Matt Kelly walks through ERMI dust sampling using Swiffer cloths to test your home for mold species and mycotoxins. His own results came back in two weeks and detected four mycotoxins at low levels, though finding mold doesn't guarantee it's producing toxins. Testing your body first is ideal, but checking both house and body gives the clearest picture.
Right. Amy is asking us, what is the best way to test your home for mycotoxins? All right, so usually I just have clients do an ermi. So if we're checking for the total toxic mold load on a home, we do an ermi and we're looking for at those molds, which molds are there, which of those molds spit out toxic mycotoxins. And then we also test the body for mycotoxins. I don't always test the house for mycotoxins because we're worried about the body first. But if someone has the means to test the house for mycotoxins and molds, the body for mycotoxins and fungal colonization, and do a good swath of labs, that's definitely the best option. But most companies that do an ermi, where you do the Swiffer collection to collect the dust for the DNA analysis, to find out which mold spores are there and at what concentrations, they'll have an add on or a separate test for mycotoxins, and it's done the exact same way. You're swiffering high, you're Swiffering low, you're swiffering in every room of the house. And then when that goes to the lab, they look for mycotoxins and will report on which mycotoxins and concentrations were found in the house. Now, as I said, I never have clients do it. I just did it on my own house. And I just got my report this week. I was like, I never, I never ordered this, okay? I wanted to see it. And so I had done, on our own house, I had done a recent ermi and I added on the mycotoxins add on and that added about a week. So the ERMI results came in about a week. The mycotoxins took another week from that. And then it was really interesting to see because we had some molds and some mycotoxin emitting molds. But just because you have molds that can emit mycotoxins doesn't mean they are emitting mycotoxins because it's often a line of defense, right. Or offense. They sense there's other molds or other things that are threatening them. And then that's when mycotoxins can be. And spores can be kind of ejected from the colony a little more. But when we got our mycotoxin lab, it came back with only four mycotoxins and very minuscule amount. And when I was comparing that with the ermi, it was a very small amount of mycotoxins that were here, which was good. I was happy with it, but it was the first time I had done that. So it's done the same way as a company with the Hermes. Okay, so whoever you're ordering your me through, I've the ERMI available on pharmacy.com. i don't even have the mycotoxin add on added because we never run it with people, but I should add it on because there's some people that want it. I was curious too, but it's nice to know because molds don't always 100% equal mycotoxins, but when you see if someone's mold sick, they're mold toxic. And then you see all these, you know, molds that emit toxic mycotoxins. You know, your stachy, your Willemia, your Aspergillus penicillioides versicolor and ketomium and trichoderma. And all these mycophenolic acid comes from Penicillium brevicompactum. So when you see these things, you know there's probably a problem, Right? So sometimes money goes towards other labs, like a Gut Zoomer organic acid test. But when you can look for mycotoxins, it's actually absolutely awesome to do. And it's done the same way with the Swiffer, the same company that you do your ERMI with.
Do you have questions about mold in your home or body? Book a consultation with Matt, AKA the Mold man, to guide your home and body to the next level of healing.
