and catch whatever it can in there. And then they look under a microscope to see what was caught. Okay, so here's a picture I found on the Internet. This is not my setup, but you see the air pump on the bottom. So that is set up to pump. You can regulate it to so many liters per minute. For example, they could set to 15 liters per minute. And then that pumps the air through the hose. It sucks the air through that clear hose, you see. And then the cassette, which is the filter, goes on the end at whatever height they set it, possibly around head height, and it sucks air through there for so many minutes, five to ten minutes. And. And it collects any spores in there that were around the cassette when they turned it on. So that's what that looks like. And they'll often set that up in just the middle of the room on each floor. If you have multiple floors. Now, I'm going to break it down for you. We know what they both are, we know what they both look like. I'm going to break down the pros and cons of each here with a simple table. ERMI and air test. So the ERMI checks the total toxic load of a home. So this is the reason it can check the total toxic load of the whole home is you can go around with the Swiffer checking in every room of your house. Okay, so in my office here, I can collect on the shelves, I can collect on top of the windows and door frames. I go to the kids bedrooms, I go to our bedroom, I go around the living room, I go to the basement, the family room, around the kitchen, the bathrooms, and collect all in the safe spots. And I can collect from the whole house. So if there is, say there's a mold problem in the ensuite bathroom and I collect in there or near there, I'm apt to pick it up. But if I'm doing an air test, it's just testing a small area around where that cartridge is at the time that it's running. Okay, so that's why I like ermi. That's what I like about the ERMI is you can literally collect from everywhere, which means you have a better chance of finding what could be going on somewhere. Okay. So both tests identify the molds and their concentration. So SE is spore equivalent per milligram and you're getting about a 5 milligram sample. And then error tests also identify through a microscope which spores they caught and the concentration is measured in cubic meter. So the ERMIC includes many toxic molds. So there's two columns in the ERMI and I will show you shortly. But it has a great list of many toxic molds, many of the ones that make people sick. And the AEHR test report does not include a lot of those. Toxic molds, so you have limited data on what it's even looking for. Okay, so that's a reason I prefer the ERMI there as well. ERMI can collect historical mold data, so it can. When you're collecting dust, you're not just collecting dust from this moment in time, you can be collecting dust that's been sitting there for six months, that spores could have been feeding into from an area of the house. Whereas a spore trap, you're only collecting spores that are going into that trap at that exact moment in time. Okay, so say again. You had a mold problem in a bathroom, but the door was closed. And that's far away from where the air test is being done in the middle of the living room. And to say it's running for five minutes, what if those spores don't get there? Okay, so the ERMI is a much more inclusive amount of information that it's getting. Okay, doesn't miss present molds. As long as you're collecting through the whole house, it's going to be very hard to miss some spores. If you're collecting from every room, you should get a good representation of any mold growing, any colonization that's sending out spores and landing, because you have the benefit of collecting in dust where it's been collecting over time. Okay, and the air test, same thing. Because it's only sucking from that small area in that short amount of time. Five minutes. Five. Five to ten minutes. You can definitely be missing something. And ermi, again, you're collecting dust. It doesn't. It's not based on airflow. The air test is based on airflow. So spores and mycotoxins and fragments move through the air, as with the air currents of the house. Okay, so if your spore trap, your air quality test is being done in a room and nobody's in there, nobody's moving around, no windows are open, nothing's. Nothing's moving. It's just stale air sitting. You're not going to be able to collect as much data than if air was moving with that air test. But with an ermi, again, it's not an issue because it has nothing to do with airflow. You're collecting dust, and as spores settle and fragments settle, they're going to be found in the dust, not for finding sources. The ERMI does not tell you where the mold is. Okay, say you get your ERMI results back and it looks awful. And it doesn't say there's your showers leaking or your toilets leaking underneath the floor. It doesn't tell you that, okay. That's when you would have a good inspector in that knows how to properly look for those and has the right tools for helping find those. Okay. And the air test, when it's done in the middle of the room, like the first step of Is my home toxic? It won't tell you, but an air test, Air sampling is absolutely crucial when you do know you have a problem. And an air test is great for if you're looking in walls or cavity testing. Okay, so say your kitchen cabinets back up to a wall, you had a dishwasher leak, or your fridge water line leaked and you're wondering if that water went down the wall there and maybe hit the bottom plate and is wicking up and it's growing on the inside of the wall. You can drill like a quarter inch hole, put the tube in from an air test, sample that cavity, and if it comes back with hundreds of thousands of spores, then you know there's something nasty growing in there. Okay, so that's when an air test would be useful. Not for your general is my house toxic? But for, let's see if there's mold growing in this cavity. Okay. And with an ermi, your final ERMI score needs interpretation. That number, the final number they give you can be close to accurate. It can be way under or it can be way over. I've seen it. I've seen it in every strange direction it can go. So you need someone reading it that understands how to read the molds and not just the final score. Okay. Because the final score, it makes it super easy. If it was super accurate, it'd be great. But you need to be looking at the specific molds, the toxic molds, the concentration of those molds, not just going by the score. And then the air test you'll almost always find with your air quality test is that everything is within range. It's kind of like when your doctor says your labs are normal. Okay. So it's not really reflective. It misses a ton of things. Even with like, Stachybotrys is a hard one to catch. And I'm sure you've heard this if you've done any amount of research yet, because it's a heavier and stickier mold. And that's why I tell you in my video to make sure you test up high and down low, because testing on top of your baseboards is important to catch those heavier molds. If you do get stacky or heavier molds in your air test, then you likely have a very big issue and you definitely have to do An ERMI to find that out. I actually have a client right now and I can't blame her for this because she had done the air quality testing, sport trap testing before she found me. And, and it came back looking, had some serious issues. And we're doing an IRMI now. I actually got the email this morning that it was just delivered. So she's doing the ERMI now. So we can really get a good idea of exactly what's going on. And I'm going to show you what those reports look like now. So that was my opinion, those were my feelings. That chart was made up based on my current thoughts. But let's look at a case study. Okay, so head to head mold reports. This was a client of mine. I can see consulted on. I explained to them why not to do the air quality testing and they did the air quality testing. But. But it's good now because now I can share with you now there's nothing identifiable on these reports, it's just numbers. But now I can share with you and show you exactly the difference. So these, this was an air quality test and an ERMI done right around, not the exact same day, but very small area. Nothing changed in the house in between. They were done very similar timing. But now you can see in this home did have visible mold growth. She shared with me in one of the bathrooms. So we know there's mold. Okay. Growing in there. So let's see, let's put them head to head and see what you can expect to find if you do one or the other. Okay, so this is the air quality testing report. Now obviously I'm showing you this one. I'm showing you an ermi. This. There's a lot more to this report. There may can be a few pages long, but this is the data. This is the only part that matters for showing this. I'm not giving you, you know, the breakdown of what molds mean, water, anything. Okay. We're just looking at what does the data show. Okay, so you'll see there's four columns here. 1, 2, 3, 4. They have a yellow box. Number one is called Control. So when you do an air sample, you're testing outside to get the control. So what does this area where you live look like mold wise at the time we're doing this test. So if you have a lot of ascospores outside, then you might see the ascospores inside. Okay, so column one is control and then the next three are samples within the house. So you can see number two is from the master Bedroom bathroom number three is the kids bedroom. Number four is the H Vac. So as we can see, in number one, there's obviously more mold outside than inside. And you definitely want to see that. If you have more mold inside than outside, run. Okay, so when we look at the master bedroom, they only found one spore of ascospore. Kids bedroom found one ascospore, one basidiospore, and then in the H vac. So this is like in your ductwork or your air conditioning or your furnace, they've only found one ascospore. So everything is white. So what they do is color coded. If you get into a high range or a moderate range or a warning range, according to this, there's almost no mold. They're showing. There's no stachybotcher. So if you look on the left there, the blue ones are the most dangerous molds, according to this company. And the green are in the middle, and the white aren't an issue, even though they can be an issue for people. But here it says they're not. Okay, so you can see there's no Stachybotrys, no Ketomium. There's just a couple spores. So literally, they found 1, 2, 3, 4 spores in the house, and everything is within range, and there's nothing to be worried about. Okay? And this mold inspector said, this is how I've tested mold for over 20 years. So he is full in supportive of those results. I questioned the results and said, let's do an ermi. And here's the ERMI on the same house. Okay? So with an Ermie, let me give you a little overview before we jump into the numbers. You see two columns here. You see group one called water damage molds. Group two, common indoor molds. So group one is the more dangerous molds. Group two aren't as dangerous, although when someone is very sensitive and mold toxic, those can become an issue for them. So let's look at the right hand side first, where you see the color, because that's where your eye goes. And red usually means bad stoplights, stop signs. The ERMI score on this house was 11.9, which puts it in the fourth quarter there. So you see Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. And at a score of 11.9 puts them in the fourth quarter, which is source and cause of mold should be determined, and remediation is under. Okay, well, why in the world would the ERMI say that remediation should be undertaken when the air quality testing literally found four spores and said everything was within range? Okay. This is why we do an ermi. Okay, so now let's. Let's deep dive into the mold. So on the left There, group one, the first, quite a few. There you see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. First, 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6, 7. I did count, right. So the first 10 are aspergillus. And if you. I'll go back quick. See, Aspergillus and Penicillium. So if you look on the left, the third mold row down is Aspergillus, and Penicillium has zero. Okay. None of those were found. Aspergillus and Penicillium are extremely common. You're going to have them in every house. But that testing said there were none. So our first ten rows here of Aspergillus, only three of them weren't detected. So we have seven that are detected. Okay. And then also you look down a little lower, Penicillium. We have six of those, and it looks like four were detected. So right off the bat, we know that it's missing a lot of molds. These molds are present, but the air quality test, that spore trap in the middle of the room is not picking them up. That's a problem. Okay. That's why we only. I only use an ERMI with clients. Okay, so on the left, water damage molds. The company determines. Well, everyone kind of determines. There are five of the most toxic molds. Let's take a look at those. Starting at the top. Aspergillus penicillioides is 255. Now, remember, the SE to MG is spore equivalent per milligram. Okay. And you'll see the sample size is 4.8 milligrams. That's a little light. It should be five. So you take whatever that number is and multiply it by five, and that's how many were found in that sample. Okay, so you're looking over 1250 of the aspergillus penicillioides, which is one of the most toxic molds because of the mycotoxins. And yet the air sample caught zero. Okay, that's a problem. Okay, and then we go to Aspergill's Versicolor 27. But you notice that asterisk, and that means it's ten fold higher than normal. So that's per milligram. So again, we're over 125 spores detected in that sample, which the air sample didn't pick up. Okay. And then we go to ketomium. And thankfully, this house didn't have Any ketomium detected, because that's an awful mold. And the air sample did not detect it either. But based on everything it's missing, I think if it actually was there, I don't think it would have picked it up because we're seeing it's missing most everything. Okay, then we go down to Stachybotrys, and then there's four here. Again, air sample gave you no warning. And then Wilemia 74 spore equivalent per milligram times 5 over 350 spores in that sample. Again, the air sampling doesn't even check for that one. Okay, so that's the five most toxic molds. It didn't pick up on any of those, nor does it check for all of those. And that's why we use an urmi. Now, there are other issues too, like the penicillium brevica. That's where your mycophenolic acid comes from. That's one of the most toxic immunosuppressant, immunosuppressing toxins that you can have. And this is why mold and Lyme go together so often, because mold is so immunosuppressive. And that's where mycophenolic acid comes from to suppress your system. And that's on the board as well. And that's pretty important to know. You know, you need to know these things. And this is why I wanted to put these two samples, these two reports, head to head for you to see how different they are. One tells a story of why someone's sick in the house. The other gives the all clear. Don't even think twice about it. Which is extremely dangerous. Okay, so which would you choose? I mean, it's extremely obvious to me I would use an Ermie because it's, it's literally DNA evidence of what has been going on. The other is just a quick snippet in time of what happens to go in and get caught in that trap. And not even of all of the most toxic molds. Okay, so I hope that explains the difference. There's never a time until your inspector comes and is looking in cavities and walls that you should be doing the air sampling. If you want to know what the total toxic mold load is on your home, you're going to do an ermi. Are they perfect? No. Is the air sampling perfect? Really? No. And even with an ermi, your sample, your results are only as good as your sample. Right? So that's why I made a video about how to do it. Right, because if you do it poorly, your Results won't be accurate either. But this gives you a very good idea of how they're different and why you would choose one over the other. So if you do need an army, feel free to connect. If you have a practitioner and they want you to test your place for mold, make sure when you call your local mold inspector, ask them what type of testing they do. If they do air quality testing, like spore samples, spore trap testing, or if they do an ermi. If they say an ERMI is dumb and they don't do it, then I would definitely not use that company. And I would also ask them things like have they, do they understand the relation of mold to the toxicity in the body and how it affects people? Because you have really good inspectors that know how it affects the body, right? And then you have inspectors that come out and literally don't ask any questions, don't look around. They just set up that spore trap and, and run it. And I actually did that years ago, before I knew the difference. And if I had this video to watch, first tip, what is it would have been amazing. But he was a great guy. I mean, he came out, he set up, we visited it run, you know, ran five minutes at a time. So if you calibrated at 15, 15 liters per minute, run it for five minutes, you're running 75 liters of air through, and everything came back fine. Was it, I don't know. After knowing what I know now, I'd say absolutely not. So you can't base it on who sounds nice or who has been doing it a long time because of those two samples. I just showed you those two reports. The air sample gentleman said how it was absolutely accurate and this is how he's done it for over 20 years. Well, unfortunately, you can be doing something wrong for over 20 years, and that's what happened in this case. And we can just see clearly how much was missed. And when you're dealing with your health and you're trying to get to the bottom of what's going on, you need accurate data. Okay, so you, this is how you're going to do it. You're going to do an army. Be sure to watch my video on how to do your ermi. If that's what you're going to do. The nice thing is you can do it yourself. You don't have to hire someone to do it. You can, you'll pay more. But it is simple to do yourself if you, if you just follow some few simple guidelines. All right, so if you have Any questions, feel free to connect, go to my website, pharmacy.com, f A R M A C Y. If you're viewing this on my blog, scroll down and you'll see the labs and resources mentioned in this video. All right again, hope this helped. Have a good one. Bye bye.

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