46: Is Mold Making You Sick? – The Shocking Truth About Toxic Exposure & Chronic Illness with Dr. Jill Carnahan

Today we are chatting with Dr. Jill Carnahan, who I have honestly admired her work for well over a decade now, and she has been pivotal in evolving so much of the functional medicine aspect of things over the last, again, over a decade. So it is my pleasure and honor to introduce you to Dr. Jill Carnahan, who is a board certified physician revolutionizing health care through personalized integrative medicine. As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn's disease, and toxic mold illness, she transforms personal challenges into a powerful mission of healing and hope. Welcome to Modern Thyroid and Wellness, the podcast that explores the intricate dance between health, wellness and thyroid, unraveling the threads that weave our vitality together. I'm your host, McCall McPherson, and I'm so thrilled to guide you on this journey to optimal wellness. So I am really excited to share a super special guest with you all today. I have actually admired and been inspired by this woman for gosh, I don't want to age us, but probably close to 15 years. So I just appreciate your work so, so much. Dr. Jill Carnahan, thank you for joining the podcast today.

You're welcome.

And it's mutual.

We've been running in the same circles for so long. Love the work you do, love the work you're putting out in the world. So I was delighted to be here with you.

Oh, well, thank you. And then as such, you have like these niches in some of the most complex areas of medicine and then just like, oh my gosh, I have to refer out for this for sure. So I want to dig into some of those to kind of give people a bit of an understanding into the complex world of functional medicine. And I figured we could start, start with good old mold illness and mold toxicity. So I'd love for you to kind of open up our conversation and talk about your own experience with mold recovery, mold related illness, and how you kind of ended up in that niche.

And then, and I always like to go back just very briefly. I grew up on a farm in Illinois and then got breast cancer at 25 in medical school and then Crohn's disease. So my 20s were, were like full of some pretty crazy life threatening illnesses. And I'm in the middle of medical training and that kind of, I always knew I want to do integrative kind of more root cause medicine, but obviously with my own struggles and then very, very passionate about getting to the root of those things. And then I framed that because I had this crazy 20s and got through med school, got on practice, moved to Boulder, Colorado to Start my Friday and I was doing great. I'm running marathons, hiking, biking, like doing the thing out here in the the state of Colorado and loving life. And I'm healed from all those things, right? So I'm like, okay, that's behind me. And it was in my late 30s in my medical office in Colorado where there was a massive flood in Boulder in 2013 and then the year after when I started having symptoms. Now it's so interesting when you have a hindsight. It's 20 20. And so often when I diagnose patients with mold related illness, we start asking the questions of the timeline in the story and we're like, oh yeah, way back when I was 12 in my parents basement bedroom and the walls would weep moisture or the end. So we'll find these things. And I'm saying them because some of your listeners might be like even like oh yeah, when I was a child, this basement was moldy or my bedroom was moldy or the windows always leaked because usually what we find is a pattern that's lifelong, that's not just one instant. But it's like we've talked about this before. I'm sure you've heard the bucket analogy where we all are born with the bucket capacity to detox. And I was born with a very small bucket due to genetics and other issues and clearly with cancer in my 20s and all that that was precluding and then got really sick. In a moment I'll tell you the story about my mold related illness. But if I look back, I probably had many exposures prior to me going downhill because that bucket was slowly filling up. And when it starts to spill over the top, the top types of things we see are cancer, autoimmunity and neurodegenerative diseases, among many other things. So flood happened and I'm in this office that probably had already had a little mold, but the flood took things over the edge. There was a bas that had active stacking batteries growing that I didn't know. The next floor had a crawl space which was right under my office and there was standing water. Again, didn't know any of this. But if I look later then I like oh, of course. But this crawl space, standing water. And then my office, interestingly, 1970s build older building I remodeled and my contractor, I don't know what he was thinking, said oh, let's just leave the carpet and put in brand new beautiful bamboo floor over this like 15 year old carpet. So we just threw down beautiful. And bamboo is very soft, right? So I remember like, walking in that office, it was almost like bouncy because it was so soft and gentle, and it was on carpet. And he thought that carpet would be a nice padding. But if I look in, not even aware of the fact that there was probably mold, and then think about every step that I took on that nice, beautiful new bamboo flooring was probably puffing this up. And that was before the flood. But then the flood just took it to a level where I just crashed. I started having brain fog, fatigue, difficulty word finding. And I could still do my complex clinical practice, but I couldn't remember patient's name. So it was like this crazy thing. I knew internally something was wrong. And maybe one of the most important messages today is to your listeners. When you intuitively are like, something's not right. And you go to doctor after doctor after doctor and are told, hey, everything's normal. That's the worst thing in the world. Because you're like, am I crazy? And then eventually someone will say, well, maybe you need an antidepressant, which is even like, insult to na, right? So I was in this midst of. Like, I knew something was wrong. And I will say I was partially in denial because I did know at some level that environmental causes like mold could be contributing.

But I knew, and that was like, before mold was on most people's radar in this way at least, right?

A hundred percent. Like, I was at the very forefront of the curve, like, figuring out, this is mold. And even in my medical training, my functional medical training, my integrated medical training, there was almost no knowledge base about mold. This was 2013, of course, so 2014, when I thick all that to say. I ended up testing my urine for mold toxins. It was highly positive, and it matched, which I always love to have for patients or clients. If you have a match of the kind of mold in your urine plus the mold in the building, you're like, bingo. There's probably an exposure. And that's what happened for me. I had decay Botry's bulk samples in the basement that were positive. And then in my urine was the types of toxins that would come from that molecule. So that moment, it was like the day after Christmas 2014. I never again set foot in that office. I literally left everything, sold everything, got rid of everything, got rid of whatever, and transitioned to the small, like, group of offices on a strip mall temporarily, while I built a new. Like, it was insane at the time, but I knew that for my health, I had to get out and I had to kind of start over and.

You knew you had to leave everything, because a lot of people don't even realize that now that, like, the mold will come with you when you take your belongings somewhere else.

And so let's briefly talk about that. I always think at a fire in the middle of your living room and the carpet's burned and things are damaged, and you're like, oh, no, let's take out the carpet, let's replace the floors, let's fix what the fire damage. But if you don't think about that smoke that was in your curtains and in your books and all over the house, and you have to fix the smoke damage as well as the fire. So when you have a remediation with mold, you have to take apart the wall, cut out the part that's damaged with water, and fix that. But if that mold was there for an extended period of time, it was spewing out the equivalent of smoke, which is mycotoxins, into your environment. And particularly books like the library behind me, or upholstered chairs like the one beside me, or beds, mattresses. Those things really hold onto the toxins equivalent of the smoke from the fire. Right. And that makes sense to people. And I never am one to say, get rid of everything and remove, because that's not always the case. You can a lot of times fix in, but I always say, like, at least your mattress. And unfortunately, I love books. When I was in my old office, I've recovered from that, obviously. But I had to get rid of all my books. I had to start over because books, paper tends to be porous, so. And clothing, I washed most of it. So it just depends on the individual in certain cases. And for me, it was not my house, it was work. So it was actually a little easier than my home to leave and just start over. So everybody's individual, but there are many cases where you won't get well if you take all your stuff with you. Yeah. Wow.

How intuitive for you to have realized that that long ago. Impressive. Tell me a little bit, Dr. Carnahan, about symptoms. Like, if people are listening and they're thinking, I wonder if I have mold exposure or mold illness, whatever it is, what would tune them in to maybe take the next step and consider that as a possibility?

Yeah, this is a great question, because you don't need to spend a lot on a functional consult. You can do a lot by starting with your own timeline. So in my clinic, what I do is a great history. I'm listening and I'm asking, and I always ask the question, when did you last feel well like great opt. It could be 10, 20, 30 years or six months. And you go back to that point and then say what happened since then? Because what I find frequently in the history is we move, we changed houses, we went to a new place. And it could be like for me I that flood happened 2013 and it was almost a year later when I got really, really, really sick. So it took a little time for that mold to take root and be an issue and start to really cause symptoms. So it can be a lag of say you moved in six to 12 to 18 months later. The common symptoms, cognitive is number one. So that could be trouble, focus, concentration, completing tasks, brain fog, word finding. Typically people are you could be more emotionally labile. So almost like as alcohol could be disinhibition, People can be more sad. Or I've even seen people get suicidal with certain types of mold. Anxiety and insomnia is a big one. So the brain and the mood are huge because it has to do with increasing mast cell activation. For many people, a lot of the symptoms are overlapping and those are things related to histamine. So congestion, runny nose, stuffy nose, clearing your throat, coughing, chronic cough, maybe new onset asthma or a sinus infection that won't clear. So this whole respiratory tract is really affected dramatically the brain, like I said. And then you can even have neurological things where you have numbness or tingling or weird sensations on your fingers or your arms commonly because of the histamine. You can have heartburn, you can have leaky gut. So all of a sudden you're going to have way more sensitivities to foods that didn't bother you. You might have new onset autoimmunity. So you have all of a sudden this ana positive or Hashimoto's. Another thing I see is frequent all of a sudden cold sores or frequent infections because many of the mold, mycotoxins will suppress immune system and old things that were minding their own business, like Epstein Barr that you might have got when you were 19 in college will reactivate and start to cause chronic fatigue. Or you get these cold sores all over and you're like, what in the world's going on? My immune system is tanked. Those are signs and symptoms. Even things like tachycardia and heart palpitations can be histamine related. Those are any system you could name. I could give you a symptom that might be related to mold.

So there are so many similarities between the mast cell activation and mold. Are there any Differentiators. Anything that we should think about or should everyone who experiences symptoms, MCAS or mast cell activation syndrome also be worked up for mold intolerance or mold toxicity?

Those are so many questions. So I think of it as kind of a hierarchy because someone comes in and they're a mess and they feel terrible. And even for me, it's like, where do we start? Right, Right. The order of operations. The first order is always limbic system. Because a lot of these complex chronic diseases create trauma and fear of being sick forever or being sick again. And there is. When I wrote my book, I was shocked to find even if we've done all the therapy and we're like, okay, I'm gonna get exposed to mold and I don't like it, but I'll be okay. Like, we know we're fine or somehow we've done all the work around that. There is literally a physiological trigger. When we inhale a noxious substance like mold into the chloriform plate, HP axis and amygdala gets activated. So literally, even if we're happy, great. Have a therapist and we get into a moldy situation. If we're susceptible, we can have this limbic activation subconsciously, automatically, physiologically. And it's crazy, but when we understand that, I realize, oh, gosh, everybody who's dealing with toxicity, especially mold, needs to do some work around that because it's this trauma trigger. So for me right now, I mean, I travel all the time and I get exposed to mold all the time. And I've done so much work that I can go in and be like, okay, I'm here for the weekend. There's mold. You know what? I'm gonna open the windows that I just like, those are now. I still physically have symptoms, but I've done so much work around not panicking and making it this traumatic thing because. And I want to acknowledge those people suffering. It's so traumatic and it took a lot of work, but we always start there. Next level is mast cell activation. And so how to differentiate? We know that mold is probably the most common trigger to mast cell activation. Those are some mold related illness and not have severe mast cell activation. I'd say they go together a lot, but kind of differentiating. And there are blood tests and testing. There was a consensus to statement written a couple years ago for mast cell activation. And what it involves for diagnosis is number one, symptoms consistent which involve kind of like I said, with mold, multi system, multi symptom. So more than two systems. So I have migraine headaches and I have heart palpitations, and I have gut permeability and dysbiosis. Maybe Sibo, sifo. Those are different systems and different symptoms. And if you have more than two systems involved, that's number one. Those are response to the typical things that treat mast cells, which would be H1 blockers, H2 blockers, mast cell stabilizers. So, for example, Zyrtec, Pepcid, Benadryl. And those things would actually help symptoms. And then the third, which you don't actually have to have for diagnosis, is there are tests like Tryptase and histamine in the blood and prostaglandins in the urine that a doctor can order. What I will say on that is, unless you're in the midst of a mast cell flare, it's common to have someone with mast cell activation, that testing is negative.

Those are so acute. Like, it's like hits immediate, right?

Correct. And I've even had patients who were pretty certain. So I'll give them a lab order and say, when you feel flared, go get your labs. And sometimes it's positive, but even then, sometimes we don't get a positive test. So it's kind of that you'd need that clinical intuition. And I'm mentioning these layers because you have to deal with the limbic system. And what you do there is breath work, emdr, neuro, linguistic programming, massage therapy, like any sort of work that you do with a somatic therapist or on your own. Even walking in nature, it can be simple stuff. You want to do that for all of these patients in some way, shape or form, whatever fits for them. Number two, you want to rule out the mast cell. And I told you the testing. I told you what it looks like. And then number three would be the mold. Because if you have mast cell or limbic activation, you kind of have to deal with those to some extent until you get to the mold. Because say they have mold and they have mast cell and they have limbic activation, you might give them a simple pill of quercetin and they react. So if you get those first two in order, you're more able to treat and detoxify that patient. And again, many patients with mold will have mast cell activation. Many patients with mast cell activation will have mold as the trigger, and they do intertwine. I'd say maybe 75% of them are coexistent, but they do also exist on their own.

Wow. Okay. And then in clinic, like in my practice, right. I deal with thyroid. And sometimes when persistently high antibodies are happening, people have this Little constellation of symptoms. Every once in a while, I'm like, you know, I think you probably need to get mold tested. And, of course, their response, I'm sure you can imagine every time is like, and then, oh, I have a new house. I just bought it, like, two years ago. That's impossible. Can you tell us a little bit about why that might not be true? Why mold can be hidden and us not actually know and what we could look for or when to indicate that maybe we should probably get our environment tested? Any telltale signs there that you have?

Yes. And I learned this decades ago when I started asking about mold and realized, oh, my goodness, maybe this push does mold. And what's funny is because I had had this experience of my own and then healing from mold, I was actually quite. I mean, we're. We're taught objectivity in medicine, meaning we don't want to assume anything. We use the data. So I was actually very careful not to assume that everybody had mold. But I kept finding it and kept finding it and kept finding it so that now my staff jokes, because I think literally 100% of patients I've ever thought had mold, they've had it. Like, I've been right 100% of the time. So back to a patient. So it's super common to say, do you have mold in your home? The kind of question you ask, and almost 100% of you were like, no, or I tested, or I have a new home, so what gives? So, first of all, I don't ever ask that question. I'm like, have you ever had water intrusion? Have you ever had water damage? Is there any sort of moisture issue? What's the humidity in your home? Is it above 50%? Is the crawl space been looked at, contained? Do you have any brown spots around the windows? Have you ever had a dishwasher leak? What about the fridge? What about a bathtub? Overflowing, flowing? What about, do you ever have a musty smell in the basement? And I could go on and on and on, because I know, right? But all those questions, as you can imagine, if you're listening, you're like, oh, well, yeah, we had dishwasher leak two years ago. We fixed it. Or, oh, yeah, my kid overflowed the bathtub one time and it went through the ceiling, and we dried it up. So when you ask the questions about water intrusion, water damage, every home that I can think of has some little story. Funny, right now I'm looking at real estate, looking at potentially buying a different house, and it's not A matter of is there mold? It's a matter of where is the issue and can I take care of it if I'm buying this house? So the truth is most homes have some issue. It could be the gutters are not cleaned out and you're getting a little bit of leakage from that gutter into the wall. So it can be stuff. And then to your point on new homes, what I'm seeing unfortunately is an epidemic of mold because of fast construction. So the truth instruction, incompetent contractors or builders that don't know. I cannot tell you the number of stories I've heard. They put in my shower and they forgot to put the water vapor barrier. So they put in these tiles right up against a drywall and it leaks right through the grout and there's water and it of course causes mold over time. I've also heard they put in my cabinets, they were just drilling in the cabinets. They weren't white. They drilled right through a pipe. They didn't know where the pipes were and it was leaked for six years or five years or eight years. So these things like in construction, and again, I hate to say that this is always the case, but most, even in my area, they just put up like a hundred condos right by my condo. And it was quick and fast and most of the materials I would walk by in my night, it was pouring down rain the next day. We're using wet soaked materials to build and as soon as you put them in a wall, if they had mold or any sort of wet dampness, they're going to grow mold. So there's these little things that so the truth lies. And I would say especially Colorado crawl spaces are a big thing and new homes. So new homes are actually probably as common as older homes. In fact, I often say it would be better to have a 1950s log cabin than it would be to have a brand new construction that was constructed wrong. Multimillion dollar. I'm talking like beautiful homes because that log cabin has ability to breathe. And if there is a little mold, you're going to have cracks in the walls and there's like no big deal because the airflow. Whereas now the efficiency of builds, we're building so efficiently that there's no ability to exchange air. So if that envelope of a building has an issue, it will create an issue. And there's no way to get that issue out if the air quality is poor. Totally.

I'm so curious, like when you are looking for a new home, tell me.

How you navigate this yes, this is a big one. And I literally talk. So first of all, my mold remediator, who works two helps my patients, is my best friend, like, literally.

Oh, I bet he is, like.

Because I'm like, anytime I get serious about a house, I'm like, hey, can you come look at this with me? So I'll have him walk through with me. And so, first of all, dust sampling is a great way to start. And you, you kind of alluded this. I never answered your question. So there's an old name of a test called ermi E R M I. And if you Google, you can buy these online, there's two or three great companies out there. ERMI is an old linguistic or name for a test that was based on about 600 HUD housings where they thought certain ones had mold and certain ones different. So they gave this scoring system that's algorithmic and it doesn't really. It's not validated. But the way that test is done is called qpcr. So it's qualitative polymerase chain reaction, which is just checking for DNA in the dust of that sample that's valid. That is like, right. So I call it qpcr. But you might still hear ermi. And that's okay. But what I'm saying that for is that ERMI score. Ignore it. Just look at the molds. The moles are valid. They're going to be there. They're there. I do ERMI test or QPCR on any house I'm serious about, and I rush it for 24, 48 hours that I get it back. Because if I see a. That's like a fingerprint in the home, it doesn't prove there's mold. And I rush it. See, certain things like. And I rush it are stacky batteries, which are really nasty black molds in the dust of that home. I know, ooh, there's something going on here. And either it needs a really good clean, so it could just be. It needs a clean. But I kind of know going in and I will, obviously. So I take a mold inspector on the more serious ones to look with me. Just a visual inspection. I do a dust sample and whether it's legal or not, I do it with my real. Like, my realtor knows and we don't got a full inspection. But before I put it in a contract and I rush it in dust, you know, as I go. And then third would be as we get under contract, I build in more time for inspection and I require a full, full mold inspection with Report. So those are the kind of things that I've been doing. Still haven't found a house, but hopefully soon.

That's so helpful. And then when I know you live in the Boulder area in Colorado, so it's dry there, but what. I live in Austin, so it's not dry here. Do you recommend that people in more humid environments.

And I rush it.

Humid dehumidifiers, like, what tips should people. You probably live in a low humidity environment on purpose, but what tips do you have for us that. That don't.

Okay, this is great. So any home. So I literally. I'm gonna show you right here.

Yeah, show me.

So this is my meter for humidity. My light was gone on too. So basically I have that all the time. And like, okay, it's 29% in here, which is pretty low. Sometimes it goes as low as 20% or 18%. So basically any home or office environment to be 50% or below. Once it above 50%, you can really get some high levels of mold growth, and that is an issue. So you need to keep that humidity below 50% and you could do that with a dehumidifier. Here in Colorado, we don't need the dehumidifier. We often need humidifier. If you are in dry climate, make sure your humidifier is regularly maintained. You could put a few drops of essential oil like thyme or clove to prevent mold growth. So here in my office, I have a beautiful water feature fountain. And if I had a humidifier, I would just always put a few drops of essential oil to make sure there's no microbial growth. And if I had a humidifier, I would yearly clean, retain, wash it. Second would be air filters. So I'm a huge fan of Austin air. There's also IQ air. There's air Dr. There's some great ones out there. You want a HEPA filter with a voc. So usually the center of those, the core, is carbon. So that means that it has the carbon that will pull out volatile organic compounds like microbial VOCs, smoke, formaldehyde. And in my office, I have three. At home, I have two or three. So I have. In my car, I have one too. So I love it. Air filters are huge. And it's interesting because 80% of our environmental toxic load is from the air that we breathe. So having good air quality is probably the best thing you can do for your health. And it's one of those things that's invisible that you don't realize. So keeping humidity low, if you have a humidifier maintain it having air filtration. And at the very least, your bedroom, your bedroom's a sanctuary. So you want to make sure that you test that. And you also have an air filter in your bedroom. And then I typically, both office and home, every year, maybe 18 months, I fog and clean extra carefully because dust is the carrier of mold. And again, everywhere there's issues with potential mold. So keeping a clean house with very low dust, however that looks to you, and then a fogging dust, usually they do some sort of botanical product, citrus based or clove based. You can buy foggers and do it yourself. And that fog will bring all the particulate down so that when you clean, you can wipe that off and it's a much better environment.

I have no idea about the fogging. That's such a good tip. So thank you. Tell me too. I hear a lot about cleaning your air conditioning system, your ventilation system. Are you a big fan of that too, to just maintain low dust, low mold?

Yeah. So kind of like the same as your gutters and everything else. Your H Vac system should be cleaned every maybe five years or so. And I always, if I were to buy a new house, I would literally hire the remediators to go in, blow out all the ducts, clean the duct system, fog and clean before I'd ever move in. So that's another tip on a new home is even after new construction, you're like, oh, it's new. But most often the construction dust is horrific in the H vac system, even if it's brand new. So it is not a bad idea to take a new home and to fog and clean and clean the H vac system. And kind of in that order. Usually fog and clean and then you clean the H vac system and especially after remediation. So whether it's an older home, you've remediated, that's the step of kind of in that step. It's kind of like the equivalent of that fire in the middle of our living room. And the smoke, that cleans the smoke so that you no longer have any symptoms.

Got it. Okay. And the order is important. And then changing gears a little bit, talk to me about testing. So again, this is not my area of expertise. I know what people kind of tested and how they tested maybe 10 years ago. And I always ago, but I'm so curious, like, what is your next step? Obviously you can test the environment, but what about the people? Like, how do we test as humans to see if we're impacted by this?

Yeah. So we Talked about environment, and that's the dust sample. And you can also obviously do air sampling. Air sampling is going to miss some of the really nasty black mold. So I really feel like air sampling is important. You need to do that, but you also need the dust that's human. Like I started. First of all, history is really important. And then you can do a visual contrast test online@ either survivingmold.com or freevcstest.com and that checks visual acuity, which is something that will go and start to cause difficulty discerning black and gray lines from one another as we get exposed. So that's an easy way online to kind of screen then. Mycotoxin urines have become really popular. Three main companies that do this, real Time Labs, Vibrant America and Mosaic. And each of them is different. You can't compare lab to lab. But I would say pick one and use it. And if you're going to use sequentially, use the same test that will screen if you are excreting in your urine mycotoxins. Now, as you can imagine, say you ate a ton of moldy peanut butter or something. There's other ways in which you could excrete mycotoxins. So I like to look at that in line with what might be in their environment and see number one, if that matches. And in my experience, especially the really sensitive tests like mass spectroscopy, which is what Vibrant does, and Mosaic, we'll often see, I would just say almost everybody has something. Not always, but I would say 80% of the time. And some of them have real exposures in the home, and some of them have just history or eating something or they could. You can also be colonized. So say five years ago, I lived in a moldy house. I'm no longer in a moldy house. If my sinuses became colonized with mold, I'm going to still excrete that in my urine. So just because you have a positive mycotoxin test. I mentioned all that because what I see online and in social media, people freaking out by a positive test, moving out of their house before they know what's going on. And I don't like that because it causes us panic. And the truth is, yes, you may have an exposure, but it could also be something else. People freak. I'm in clinical, the clinic, seeing a patient. I do innate immune markers to see if the innate immune system has been affected. People freak. Your labcorp or quest or routine lab, you'd want to do blood counts and liver, kidney kinds of stuff, because those can all be affected. But you also want to do things like VEGF, TGF beta, MMP9, ADH, osmolality, MSH. There's a bunch of immune markers that you can kind of see. None of those by themselves are diagnostic of mold, but they can kind of tell you if you've had the mold trigger immune dysfunction.

That's really helpful. And then if it comes back positive and it's significant, does everyone that lives in your house, like, do? Does everyone need to be treated the same? Are people individualized in their susceptibility? And how could we know that?

Yeah, so it's really common. There's a genetic predisposition, which means that we just don't tag and identify the toxins and get them out of our body easily. And about a quarter of the population has that genetic predisposition. It can be tested, but once again, validity can be a little questionable. So the truth is there are some people affected, some people aren't. Genetics on the lab may or may not show it. And so, for example, you have a mother and a father and their two children, the mother and the son could be affected without the father and the daughter. And so it's a little confusing. Or you might have the daughter have a little sniffles, whereas the mother has new onset Hashimoto's thyroiditis or neurodegenerative disease. So it's not uncommon to have people affected differently. And that doesn't mean it's not still an issue. And so treating people in the house, often I will start with one patient that was the most sick. And the typical pathway to treatment is if you think about mobilizing. So how this got into our body was we inhaled it through the nose, it went into our alveoli, there's no filter there, so it goes directly into the bloodstream. And if we're in that environment for a while, our blood gets that toxin and it deposits into tissues. So we actually have a tissue burden of toxins. And this can be not just for mold, but for parabens and phthalates and PFAOs and organophosphates. So frequently I'm dealing with total toxic load. So how do we get that reversed? We mobilize that from the tissues back into the blood. And then we have these organs, the liver and the kidneys, that filter. And so if we do it right, we mobilize from the tissues into the blood and the body filters that and we excrete it in the sweat, in the urine, in the stool. Our blood can help that process. Doing things like infrared sauna, exercise, dry brushing, Epsom salt baths. We can do things like glutathione, liver support. And I'm a big fan of binders, natural binders like clay charcoal, glycomanan, citrus pectin, and prescription binders like Wellcol or cholestyramine. And those things together will tend to pull those out of your body over six months or 12 months.

Wow. And then if someone ends up with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Right.

Because those are my people call me biased or like a neurodegenerative condition especially is like, obviously that's a very serious thing. Our blood, the mold is isolated, you're out of the environment. You worked on all these detox pathways. Is it possible to reverse either of those things?

Yeah. So again, you're kind of the expert here, as well as I treat those two patients as well. In my experience, maybe a third or quarter of patients with new onset autoimmunity, if you catch it early. Right. I feel like often if you find that trigger that was causing that and they haven't really damaged the organ, so say the thyroid, for example, our blood, like I'm sure you see as well as I do these early thyroglobulin or TPO antibodies. And if we find the mold and really reverse it sometimes I've seen that reversed. I would say it's more common that someone's starting to go into full blown. So we take care of the mold issue and their antibodies might go down dramatically from 3,000 to 30. Our blood, amazing. Right? And there's more stability. So I'd say we improve the situation. Almost 100% of the time reversal is less common. It's possible, but I'm guessing maybe 20%. I'd love to know what you guys low for sleep?

I would say the same. And I think people get stuck on the idea of completely getting into remission. But that reduction in antibody means so much. It means that their immune system is more calm, they're preserving more thyroid gland. I use it as a inferred risk reduction for developing other autoimmune diseases. So it's so beneficial even if we're not completely in remission.

I love that. I could not agree more. And I think like you said, a lot of people get really hung up on, oh, it was, you know, 300, now it's 250. Or it was 250, now it's 3,000. The little numbers maybe not so much, but those big jumps make a big difference.

They sure do. Absolutely. Our blood there anything else that you would like to share with people about this topic? I wish I was more educated to ask more educated questions, but is there anything else that our blood would be beneficial to share with people on this idea?

No. And you've done a phenomenal job. One of my favorite interviews so far. I mean, you've really, really articulate on the questions. And I think the stuff that we need to cover our blood is I think there's a lot of fear out there and a lot of patients who, like we said, maybe just do a mycotoxin test, like, oh, no, I have to leave my house. Our blood number one is, you know, if you don't feel well. And I want to just encourage those who aren't feeling well and maybe their doctors told them they're normal, their labs look good, keep looking, because there's always something that you can do. So don't give up and don't think you're crazy, because you're not. I. Yeah. Mold is so complex. And even talking about this, if you're new to this is like, oh, my gosh, what do I do? What if it's mold? I hate causing fear. And there's nothing to fear here in the sense of there's always ways to fix it and get out of the situation or figure it out. And if you need help, I have tons of free resources online. I'm sure you do as well. So there's lots of places out there, like my website or any other person that you can get educated and not have to even spend a ton of money. And then lastly, this is one of those things that is invisible and it feels scary. But when you really start to look at your environment, I don't know nowadays that there's more you could do for your health than think about environmental toxic load and what you can do. Our blood be great to go to Switzerland for two weeks and do a detox. The real way to do it is very practical. It's get in the sauna, exercise, move your body, go in nature, talk with a friend. Like, some of these things that are so simple, that seem counterintuitive, are so powerful at regulating nervous system and helping us detox. Even Epsom salt baths, most everyone can afford those and they're easy. I take one every night. Sauna may or may not be affordable, but usually you can find someone to borrow or a gym you can use. And so some things like that are pretty accessible. Our blood need huge amounts of expensive supplements. You really need to find the source and take care of it. And start with the basics. And I mentioned that detox because some of you want to go away and have these big experiences. And the truth is, it all comes down to daily habits. So if you can incorporate some things that help you feel empowered. For me, it's Epsom Sal baths every single night. I feel so much better. Or like one or two things or it's, I go on a walk after dinner every night. Those things are so accessible, and believe it or not, they make. They move the needle a lot more than you would think.

A lot more than two weeks in Switzerland, for sure. Absolutely. I love that. It's realistic, it's attainable, it's actionable. Tell us where we can find more from you, your resources, all the information you share. I know you had a documentary come out. I believe it was this year even. So, tell us where we can find more of Dr. Carnahan.

Thank you. So almost everything I put out is on my website, jillcarnahan.com, free blogs for over a decade videos. We have a podcast that's out on YouTube, so all that's available there. And then if you do want to see the movie, it's now on Amazon Prime. It's called Doctor Patient Movie. And you can go to DrPatientMovie.com if you want the link.

I love it. Thank you so much for your time and your unwavering dedication to people that are really struggling with significant things. And again, I just so admire your work and all the movement you've created in this sector of medicine. So it was a pleasure. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.