Why Mold is Making You Sick and How to Detox with Dr. Jill Carnahan | TPE Blueprint #19

What are the mysterious symptoms that you might be battling? Things like brain fog, fatigue and anxiety are actually caused by something that might be hiding in your walls or in your air conditioning unit or even in your old childhood home. So in this episode, I have Dr. Jill Carnahan here to share why mold exposure is skyrocketing and what it's actually doing to our brains and our body, and the powerful new ways that she's using right now to help patients detox and. And reclaim their health. So let's dive right in.

All right. Dr. Jill Carnahan, how are you doing today? Thanks for joining me.

Doing great. I'm so excited to be here, Joe.

Yeah, for sure. And it's. We've been, you know, you're the talk within MD lifespan a lot, and recently rolling out some really cool stuff, which we'll talk about as well. But, yeah, you are all about mold. I mean, at least, like, you know, I know you talk a lot about it. You have such interesting insights, and it's kind of becoming this thing that is becoming more aware of. It's like it's not just people that are living in damp places. Right. Like, I have a bunch of mold in me, and I live in San Diego where it's really hot and all that stuff. So I'm like, what? So I think this episode, it'd be really cool to dive in deep, get an understanding of what. What it means, what it's all about, you know, what's changed. So, I guess, any initial thoughts of just that alone?

Well, I mean, I'm out there in social media, putting out blogs and podcasts, myself and everything, and I just find more and more people are reaching out to me and saying, what's going on? What do I do? How do I help? So maybe today we just kind of answer the who, what, where, why, how? Like, if you're suffering from symptoms, how to know if it might be mold? Because what's happening is, from my perspective, it is increasing in prevalence. We can talk about why that is, and then we'll give some good solutions to people out there.

I think it's great. Well, I guess, yeah, I'm always curious of, like, your. Your background. What got you into this whole space? Why? I mean, you've been working with what, mold specifically for 20 years, right?

Yeah. So I'll make this quick, but my history goes back to growing up on a farm in Central, and I had lots of toxic chemicals, pesticides. In the 70s and 80s. The classical corn and soybean farmers, you know, were, you know, that and I didn't know. This beautiful, idyllic life on the farm that was really lovely. Great family, great environment was slowly killing me. I got breast cancer at 25 in med school, and one year later got diagnosed with Crohn's disease. So my 20s, started off really crazy with cancer and an autoimmune disease. And if I look back, I am certain that in that old farmhouse that I grew up in, there was mold. And I'm also certain that that contributed to mast cell activation, which is a whole other topic, but relates to mold, and that how our immune system and our innate immune system and most doctors don't know are connected and how mold and toxic load in general is a trigger to that and how that might have actually been the root cause of both my cancer and Crohn's. So this whole story kind of becomes interesting. Well, I got through those things, got through medical school, came out, and then practiced functional medicine for years. And in Boulder, after a massive flood, 2013, they called it the thousand year flood. My office flooded, and it already had some microbial growth. We call that mold growth, unbeknownst to me. And I went downhill very quickly over the next nine months, Got really, really sick myself. And this is after having a decade out of cancer. Crohn's doing great, running marathons, hiking, climbing, biking, skiing, like, living the life, and took me down. And I say now that I think mold was way worse than cancer. And people may find that hard to believe, but the truth is, it's invisible. I had to learn, and to save my own life, I had to become an expert. And I have, over the last decade, really become a voice in mold and helping to advocate for those people suffering and helping to teach doctors. But back in the day when I got sick, barely anyone knew what it was. None of my doctor colleagues knew what it was. And I felt like I was crazy because I was having symptoms that had no visible cause.

That's wild. That's. I mean, just the fact that you said that it was tougher to deal with than cancer. And, you know, I've known. I've known a whole. Actually quite a bit of people with. And it. I don't think it didn't take a long time, but mold was, like, the source of. Basically, they had a whole. I mean, it felt like they were freaking out. I mean, I guess there's a whole bunch of different things that can happen, I guess. Talk to me about, like, what. I feel like there's just so many people that are probably experiencing this, but Just don't know what it feels like or maybe some symptoms. Can you kind of shine a light there?

Yeah. Jo. So this is where it's at. So, first of all, like, me going through that, all of a sudden, I, in my own body, experience things that did not make sense. Brain fog, cognitive issues, and very specific things like word finding, where you want to say dog and you say cat, or you want to say aunt and you say uncle, or just these things that don't make sense, they come out of your mouth, or you're writing and you can't think of a word, or. And there's many other things, but cognitively, it really can affect a person, and it's very confusing of what is going on. At that time, I was in my late thirt, so I certainly wasn't demented, but I was like, something's going on. And yet I could still go into a complex patient case and come out with a solution, but I was having word finding, or I'd forget their name. So these weird things are happening cognitively. Then your immune system goes haywire, and it's trying to eliminate something that it really. When someone's genetically susceptible, it's like a vicious cycle where this innate immune response gets activated. So it's almost like collateral damage from the inside out. It's almost like during COVID and the pandemic, we talked a lot about cytokines in the news and things, because those inflammatory immune modulators were causing havoc in the body. And that's what happens with mold as well. And then you can have nervous system. I mean, I've seen people who present with multiple sclerosis, als, Parkinson's, chronic fatigue syndrome, any number of autoimmune disease, cognitive decline, early onset dementia, and every single one of those in these cases I'm talking about were mold related and primarily mold. So things that you would never expect to be connected. And a doctor might say, here's your diagnosis, you have Ms. And here's your treatment. Here's a medication, or here's a lifestyle or diet. But if we don't get to that root cause where mold is actually driving that process, that person will go downhill very quickly. And the rule, number one about mold is you have to, number one, acknowledge that that is a root cause. And number two, you have to get out of that situation. It's almost like I say, if you're bailing on a boat that's leaking and you're bailing and bailing water and you're just going down and you're about to sink in the mold. It's the same thing. You have to find out, number one, there is mold in my environment, and you have to get out or clean it up or fix the problem, because if you don't, you will capsize just like that boat.

I was telling you right before we started that I have a test. I had my whole toxin test, and I have. I showed a lot of mold. I don't have it pulled up right in front of me. But, you know, I was like. That shocked me because I'm in San Diego. I'm in a hotter part of San Diego, too. I'm not right by the water. So I'm like, how is that possible? So. And that, you know, some of the stats that have come out and even some of the stuff that you publish is like, there's. There's a lot of people dealing with this that probably are just completely unknown. So, like, I guess what I wanted to assume is that we probably have mold in us at some sort. Like, so to acknowledge your point, okay, mold is probably an issue. So how do we deal with it?

Sure. So, first of all, there is a genetic difference. So there are some people. You can have a building with a workplace with, you know, 200 employees, or you can have a family with six people in the family in the house. And people respond differently. So there is a genetic foundation of someone who has more trouble eliminating the mold toxins that tends to get really sick. It's about a quarter of the population. So an average building, workplace, home, one out of four, maybe one out of three people are going to have some symptoms. The most common is allergic respiratory congestion. That's actually something we're taught in medical school. Mold is an allergen to many people, but that doesn't totally trash your immune system and your nervous system and all these things we're talking about. So the other, that quarter percent that's really susceptible tend to have much more systemic. And we call it multisystem, multisymptom, meaning usually say, the cardiovascular tachycardia or higher low heart rate or irregular heart rate or things like that. You might also have respiratory issues or GI issues, increased permeability, increased food sensitivities, nervous system where you have anxiety, depression, insomnia. It can also disrupt our whole HPA axis. You can have really low cortisol where you can't get out of bed, or you can have really high cortisol where you gain weight and you have put on, you know, the typical cortisol types of symptoms, or you can have hormonal disruptions. Both men and women will aromatize wonderful testosterone to make a strong and healthy, healthy bones and healthy muscles into estrogen. Or we have, you know, man boobs or belly fat or those things. And it can disrupt thyroid too. So it can really, really disrupt our whole entire system. It can disrupt the microbiome. So what we see often is this sequelae of this. And you kind of mentioned, alluded to the fact that do we all have this. I think a couple things are happening. First of all, if you look on the news, natural disasters, flooding, hurricanes, water intrusions of all sorts and in places where we used to not see it are happening more and more and more frequently. Our weather is just getting more chaotic. Number two, our buildings are being poorly constructed, constructed, quickly constructed, without proper. I see all the time simple things like my contractor installed the kitchen, I'm not saying mine, but someone will tell me. My contractor installed kitchen cabinets and they drilled right through the pipes in the kitchen. We didn't know until eight years later when that water was draining in the wall or they forgot to hook the water filter in the fridge to the line and it was just pouring into the wall, or someone didn't caulk or properly seal, put a barrier between the tiles in the bathroom. And that we think that grout is not water permeable. It is water permeable. So you must have a vapor barrier underneath your tile. And if someone forgot to put that in, it just goes right into that drywall. And any number of things where there is water intrusion into a building envelope, and even these wonderful LEED certified highly economic buildings that are very, very efficient, if they're not properly built, they could be a massive source because they're so airtight that there's no exchange of air properly, there could be condensation inside. And when you're talking San Diego or Arizona, places that are hot and dry, they can have just as many issues because if that air conditioner is way too running too high and there's condensation all the time, there's just. I could go on and on, as you can tell, but there's so many places where this can fail. And we just think our happy little box of a home is perfectly airtight and impermeable and it's just not. And part of that leads to what do you do? You have to be properly maintaining gutters and spouts and water lines and checking and putting, you know, there's just a lot of stuff to do if you own a house or if you Rent from a landlord. You got to make sure that that person is taking care of you.

Yeah, you were. You brought up a air conditioning. You just reminded me because there was five. I'm like, yeah, I noticed there was a whole bunch of mold in the air conditioning. I was like, okay, so in hot places where you're constantly running, that it makes perfect sense. There's water.

Even the windows can condense because it's so different. So you say you're running your air at 72 degrees and it's 110 outside in Scottsdale, Arizona, that condensation can absolutely be an issue. Or if you're pulling air from a crawl space or an area of your house that is not properly maintained, that's super common in Colorado. And if the crawl space has microbial growth and your furnace and units for the H Vac are in there, you're kind of screwed because it's going to pull that air into your house and distribute it.

So, I mean, would you say it's a pretty good. I'm just wondering, like, where does someone start, like, so now that they. You realize, like, mold is a situation. I also want to ask, maybe before you have an answer, is it getting worse? Why is it getting worse? You know, mold as a whole.

Yeah. So two things on the site I just mentioned, natural disasters, water intrusion and improper construction. I mean, just next to me, I'm in a condo, and there was like the last year, probably 300, 500 units built of new construction of like, townhomes and things so quick. And they're being built in the rain when the lumber isn't dry. So say it rains the very next day. Those construction workers are putting up that wet lumber inside the house. As soon as you seal that up, that is a nidus for mold. And that's really, really common on construction sites nowadays. So not really letting things dry, not protecting them from the elements, and just like putting things together really, really quick for. For a profit. Right. That happens. The mold issue itself. So because often patients are like, well, grandma had mildew in her shower and she does fine. You know, like back in the day. So what number one houses had more like, talk about this. Very efficient building materials. There's no. We always say dilution is the solution to pollution. Which means if you have an old log cabin with holes in the walls, even if it's moldy, you're probably going to be okay because there's air exchange from the outside and it's being diluted. But if you have a super airtight building and it's very efficient, and there's no airflow exc exchange. You're going to be more at risk because it's going to contain any sort of mold that grows in that house. Number two, mold is being more aggressive. In the 1970s, we developed paints and threw in the paint antifungicides just to say, well, let's paint our walls and make sure that we don't get mold growth. But by doing that, we created just what we've seen with antibiotic resistance and animals getting antibiotics and all this growing resistance to our antibiotics. Now, these molds are very. The ones that survived from antifungicides in paints and things and building materials are more aggressive. So typically when we do get indoor growth of a mold, I know species now I can look at tests with patients and say, oh, this is no big deal. It's probably from leaves outside your house. And it could be like a hundred thousand and I don't worry about it. Whereas if I see 50 of Catomium or Stachybotrys, so 100,000 of one outdoor mold compared to 50 of Stachy or catomium, I'm like, that is a big deal because that's a toxic black mold. It's going to cause you neurological and systemic issues. So there really is a difference to what's growing inside. And it's more aggressive. There's been some small studies that show that mold, because it's a living organism, is actually responding surprise, surprise, to our environment. And as we have more dense electromagnetic frequency, like 5G and some of these things are household routers, it's actually spewing out its toxins more readily. And this can be measured. So we're actually getting the mold itself, trying to protect itself and throw out more toxic materials.

So literally, like shooting it out to spread and repopulate or populate more. I guess it's just like any other living thing, right?

Right. It's crazy. Like, really, that sounds like an alien. It's pretty normal physiology of fungi when they are even in our own body. If we have a candida overgrowth or infection, they start to invade our tissues when we threaten them with antifungals. And people don't know this, but, like, it's the nature of something or even bacteria. In a case of where we're giving an antibiotic, we want that to be a little more active because it'll get hit by the antibiotic. But it can be pretty much like they'll hide in the biofilms and they'll invade our tissues and These crazy things.

Geez. Okay, well, I'm curious. So you mentioned some of the names of the ones that are a lot more concerning than others. And I'm just kind of selfishly. But also I know other people who are listening, watching have taken the toxin test or maybe because we talk about it all the time, like, what are some of the concerning ones that you just kind of rattle off and then we can.

Yes, I'll tell you. Kind of the little, like I always say that mold has personalities. And I know mold well enough now that I could almost. This sounds crazy, but it's true. I can walk into a building and be like, this is moldy and this is a likely mold that's here.

Oh, my gosh.

It's crazy. My symptoms and my. And I'll talk about that. Let's bookmark, too. How do people test? Because I want to come back to that. You said, like, what do we do? How do we test? So we'll come back to that. So but just mold and personality. So we've got the typical, like, Cladosporium. And there's a few of these ones that they are, like, common in, like, forested area, trees and leaves. And if you have a pile of wet leaves in the fall, you're going to have mold growth on your lawn. But none of those are a big deal because, again, it's outdoor. It's decay. It's how we decay material and, you know, like, produce good crops and things. Like, part of that is fertilizer. So that's all really, really normal process. And outside it is fine. It's usually not an issue. Now, I have had a few patients who are really bad sinuses where they live near a forest. And in certain times of the year when it's really wet and damp, they get worse because, of course, walking through that forest with the wet, decaying materials, they inhale more. But that's a little separate. Okay, so that's for the outdoor molds. Indoor molds first comes after a water material damage issue is usually Aspergillus penicillin, which is just like the antibiotic. Those are really early players. They're commonly very allergic players. So people have congestion, sneezing, maybe a little heartburn, because that could be a histamine issue and maybe a little brain fog. But I always find if those are even really high, I'm like, this is doable. We can fix it. You're not going to like, die of Parkinson's usually from those. Although in high levels they're toxic, too. And they suppress the Immune system. For example, one of the things they spew out, the mycotoxins is called mycophenolic acid. Mycophenolic acid is used by the pharmaceutical company to make a drug called cellcept. Cellcept is given to organ transplants to prevent rejection. So it's that toxin from that mold literally is a drug that creates immunosuppression. So that's kind of how big a deal this is. And then I mentioned. And this is worth noting, if you're out there and you have a test in front of you or something. The really nasty, I call them black molds, toxic molds. Stachybotrys catomium are two of the worst. And these are the ones, Joe, where if I was in a building and how I would notice is I would get in and I'd be like, oh, my gosh, I'm so tired. I gotta lay down right now. I call them the narcoleptic mold, especially catomium. I literally feel like I'm in it, like sleeping Beauty. I'm gonna fall asleep. And part of it is because two things, it can lower cortisol, which makes you tired. And for me, it causes hypotension because I have this vasodilatory effect. So my blood pressure, I could actually measure, it could be like 85 over 50. And it makes me really tired because I can't stand up. Right. And that mold will do that to me personally. It doesn't do it to everybody, but I could walk into a building and tell you there's probably ketomium in here. Because. Because I would feel that sense of like, I gotta sit down or lie down. I'm so dizzy. I'm so tired.

After this whole journey, what I really learned here is, like, there are a lot of health conscious people. I think I'm considering myself one as well. But no, there's a lot of things, no matter what you do, you. How much you pay attention to it, how much you avoid it, and sometimes it just got in. And I think TPE give me a good opportunity to restart my body again.

So would those be the worst ones, the black molds?

Yeah. And let's talk real quickly. This is so important. Okay. People are like, well, my air was tested. It was fine. Right, Right. You've heard this. So you might have gone to the doc, got a urinary mycotoxin test, which is what you're talking about, and we'll talk about. That's to test your body. You pee in a cup and they measure, are you excreting mycotoxins from possible exposure? And then you say, well, let's test my house in my office. The guy comes out, does some air sample in your bedroom, in your kitchen, like, hey, it looks good. So you're like, what is going on?

What's happening?

Yeah. So the Aspergillus pedicillin typically will grow and they will often go in the air. So you might see remnants of those in the air, and that could be an issue. Right. But these really nasty molds are dark, sticky, black, and they like dark, hidden corners. So typically, say there's ketomium in a building, it's going to be under the floorboards, in a crawl space, it's going to be somewhere dark and dank. And they rarely release spores into the air. So it's very common to not see them, even if there's a real issue in your home. The worst of the worst, I'm talking in the air. So I'm a fan and I talk to remediators and inspectors, and I know a lot of them, and they would agree. Most of them, you want air sampling, but you also want a PCR dust test to check the fingerprint of the house. And I think those two together are probably the best way to assess. There's nothing wrong with air sampling. I like it, I use it. But if you rely on that alone, you may miss a really nasty issue.

Got it. So PCR dust test.

Yeah. It's also called ermi. I don't like that term because that was related to a HUD housing where they tested a bunch of houses and it wasn't really validated. So the data for an ERMI isn't really good. But the actual data on a test that is an ermi, like the numbers of the molds are perfect. It's a. What they do is PCR is polymerase chain reaction. So it's testing for DNA of mold in your dust.

Wow. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, would you recommend literally everybody do that? Oh, yeah. Both for sure.

And if it's a. So PCR you can do yourself. I mean, I bought kits 100 times when I'm looking at a new house or I'm checking my office or whatever, you can order PCR in Virobiotics and the dust test. And I'm probably missing. There's two or three out there. If you just Google ERMI testing, you can order it online, they send you a Swiffer cloth, you can collect dust in your home. That's almost always where I start with my patients because they have control. They can just check their house. They bring it into me and I can look at it. And just like I told you, I can see the kind of leave mold from outside or I can see. And on those dust you can definitely see if there is the black toxic mold as well.

Interesting. So, okay, I'm going to do that right after this. Yeah, I've never done that. Yeah, I've done like the petri dish kind of thing where which it picked up some as well, but not as in depth as the pcr. So in terms of testing, since I bookmarked it, are there more tests? I know that you're in test, which is what I did. That's the one that we talked about here. Would you recommend that?

And I never. And you mentioned the beginning before we started, like, oh, maybe there's some old. Because I think all of us, we tested, whether it's food or environment, we probably have some exposure. So it's like, how bad? So let's just go through really quick. The free things are a great history, which you don't need a doctor to do. That's what I do. But you can literally write a timeline and if you're like, when did I last feel well and when did I get unwell? Because often there's a move in there or a change in environment. And if you are doing your own timeline and just saying, oh, back in 2018 I was fine. I moved to Colorado in 2019 and ever since then I've had autoimmunity and neurological issues. Well, there might be something in your environment and it may not be mold, but it could be mold. So number one, timeline. Number two, visual contrast test you can do online. It's either like $15 on just survivingmould. Com or there's a free vcstest.com and that's free. That is checking the visual acuity of your retina and that is an early way to detect biotoxin related illness. So you can do that as well and just say, did I pass or fail? Now neither one of those are a sure thing, but they kind of give you some free, free guidance on do I want to do a dust in my home or a urine test? Urine test is what you mentioned. That's super common. I think now people have access to that even without a doctor. And the truth there is it many of us will have been exposed. And depending on what we're eating or drinking, there could even be ingestion. That's more from our diet than from Our environment. However, it's a great place to start. And if you have a lot of molds, especially some of the black toxic molds, for example, we were talking about catalium and stacky. Those are typically not in peanut butter. It's going to be penicillin or aspergillus. So you're going to see things like ochratoxin or aflatoxin in the peanut butter, which are very different from ketomoglobosin, which is the toxin from catomium. You will almost never, unless the food source is like, black and moldy, see the nasty black molds from food. So you can kind of differentiate there. And then I, in my office, do a lot of other things. I will do blood testing for those innate immune markers, things like TGF beta, vegf, msh. And these are kind of complicated. But as a doctor, I can basically assess, is there urine mold, is there mold in the environment? And then is there an immune response based on this mold or an allergy? So when I look at that whole picture, I can be very, very certain that that patient has likely been exposed to mold or not.

That's great awareness to have the data. I mean, that's what Dr. Savage is always saying. It's like when you have your own personal data, environmental data and all that, then you kind of have more of a picture of what you can do, what's possible here? I'm gonna try that visual timeline thing, too. Does that relate to, like, floaters and eyes or like, things like that? I don't know. I'm just like, you mentioned retinas, because.

I know that's visual. So some weird things. Let's talk about weird, fun symptom. Fun. They're not fun, they're weird. So electrostatic shock, like breaking electronics, your computers, your watches, your things that can be with mold, because you can literally create a human battery because you're sweating out so much salt and there's a gradient on your skin. So some people, literally, they'll drink and they pee and they drink and they pee, and they can't concentrate urine. That's a common mold symptom. The electrostatic shock, which is a weird, common breaking watch, is electronics. And then dehydration in general, hypotension and then sudden weight gain can be common. You can also lose weight, but I'd say it's more common. Like £30 in three months. And I didn't do anything differently because of that shift in the HP axis. Exhaustion, brain fog, of course, really common sleep disturbances, insomnia Anxiety and depression. I mean, this can do really nasty things. Especially those black molds for. I've seen suicidality. I've seen, like, really nasty, awful, dark moods from the mold as well.

I've heard that from one of the people I know. It was. He was experiencing a lot of that. It was almost like the adrenaline was just off the charts. Like he couldn't turn it off. And then spun him out mentally and finally realized it was molded.

Well, you know, Jo, interesting. The research from my book, I found this. I did not know, but it was shocking. There is a limbic response, which means when we inhale mold, our olfactory nerve takes it right to the brain and it actually activates the limbic amygdala system. So even if we're like, hey, I'm gonna be fine, there's a little mold in this house. Like, even I've been through it a lot, so I'm pretty calm when I get exposed. Like, I'll be okay.

Yeah.

You know, but we still get a limbic response. And so, like, what you're mentioning, it's really common when you're in mold and you're kind of in the midst of it and you're not detoxing yet or taking care of it. You can literally get kind of a fight or flight response. And it's a physiological response.

Correct. Wow. Yeah. And I have heard it just goes straight to the brain. So then that is all downstream of everything else. Right. It's crazy. Okay, what do we do about it? Because.

You'Re doing some really cool stuff right now that we'll definitely touch on. But there's like, what are the common ways that this is being detoxed out? Mold. But also, like, I'm just thinking of what's. What's not effective in your eyes from what might be common and then like, what is effective? Good.

And can I give like the minute 30 second max version? Okay. So you have to get out of the exposure. So again, this does not always mean you have to sell everything and leave your home. You can remediate, you can fix it, but you have to get to a place where that bailing out the boat is working in your favor. So the first thing is you have to find where is the source of my massive exposure. And we all have a little exposure. But if there's a big bulb thing in your wall or basement, take care of it. Move, remediate. You need to take care of it. Because you will not be able to get well if you're continually exposed to a lot of mold, no matter what I tell you, even some of the new cool stuff we're talking about. So that's, number one, you want to get out of exposure. Number two is it happens. I always like to describe it. You're mobilizing and excreting. So this is the process of us. How we got it in was we inhaled it, it went into our alveoli. There's no pass of go because it's so small. Our alveoli goes right to the bloodstream. Our bloodstream stores in our tissues. Now we have to go backwards. So how do we do that? Mobilization is getting that out of the tissues. It could be sauna, it could be exercise. It could be sweating, it could be movement, it could be massage therapy, it could be Epsom salt baths, and it could be something like glutathione. Glutathione is a powerhouse. You could do it iv, you could do it intranasally. You can nebulize it, you can inhale it, you can take it orally. And any way that you can get more glutathione or help your liver produce glutathione will allow you to start mobilizing these things out of your tissues and back into the bloodstream. Now, once they're in the blood, your liver and kidneys do their job and they filter it. You pee it out, you poop it out. That's the idea. And we help that along by supporting the liver. So I almost always give glutathione nac ala and phosphatidylcholine and some support milk thistle to support that liver process of mobilizing and excreting. And then we want to bind it. And there's been very well studied things like clay, charcoal, cholestyramine, glycomanans, and I could name 101 other things, but those are real common binders where it literally will grab onto this toxic load through the bile in the gut and escort it out through the stool. And then, of course, sweating and urinating and drinking and hydrating and all those things go along with it. But at the core, it's just mobilizing, excreting, eliminating exposure.

Okay, that makes perfect sense. And I love that you said sauna in there. I sauna all the time, so, yeah, perfect. Yes. Doing something right, that's good.

Which actually, let's talk really quick, because you had a positive test. If you're sauna regularly, we actually registered recommend because you're going to show more in your urine. So that's a good thing. Because you're like, oh, this is coming out. Think about urine tests. We have like, oh, no, I have it in my urine. But the worst case scenarios are those who are so toxic that it is not coming out in the urine. So someone exposed with a zero level would be way worse than you sawing and getting it to come out in your urine or any of us.

Interesting. Yeah, that is. That is. Yeah, you got to think of how it works, but you got to excrete it out. So. So what's the new thing that you're working on now with MD lifespan, Dr. Savage and therapeutic Plasma Exchange? I want you to.

I am so excited. And here we finally get to the chase. Because basically what I've seen in clinical practice is the level of acuity, the complexity, the difficulty in getting people well is exponentially increasing. And I tie that to this environmental toxic load is increasing and we're drowning in our ability to come out from under. Especially the top four that Paul and I always talk about, which is mycotoxins, plastics, pfaos, which is polyfluorinated compounds, and Teflon and Gore Tex and organophosphates, which is me growing up on the farm. So these four, it's almost like no matter how well we live our lives, it's really hard to stay ahead of the burden. And mold in particular. So what I'm working on with MD Lifespan is a plasma exchange program where literally you can do all the right stuff, but if you're doing all the right stuff and you're stuck going through plasma exchange literally takes the load out of your body. It's like an oil change for your car. So it's a power, power, powerful new way that we can actually go in. And the great thing is, yeah, mold, but any other toxin you're dealing with, you're going to clean that out as well. And so it's a really, really, I think, amazing. And even though in the moment you look at the cost and it may seem expensive, I was talking to someone the other day who had spent a year detoxing and how much they spend, and plasma exchange would have been a steal for her. Right.

I believe it.

Right. Because all the supplements, and I'm not saying you don't still do all the rest of it or some of the rest of it, but to me, this is. I am all on board to support, and of course we're going to have it in my office in Boulder, Colorado, as of two weeks from now from when we're recording, because I just believe in this I believe it's such a powerful thing that people are going to need.

Yeah, well, tell me about more of it because we talked about therapeutic plasma exchange on here. Dr. Savage has definitely been on and other people who have been doing it. But you have Dr. Jill's MD lifespan mold plasma exchange protocol specifically. So I guess tell me some specifics around this protocol that you've helped develop and I guess what makes it different.

Well, and Joe, one thing I want to say in the background is I love, love just giving free information. For decades I put out blogs and podcasts because I want to help as many people as I can. And I know not everybody can see me. So there are thousands of people I run into every day or docs or whatever, like, oh, you helped me with this and you read this. So this to me is on that level of I can't see everybody in my clinical practice. I wish I could. But what we can do is I worked with Dr. Savage to develop what would it be in a perfect world if we did this oil change, this plasmapheresis for a patient. And then we also built alongside it a protocol that is using the kinds of things I would use in clinical practice to really create a complete overhaul detox program for mold. So I worked with him and we created a mold detox protocol that involves at the center the plasma exchange, but also includes all of these other things that I do in clinical practice. So I'm so excited because someone could call you at MD Lifespan and say, hey, I want to go to Boulder. They never see me, but they get the same class of information and top brains of Dr. Paul and I to really put together this protocol. And the great thing is even though there is a protocol, the doctors are working with each patient to make sure that it going to fit them. They might do one session more, one session less. They're going to be tested before and after. So it's just a really, really well founded protocol and it's based on my own experience of 20 years of detoxing patients from mold.

Wow, that's cool. Will they do they just need to go to Boulder or can they go to other locations to.

I am just all about whatever. Yeah. So I think it's Detroit, Chicago, you knew all the. Maybe.

Yeah, all the different website.

So yeah, whatever. Honestly. And I have a reach all over the world really, but especially in the US So I have a lot of people Canada or Mexico or Miami or California. So all over. And what we're just saying is go to the website, do a free call a Consult with the doc to see if it feels like a good fit, ask your questions, and if it feels like a good fit, find a location. By all means. I'd love to see you in my office, but you can go anywhere and get this done at any site. They'll have the same protocol.

I will likely be getting that protocol.

Your protocol.

I mean, I'll listen to doc. You know, Dr. Savage about that, but this is so fascinating, Jill, and thank you.

You're welcome.

Before we. Yeah. Wrap up, I definitely want you to shout out some of the other cool stuff. You have a podcast, you know, book where. Where can people go follow along and dive even deeper?

Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Yeah, my website, which is the hub of everything, is just my name, Jill Carnahan. C A R N A H A N. And I have a book called Unexpected. It's my own journey through mold and cancer and all of that. Hopefully encouraging. We also have a documentary that's free on Amazon prime now called Doctor Patient Movie. And then the podcast, which has been just on YouTube and we have, I don't know, over 600,000 subscribers, so we're really having fun with that. And all that's free, so you can enjoy.

Yeah, you're a wealth of information, and this is just. You have me going down some new rabbit holes now and going to go do some deeper research. So I appreciate you so much and.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, thanks for doing all this for everybody, too, so.

You're welcome.

Appreciate your doctor. Have a good one.

Thanks.