Mold Myths Debunked: The Truth About This Environmental Toxin with Brianna Lofquist

Hi, Brianna. Thank you for joining me today. How are you?

I'm good. Thank you for asking. Thank you for having me. This is a great opportunity.

Well, we're going to talk about a topic that I think is super. Well, I know is super relevant for people and something that many of us are likely impacted by without even realizing it, and something that can affect people of any age, whether they're older, so struggling with cognitive decline, or whether they're younger and they're in their developmental years. The topic of mold, you know, keeps coming up in conversations that I'm having with people, especially as people move to different climates. As people move, there's been a mass migration that's taken place over the last few years. People moving to new homes, new states, new types of residences and living, and they're uncovering that their health has a drastic turn for the worse and they really can't figure it out. And they end up spending thousands of dollars and perhaps years and years of their their time to try to figure out what's causing these issues. And many of them may not realize that it's mold. And I know this is something that has affected you personally, it's affected some of my mentors personally, and it can be life altering for many people. So you've done us a wonderful service by preparing a wonderful presentation. And before we get into that, I'd love to know a little bit more about you so our audience can understand where you're coming from. So tell us a little bit more about the work that you currently do, and then maybe you can lead us into what inspired you to go down the mold rabbit hole.

So I am a nurse by trade, so my background is in nursing. I kind of got out of that field once I learned into the holistic realm. And, and right now I utilize muscle testing, frequency work, emotional healing, and spiritual work to really get to the root cause of what is going on in people's health. And I like how you mentioned that a lot of people are moving, because sometimes people come to me and they're like, man, these symptoms popped up two years ago. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's going on. And I say, well, what changed? Did you get a new job? Did you get a new car? Did you move into a different house? And oftentimes there is that environmental piece to look at. So really assessing what their environment is like as well, in addition to what's going on in their body. So not only looking at the symptoms, but looking at the true root Causes of what is going on in their whole body and their nervous system. So I got involved in natural health. Oh, gosh, probably like 15 years ago. Really started diving deep. My husband and I both went through a lot of health issues. We found that by changing our diets, we were able to address a lot of those issues naturally and without supplements at that time. Back then, I didn't have the means or the knowledge or the resources to. I didn't know what I was even looking for. Right. So I finally found some practitioners that led me in the right direction. I changed my diet. I lost over 30 pounds, felt a lot better, felt a lot lighter. My brain functioned. So my husband and I collectively lost over 60 pounds when we started our natural health journey. So that was step one. And then we really wanted to get in a better place to have children. And that's when I was introduced to muscle testing. So really looking at what stressors were coming up in the body and how to help them. So my husband wasn't sold at first, but he found out that the practitioner at the time would find out, like, oh, you are coming up for this chemical. And maybe he used that chemical at work. So muscle testing is really neat to show those areas of stress and what to help. Then I also looked at the emotional realm too, because especially with mold, emotions are huge. You usually lose a lot of your belongings. You're maybe doing some demo work on your house. You might have to throw some things away. My children had a hard time with that. So really adding in all of those components to get to the root cause of what is going on in people's bodies.

Yeah. And maybe you could take us through a working definition of what mold is, because I think when you say the word mold, it could mean different things to different people. Some people might think of moldy food. Right. Some people might see the mold around their bathtub. A lot of times, mold may not even be visible to us. So maybe what. What exactly is mold for people? For somebody who's kind of new to this messaging or just basically giving us a ground level perspective on what mold is.

So mold is a fungi. So there are different species of mold. And for instance, a lot of people that come to me, they're like, oh, I just have mold on my windows. Well, that mold isn't just on your window. When it lands on that condensation on your window, it usually came from a different source source. So mold actually produces mycotoxins and spores, and those spores travel all over and cause the mold to grow in different Places. Mold also isn't just on the surface. It has what's called hyphae, which are fingers, and those kind of just travel and grow. And if you have a porous surface like wood, it's going to go down deeper into that area. So when you just surface clean the mold, you're really not getting to those ruts and actually eliminating the problem.

Man. So just pouring bleach on it and making it, discoloring it doesn't actually address the issue, which is kind of what a lot of people do at times, Right?

Correct. Yeah. Bleach is probably one of the worst things you can use to kill mold. So it might kill that mold, that surface level that you can see with your eyes, but it actually makes it worse for what's underneath. For those hi fi that are further down, you're just pouring more moisture on there, and they're actually growing even more. So it's not killing that deeper surface mold underneath there. So it more than likely will grow back. And that might be after maybe you covered it up. Maybe that mold was on some wood behind a wall and you put some sheetrock over it. Well, that mold could grow back. And then now you have mold growing with those hyphae along along the backside of your wall, and you may not even know it's there.

So you bring up a really good point. When we bought our house, you know, it's an older home. It's about 60 years old when we bought it, and we had a mold inspection because that was something that was high on our list. If we're going to spend, my wife and I work from home, and if we were going to spend, you know, pretty much our entire lives in our house, except when we go outside and when we travel, then I wanted to know that, you know, it was a safe space. And we ended up finding a little bit of mold overgrowth in our attic, and it was because there wasn't adequate ventilation that was taking place. And that was one of the first things that we mitigated. And then we had some air quality testing done, and thankfully, that came back negative. But I know that, you know, mold is pervasive. Right. I mean, it's. It's found in nature and we back into a forest. So I'm. I'm always curious about what you, you know, what you said made me curious. You know, if mold is everywhere. Right. Are there different types of. Obviously, there's different types of mold and different species of mold that are probably more toxic to us. What makes. What makes them toxic? What. How do we differentiate what type of mold it is? And sometimes there's mold that we can't see. Obviously, that's causing problems for us. So I'm curious, like, from your perspective, like, how do we go about knowing if what we're seeing is bad for us or not? And should we keep our window sealed or do we want air circulating? Is that bringing more mold into the house?

Right. So mold is everywhere. There are certain species worse than others. So the ones that do produce those mycotoxins create a lot more toxic effects in the body. So thinking about the airflow that you mentioned. So should we have your windows open? Yes, you do want to have your windows open. You want to air out your house, not only to provide fresh air, but looking at your CO2 as well, to kind of exchange that. And fresh air is healing to the body, too. We don't want stagnant air, especially in the cold environments. Easy to get stagnant air in the wintertime. Keeping in mind, outside your windows, you could have a lot of mold growth. So if you don't have gutters on your house and all that water is just funneling right down next to your windows, there could be a lot of mold growth where those gutters aren't where your roof is coming off. So make sure you have some gutters on your house putting that water away. If you have chip wood chips outside, those hold a lot of mold and moisture or flower beds, and that could be blowing all those spores in your house, too. So keeping in mind what's right outside your window, so that's not all coming inside your house. And I like that you mentioned that the attic and how there was moisture and not adequate ventilation in your attic, because a lot of people even vent their bathroom exhaust fans into their attic. And that's about one of the worst things that you can do, because then you're putting all that moisture in the attic, and it has a lot. The mold. I have a lot of things to eat on the wood, the insulation. And that just creates that good, cold, damp, cool, or I mean warm, cold, oh, my goodness, warm, damp environment that creates mold growth. So when it's in the attic and that fan is blowing up there with all those mold spores, that's just going to create all that mold growth. And that does systemically still go throughout your house as well. And same with the basement. So if you have mold in your basement and maybe you have forced air, that mold is blowing all around your house as well. So really addressing those mycotoxins, because mycotoxins last in your house longer than the mold spores. I personally like the high tech air reactors because they destroy the mycotoxins at the molecular level. So you really want to address the mycotoxins and the mold together. And another kind of little hack you can do is if there's a mold dog in your area, you can look into having a mold dog come check your house. And what I love about the dogs is they're not biased. Right. They're literally just trained to smell and detect mold. They'll mark where it is and then you get to explore that area to see if there's mold under there and what you can do about it.

Wow. Man's best friend. I love it. Well, I know you have a presentation for us and some slides and images you're going to share, so I'd love to bring those up so that we can get into those. It's pretty amazing. I had a chance to look at your slides and I know that our listeners are really going to benefit from what you have to share. You've already enlightened me. I've got my notepad here, ready to take notes and I'm excited for us to jump right in.

Yeah, let's get started. So we talk, we're going to talk a little bit about mold and how it impacts our health and what we can do about it. Because a lot of times people don't know where to start, what resources to trust, and sometimes when you're, you don't know what you're looking for when it comes to mold. So what you're going to learn today. So I'm going to share your journey, my journey through mold and the experience that me and my family had. So there was a lot of ups and downs, there was a lot of learning along the way. And I'm going to tell you what about mold, what health impacts it can cause, identifying where mold would be in your environment, how it impacts your metabolism and your immune health lab testing to consider if that's something you want to explore, how to clean mold and then a little bit more about the case studies that I have seen. So we already talked a little bit about me. This is my family. So we all definitely suffered from mold exposure and illnesses. So some of the things that we had to deal with were mast cell activation syndrome, histamine intolerance, lots of skin rashes, yeast infections, really bad food sensitivities, leaky gut. So addressing these from an all around perspective versus just focusing on one thing at a time is important to the Overall healing of the body. So we'll go through here. So this is a little bit about mold. So mold is a four letter word that can literally ruin your life. I know for a, for a while there, it really did have a huge impact emotionally, physically, on my whole family. It really thrives in an area of high humidity. If there's poor ventilation, if there's water leaks, and it can be found anywhere. So this could be your home, your school, your workplace and hospitals. Thinking about anywhere that there's water, there is potential for mold growth as well. So it's actually estimated that 70% of homes have water damage, which creates that prime environment for the mold growth and then dead mold. Sometimes people do find that dead mold, they're like, it's dried up, it's not a problem. But dead mold actually still produces mycotoxins. So even after the mold dies, the mycotoxins remain. It can still keep you sick. And that was one of the issues in the cabin that we had, was there was actually a bunch of dead mold behind a wall that was old, but it was still producing those mycotoxins. The mycotoxins then cling to surfaces, so like dust particles and those are what are floating around, kind of landing on those surfaces, creating problems. And to put it in perspective, they're really, really small. So you're not going to see mycotoxins with your naked eye. So, so they're about 0.1 micrometers. So to put that in perspective, a piece of your one human hair is about 100 micrometers. So they're very, very small. Mold spores are anywhere from like 2 to 3 micrometers. You can also get contact through your skin. So that picture that I put on the screen here, so it's a picture of a mattress and there is a whole bunch of mold growth on the mattress. So as we were going through our mold journey, we ended up renting a camper. We bought a brand new mattress. It was a new camper. I'm like, this is going to safe space for our, for our family to heal. Well, come to find out, the mattress we purchased was full of mold and we were sleeping on a moldy mattress. And that was why we weren't getting better, because there was still a lot of mold in our environment. So we talked a little bit about what is mold. So the hyphae form that network called mycelium, which continue to spread the mold. It can grow and thrive through the walls on any organic material. So in nature, mold's important because it does break down that organic material, like dead leaves, decaying wood. But when that's in your house, it's just going to keep growing along those walls and cause significant health risks. So it releases the spores, which are invisible to the naked eye, and then they land on those damp surfaces and grow even more mold.

Brian, I'm curious about your mattress, because we all sleep on a mattress, and you mentioned that you bought a new camper home. Was the mattress brand new, or was that a used mattress?

Nope, the mattress is brand new. So we rented. Like I said, we rented that camper. And then I'm like, we're just gonna buy a new mattress. We're gonna start fresh. I'm not gonna use someone else's mattress. I was trying to take all the steps to make sure we were safe and then come to find out we didn't find out that mattress was moldy until we were cleaning them out, cleaning the whole camper to bring it back. And it was. I was going to bed when my kids went to bed, so I put them to bed at 7, and I'd go to bed because I was so exhausted. Well, learned came, come to find out there was a bunch of mold on our mattress, and that's why I had no energy. I was fatigued. I couldn't sleep. I just felt tired all the time. And my husband picked up the mattress. I was like, you need to pick this mattress up. I'm going to clean underneath it, vacuum it all. And he picked it up, and I was like, why is that discolored? And I looked, and I unzipped it just a little bit, and I saw the mold, and I zipped it up. I said, you get this off of our property. Bring it to the dump. Get it out of here right now. Like, it was so bad.

Is that. Is that because of the material? Like, is the moisture from your body temperature and sweat? Like, what. What causes the.

What.

What do you think was a perfect storm that caused that?

So, I mean, yes, there is sweat taking into consideration there. The camper was a little bit more high humidity just because it was a camper. So it's not adequate airflow there either. But I ended up contacting the company, and I sent them the pictures, and I asked, like, have you had an issue with this? And the funny thing was, they never emailed me back, but they sent me my money back. So it kind of makes me wonder if there wasn't, like, some sort of warehouse issue, if there was some water damage, if there were other things there. Because upon reading Reviews after that, there were other people that had that problem as well.

Was it a specific substrate? Like, was it latex, or do you know what kind of material it was?

I would honestly have to look back. I want to say there was maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I don't recall that off the top of my head. I'd have to look back and get back to you on that one.

Yeah, that'd be interesting, because I have a friend who's in the mattress industry, so I can talk to him and see if he has any insights. And one of the things that I learned a while ago, and maybe you could tell me if this is true or not, is not to make your bed first thing in the morning, because, you know, we do sweat. The. You know, the. The bed sheets might have a little bit of moisture in them, and just. Just to not make your bed right away, to let your bed air out, so to speak. I don't know if there's any truth to that, but this makes me think that there might be, just so there isn't that accumulation of humidity and moisture. And I'm also curious about what specific substrates. Right. So it might help people choose a better mattress or take that into consideration, because you don't think mold and mattresses, especially if it's a brand new one, and we may not always think of circulation. Right. And how that's potentially impacting the growth of mold. And I wouldn't even think to look under my mattress, to be totally honest. So I can see how you may have missed it.

Right. And your pillows, too. Pillows can actually grow mold. I mean, if you're breathing on them all night long and there's moisture, pillows can grow mold. So I encourage swapping those out. Don't get super attached to a pillow for 10 years. Swap them out, clean your pillows. And as far as the airing out your bed, funny you should say that, because I actually don't make my bed in the morning. And when we went through all these skin issues, I mean, still to this day, I strip the bed every single day and wash the sheets. So I've been airing out my bed for the last two years, just with all the skin stuff we've had. We wash our sheets every single day, which is slightly exhausting, but at the same time, it's kind of nice to get into bed with fresh sheets every night.

So like a hotel, right?

Exactly like a hotel, by me. So funny.

Awesome.

All right, so some things that mold can do. So the list on this page are all things that have happened to my family. So mast cell activation syndrome, the neurological issues like seizures I had my son, rashes, exhaustion, weight loss, weight gain, histamine intolerance, emotional instability, mold rage and brain fog. And mold rage is a real thing. It definitely. It's almost like it takes over your body and looking in more like the emotional and spiritual aspect of it. It's. It's like those demons, like mold mentioned in the Bible, right? We're supposed to just burn it, get rid of it. It's evil, essentially. So when you're dealing with all of that mold, we want to release that negative energy too. So we lived in that cabin for six months out of the year, over five years. So we all have a bucket. So if you think of your bucket, like, what the amount of toxins that you can hold in your bucket. So this might be things like, you know, bad foods, this might be things like mold, this might be things like environmental toxins, chemicals. Eventually your bucket overflows. And our mold bucket was like pouring over for our whole family. So I'm going to help you, show you some things that helped us get through it. How we stayed married and how we stayed out of the medical system as much as we could, because they unfortunately did not address that mold was an issue with us. So some common symptoms of mold illness. So that can be anything from respiratory issues, so coughing, sinus issues, people that get constant sinus infections, sinus congestion, asthma. Asthma is big in kids too. That sometimes is related to schools, muscle testing wise. I had a few people in one specific school, and it was a couple teachers that worked there and a couple of kids that I was on, muscle testing. They were all coming up for really high levels of mold. So I asked them out of curiosity. I'm like, what, what school are you at? What school do you work at? And they all worked at that same school. So I believe muscle testing wise, there is probably a big issue in schools and just being with the water and the larger buildings too. Some neurological issues could be brain fog, dizziness, memory issues. Mold really takes a toll on your immune system. So that can lead to a lot of recurrent infections, autoimmune issues, the skin issues like rashes, hives, eczema, histamine intolerance that can create a big issue with foods and being able to tolerate certain foods, sleep disturbances, emotional concerns, and then temperature regulation issues as well. So that could be like feeling cold all the time, feeling hot all the time, having night sweats. So the health risks of mycotoxins are very similar too. So. But Remember that mycotoxins linger longer. So even if you kill the mold, remediate the mold, you still have to deal with the mycotoxins after the fact, too. So some common diagnoses of those with mold illness from the medical community are sibo, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, ibs, or irritable bowel syndrome, reflux autoimmune disorders, allergies, sinus infections, gallbladder dysfunction, anxiety, depression. So if people come in with these, I'm really thinking about what's in their environment, and is there an environmental trigger like mold that's contributing to these diagnoses?

It's the great mimicker. Right. It can mimic so many different conditions, and then you can see a specialist for each of these different problems as they populate in your health. And then you just keep getting the runaround until somebody kind of cracks that code and looks at it a little bit more closely, and it's really sad to see what can happen. And, you know, I also want to mention that not everyone is sensitive to mold. So there could be. You know, I know genetically, some people are more prone to sensing mold. I think it's about one in four, if I'm not mistaken.

Yep, about 25%. So, yeah. Yeah.

Which means that you could be living in a moldy environment, have no symptoms, but still have some of the underlying destructive consequences of mold toxicity that might show up later. Right. And I know we're going to talk about some of the ways it can show up, but even if you don't think you have molded, pay attention to what we're saying, because you might. You might have it and not realize that you do. And I love the idea of getting a dog. I'm gonna look. Look into that. Just to have. Have him come and him or her come and sniff around and see if they can find anything, just to play it safe, you know?

Yeah, I can help you with some resources for that too. And I like that you mentioned that not everyone. Not everyone does react to mold. That is true. And it usually comes out as so many different symptoms. Like, even in my own family, we all had different issues we were struggling with from the same mold and from that same environment. And I see this so oftentimes, mom. Moms will bring kids into my practice, and maybe they're like, hey, my kids tonsils are touching. Like, they just want to take them out. But I feel like there's a different reason. For instance, one child I had that was happening, her tonsils were literally touching. She came to see me mold Was coming up as the trigger. Mom was like, I want a mold in my house. I'm like, okay, well, we should try and, like, explore some options, look at some testing. Let's see what's going on. Dad was like, I'm not sick. And mom was in mold rage. And they ended up tearing apart the wall in their daughter's room. And there was black mold all over around the entire window. So they found the source of the mold, and dad finally believed her. So part of the problem, too, is mom. The mom and kids usually are in the house a lot more than the dad. So maybe dad is gone at work 10 to 12 hours a day, comes home, maybe he's working outside or working in the garage. He's not exposed to that indoor environment with all that mold. So he might not have as many symptoms where the mom and kids are inside the house a majority of the day, and they might have a lot more symptoms. So it can look different in different people as well, and depending on how long you're in that environment.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

So I'll show you some pictures. These are actually all pictures of my family here. So the first picture, there are pictures of my hands. So my hands had these red hot rashes. They were itchy, they were oozy. They were uncomfortable. They would crack and bleed. I would try and not itch them, or they would crack and bleed. I'd have to put my hands in ice packs at night so I didn't scratch them in the middle of the night. Or I'd actually put my hands into my pillowcase to help so I could sleep. I couldn't wear any of my rings. I'd take my aura ring off because it was too irritating to my skin. The next picture over is a picture of my son, Silas, and he's actually breastfeeding at this time. And you can see all those red lines on his face. And that's a histamine intolerance. So I had to really focus on what I was eating, not only for myself, but for him, that I wasn't triggering anything in him too. And going back to my hands for a second, this is when I had my in person practice. So going back to the emotional toll is huge. When people come to you for help and you have hands that look like hot, rashy messes, like, oh, my gosh. God humbled me in that moment because I'm like, okay, like, I'm. I'm a little messed up too. But I'm here healing as well. And I have practitioners that are guiding me through this journey. So that's how we learn and grow. And I. I do feel like it was a blessing in disguise because I've been able to help a lot of people through mold because of this. So that's how I like to look at that there. The bottom two pictures are my kids. You can see that their cheeks are really red. They're flushed. My daughter would have a runny nose all the time from all the immune dysfunction in her body and leaky gut issues. The picture of my arm, you can see that red spot further up on my arm. This is a little tip about vacuum cleaners. If you move, just throw your vacuum cleaner away and buy a new one. Because we would bring ours back and forth from our cabin back to our home. And I brought it from the cabin back home. And I was like, oh, it never got emptied. And I emptied it all. Those mold spores flew everywhere and caused my arm to just break out in a huge rash from the mold. So just keep your vacuum cleaner at your house and just buy a new one if you move. It's worth the investment. And that last picture there is a picture of my husband's leg. So those were some rashes that were caused by the mole. Then he ended up using some topical steroid cream, which eventually stopped working after a very short amount of time. He used it very limited because he didn't want to use it, but he was sick of the itch. And I'll show you some pictures at the end of what can happen if you go into topical steroid withdrawal. So that's a whole nother beast in itself.

Yeah. Great advice with the vacuum, I think, you know, don't even empty your vacuum in your house. I think it's probably a good idea to take it outside and empty it because it's a concentration of all the stuff that accumulates in your home, and you don't want it to. You don't want those little spores flying back in the environment if, if, if you can help it.

Correct. And if you have, like, the big vacuums, like the old school vacuums are the best. It all goes into that bag. That bag is usually pretty sealed off when you take it out. Right. Or a lot of the newer vacuums are. Oh, convenience. Here, pop it open and dump it right in your garbage. All that's just flying right back out when you do that. So one of the biggest problems is people say, I don't have mold in my house, where mold can really be found in a lot of places. You can think of how many places in your house has water. Your washing machine, your kitchen, your bathroom. There's a lot of places with water in your house that has the potential for that mold growth. So common places to find mold. So bathrooms, they can be in your shower, under your sink, behind your faucet knobs. If you don't silicone up those knobs often, then mold can leak behind or water can leak behind there and grow mold kitchens. Your water splashing all over around your sink. So that can create some condensation and a breeding ground for mold basements. So sump pumps, pipes, condensation, all those areas can grow mold. Your H Vac system. If you have mold in your H Vac system, you are blowing mold over your entire house. So if you have mold in there, shut it off until you can get that mold handled in that H Vac system. Addicts, like we talked about having that on improper ventilation in your attic, that can create that humid environment for mold growth. And then laundry room. So front loading washing machines, those actually grow a lot of mold. Or if you leave your lid closed. So always leave your. Leave your lid open on your washing machine so it can dry out. So you're not creating that environment for mold. And I know you took your washing machine apart and found a bunch of mold in there, right?

I did. You know, we had this, like, we have a top load, and we always leave it open. And we would just kind of. It would always have this, like, weird odor to it. And I just, I bought the tabs and it just wouldn't do it. And. And, you know, I would take my clothes out of the washing machine and there'd be this, like, film on them, like these little chunks of film. And I didn't verify if it was mold. I think it's something called scrud, which is when detergent. We don't use laundry softener, But I would imagine perhaps that we bought our house used and we didn't buy. We didn't get a new laundry machine, which that might be another piece. Good, Good piece of advice. And when I. So I'm like, I just. I don't know what this is. So I started watching videos about how to take your laundry machine apart. And I started seeing all these crazy videos of what happens when people open up their laundry machines. And then I recognized that there was actually a flaw in the design of the machine because the wash plate, which is the part at the bottom that agitates the clothes, is metal for esthetics. And it's fused together with a plastic piece underneath, and there's actually space in between the plastic and the metal. And so when you open it up, you can't even literally, you can't get in between the plastic and the metal, and it's all, like, black. And, you know, so I power washed it and. And cleaned out. I took the whole thing apart and took out the drum, and I power washed that. And there was. There's just so much stuff that had accumulated in there, and chances are it was there, you know, before we even bought the house.

Right. Who knows how long it was there?

Yeah. And. And it was just, like, so frustrating to see the design flaw where the focus was aesthetics and not function. And I'm like, man, we need people who understand mold better to design our appliances. It's not because, you know, people. People might think, oh, I'm cleaning it. And the, you know, they. They. If they have a front load machine, which we used to have at one point, we just. We just had to decide that this isn't the right machine for us, because I felt like no matter what we did, the mold would come back. And what you see is just the tip of the iceberg.

Yep.

So it's way worse than you might think it is. And so I took the whole thing apart, power washed it, cleaned it. The smell is completely resolved. And I'll probably do that every six months just to, you know, just to make sure everything's kosher. But I also tried to find a replacement wash plate, and it's, like, so hard to find. And. And so it's not easy. They don't make it easy to replace the wash plate. And the ones that I did find weren't quite the right size, and they were like 150 bucks. And you get a new washer for 600. So you're like this one plastic piece part. Like, how is it possible that it costs that much? So, yeah, I definitely think washers can be a huge source of issues for.

A lot of people. Yeah. One thing after you did that, I told my husband we had just bought our washer was like, six months old when you did that. And I was like, you need to take our washer apart. He's like, like, what? So one thing we do is we have, like, a little ozone machine. So we'll ozone our washing machine. So at least that's going to kill some of the mold. But it does still produce those mycotoxins. So just being aware when you do that, you want to have that ventilation. Blow it outside if you can. But that is one kind of way you can do it. But I. I'm looking into different washing machines as well. Because with all the skin issues, if you're washing your clothes and you have a moldy washer and putting moldy clothes on, that's not. Not helpful either.

Yeah, with skin stuff, you know, people change their detergent, which is a smart thing to do, and they go to, you know, a more natural detergent. And if that doesn't resolve the issue, then let's look at the. What you're washing the clothes in and then let's look at the materials that you're wearing as well.

Correct. I agree with that. So this next picture I have here, this is actually, if you don't silicone the knobs on your bathtub properly, that water goes behind and then can just eat off of all that sheetrock too. So make sure you're siliconing your tubs, make sure you're siliconing your knobs and just sealing off that water so it doesn't get behind your shower encasement there. So mold is usually hidden. So in this picture you'll see a picture of a bed, a wall. We had just repainted her room. This is my daughter's room at the cabin. We put new carpet in and we had no idea what was actually behind that wall. And what we found was this actually was an old exterior wall of the cabin. So her room had been an add on at one point, which we were not aware of. And they didn' the roof properly. So the first picture here is the old siding. The second picture is we're actually standing in my daughter's room and that is where the shower was in the bathroom. So we knocked that wall out between there and then. You'll see here there is a lot of mold growth behind that siding, that old exterior siding. That's some pretty bad mold growth there. And actually, when we ripped off the insulation, the rest of the room we found that mold was actually traveled to all four walls in her room. So her room was one of the worst rooms in the CA cabin. Thankfully, at that point, she slept with us a lot. And that might have been her intuition where she didn't want to be in her room. And that might have been why. So you don't always see the mold. It can be really hidden and it may be deep through a bunch of layers that you might not know are there. So these are kind of that progression of those pictures.

Yeah. It's kind of scary to think that, you know, it's so invisible. Is this something that would. How did you know to look for this? Did you have the dog come through? Or was it your intuition? Because the room looks perfectly fine. What was it that made. What prompted you to think, hey, we need to check the.

So we. I knew there was a mold issue in the shower and we wanted to redo the shower anyways. And we. The cabin always kind of had that like musty smell. We're like, oh, it's just this old cabin. It's been in the family for 100 years. Like that's just what it smells like. Kind of wrote it off and didn't. It was really looking back. I should have known better. But you're sometimes blind to your own issues. That's why I have other people help take care of me and my family as well too. Because sometimes you don't always want to acknowledge the issues that are in front of you. So when we ripped that out, my husband actually had a severe bad reaction once he ripped that mold out. Because we didn't know what was behind that wall. We didn't expect any mold behind that wall. We expected it in the shower, didn't expect it behind the wall with the old siding. And his whole face actually swelled up and his eyes swelled closed. So that was the first day he's ever called into work in his life because he couldn't even open his eyes to drive, man. Big systemic inflammation reaction after that. So more intuition, I'd say. We also wanted to remodel it, and we were in the process of remodeling the whole things. So unfortunately, we ended up tearing the cabin down because it was way too much money to remediate the mold. Then it would have been to just start over at that point.

That's heartbreaking, right? Something that. That's been in the family for many years and. But sometimes, you know, necessary in this case to, you know, to create a healthy, you know, safe place for your family.

Yeah, we definitely felt very. There was a lot of guilt and a lot of emotions about that. We felt really bad that we were tearing it down, but at the same time, it made us so sick we couldn't keep it. And my husband and I actually wrote down a number. We're like, okay, we're going to write this number down. If the remediation cost is. Is above that number, we're not doing it. So we just decided that we went and we explored like encapsulating the crawl space, looking at remediation, and the number was significantly more than what we wrote down. And we're like, okay, this is not. This is not feasible. So. And I, I remember the moment in time where we kind of knew our long term plan was always to build at the lake. We weren't ever going to tear that cabin down, but we wanted to build here and live here long term. And we were laying in the camper one night and funny thing was, we were living in a camper and we had two mortgages, but we were living in a camper because we wanted to be at the lake and we couldn't be in the cabin. And I told my husband, I said, we just need to sell our house. We just need to sell it. Like, it was like God just hit us with that. We just need to sell our house. The market's high, let's just do it. Our house sold in a week, so we sold our house and now we're in the process of building. So it is a blessing in disguise. We now get to live at the lake a lot earlier than we had originally planned. But I am grateful for it and it's, it's a blessing to be able to wake up and look at the lake every morning, for sure. Oh, you're muted, Sachin.

Life has twists and turns for us and it's. We just never know where it takes us. But I'm glad that it's taking you to a place where you're creating a healthy haven for your family.

Right now we get to build and take all the, all the steps to have minimal mold exposure, that's for sure. So we'll go through some different signs of some mold issues. So these can be things at your home, your school, your work that could be a musty smell, water damage, peeling paint, warped wood, lots of dust in the ventilation system. So sometimes people are like, oh, I have this vent above my head and all this dust is on it and I feel like poo when I'm at work. Well, if it's blowing mold on them all day long, then their sinuses are usually pretty congested. And if there's a lot of health complaints from people in that space. So I see this in kids, maybe all summer long, they're fine. Then they go back to school and mom's like, man, their tonsils are swollen again. So it is an impact in your, the environment that you're in. So if you find that you're out of an environment for an extended period of time and you go back and you feel that way again, it's probably something in that environment that's triggering you. So how does mold impact metabolic health? So it's all about mitochondria, right? So mitochondria are our energy makers, and the mycotoxins actually disrupt your mitochondrial function, which then leads to some chronic inflammation. So when you're impairing that mitochondrial function, which is the body's main energy source, it decreases your energy production at the cellular level. So this might lead to things like persistent fatigue, low energy. Even when you're rested, you might not be able to burn fat for fuel. And that triggers your metabolism to be really sluggish, because the mitochondria are like the batteries of our cells. So when mold disrupts their function, it's like trying to run your body on a dead battery. It just doesn't work, and everything slows down. When you have that mold exposure, the chronic inflammation disrupts your insulin, and that might lead to things like increased fat storage, particularly around your belly, and difficulty losing weight. Hormones are impacted because the hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal, or the HP access leads to dysregulation in your cortisol, and that can interfere with your thyroid function as well and your adrenals. So really slowing you down. Mycotoxins really alter the gut, so they kill that beneficial bacteria, and that allows all the harmful bacteria and the fungi to really thrive in that gut and kind of colonize in that gut. So contributes to leaky gut. When you have that leaky gut, all those proteins are floating around, can cause some different inflammation, can cause food intolerances, histamine issues. And the gut is really the foundation of our health. So mold really disrupts that microbiome, which sets off a chain reaction for all the other symptoms in our body and all the other systems to not be functioning properly. So nutrient deficiency is another one with that gut health, because if you're not absorbing your nutrients, you get really deficient. And it's common for people with mold to be deficient in magnesium, iodine, and B vitamins. And those all are really important for your energy and your mitochondria, too. So we. We noticed that we had a lot of fatigue, hair loss, weight loss, even though we were taking supplements, eating organic, trying to do all the things, we weren't actually absorbing the food that we were eating.

Hmm.

So immune health. So mold impacts immune health as well. So that chronic inflammation triggers inflammatory response in the body, which creates that systemic inflammation, decreases all of your immune cells in your body, which leads to more frequent illnesses. And when the immune system's constantly fighting all those mold toxins, everyday pathogens, you have fewer resources to use to fight those everyday pathogens, and that makes you more prone to getting sick. So I saw this a lot in my daughter because she just had that runny nose all the time. So autoimmune triggers. So molecule can just regulate the immune system, and that causes it to attack healthy tissues. So this is things like Hashimoto's thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus. So histamine intolerance, Mast cell activation syndrome is actually pretty common in mold as well. And then going back to the gut again. So 70% of your immune system lives in the gut. So that's also going to impact that immune system. So lab testing to look at. So not all of these are necessarily going to be out of range for someone that's in mold. But you got to look at the markers for each individual person. So urine mycotoxin tests, I'll show you some examples of those. But those are direct testing for mycotoxins, and that is in the urine. So keeping in mind that that is only testing for what's actually being excreted out of the body. So if you're still holding on to it and you, you can still be mold toxic and have a urine mycotoxin come back. Okay. Because your body's not able to push those toxins out. So the immunoglobulins, those can be elevated in cases of chronic exposure. Glutathione is usually depleted with mold liver enzymes. Those can show a lot of stress from detoxing, detoxifying mycotoxins, homocysteine. So that might be elevated and that shows some oxidative stress and also poor methylation, which is like mthfr, which a lot of people have, and they don't actually realize histamine. So those are often triggered by mold exposure. Same with a tryptase. That can be elevated in cases of the mast cell activation syndrome. Eosinophils, that could be indicate an allergic or parasitic response that could be linked back to that mold exposure. The ACTH, or the adrenocorticotropic hormone that stresses the HPA axis and can cause irregularity in those levels. Cortisol could either be high or low, depending on what that HPA axis function is. And then both the CRP and the ESR show inflammation. And for my family, we actually ran the urine mycotoxin tests, and I'll show you those here. So this first one you'll see is not a lot in the red. This is actually my husband's test, and we had done a lot of Binding and drainage and a lot of mold work in him prior to this test. So I would have guessed that these would have been elevated had be done a little bit sooner. And the next one here, this was actually my urine mycotoxin. So at the time I was breastfeeding my son, I couldn't do a lot of detox and a lot of drainage because I didn't want to dump all those toxins into him. And it's really astonishing to think how I was able to hold it together to care for everyone else when I was this mold toxic. It really goes to show how the body has a high level of resilience and the power to really push through to, to care for your family and live your life. So this, these tests really show a lot of high levels. So that high level of aflatoxins that could be a lot from either food or environmental mold that can contribute to like liver issues, immune suppression, systemic inflammation, gliotoxins, more the neurological effects like the brain fog and memory loss. And then this really just shows lots of mold exposure and toxicity and requiring a lot of different modalities to be able to handle with those and see where the mold is coming from and how to get it out of the body. So we talked a little bit about why molds overlook so lack of awareness. You don't know what you don't know. Unfortunately, the medical community doesn't really have a lot of education in mold exposure and it can present with so many different symptoms and they're not specific for people. So a lot of times I hear people come in and they're like, man, I have fatigue. I can't stay awake. My. I have weight in my belly. I don't know what's going on. And all my tests come back normal. And then they just say, you know, they think I'm a hypochondriac because I keep going in and I. They don't know what's wrong with me. So that's a trigger for me to think about mold in those people. Mold often grows in hidden areas like we talked about, and remediation is expensive, so people might not want to address it right away. They might be, I can't afford that. I can't deal with it. I can't do that right now when there are other things that you can do to at least help your body live in that environment and not be harmed anymore. So we tried like the quick fixes, but we, for our situation, it was so, so impactful and so big that we decided it was best for us to just remove ourselves from that situation.

Yeah. Not an easy conversation to have with people.

No. Most people deny I'm a mold in my house. And I'm like, okay, like, let's start here. Let's start with some tests. What can we look at? So really just meeting them where they're at and planting the seeds of, you know, this could be a problem. And they, I would say pretty much everyone eventually finds mold somewhere that I've had that conversation with. So what to do if you have mold? So first of all, you need to get out of that environment. So if you're really mold toxic, you can't heal if you stay in that environment. So you want to get out if it's a smaller area and say it's like less than 10 square feet and you want, you feel comfortable cleaning it yourself. You want to make sure you're using your gloves, your N95 mask, long sleeves. You want to reduce all of the exposure to the mold as you can. This might involve making a negative pressure, so kind of sealing it off with plastic so you're not blowing all those mold spores everywhere there and just seeing how far the extent of the mold damage is. Because if you open something up and it's a lot bigger than you were expecting, it might be best to have someone else come in and take care of that for you in a proper way. Looking at mold remediation companies, you want to have someone that does third party testing that doesn't do their own testing, because that gets a little bit controversial there too. So do your research for mold remediation people, because there are some that are good and unfortunately there's some that are bad. So you want to make sure you find a good one in your area that can help you out with that. So high tech air reactors. So these I actually love, I own three of them. So this allowed us to not have to throw away our belongings. We were able to save a lot of stuff. And it creates a really healthy environment. So what they do is they destroy mold and mycotoxins at the molecular level. So they circulate what are called super oh radicals that go all over. They can get into all those nooks and crannies and they kill that mold at the molecular level. So we have one in our main area where we live, we have one upstairs. And I actually bought one for my children's daycare because I knew there was mold there. And I was like, I just want you guys to have a safe environment. Can I please put this in here. I'll take care of it. I'll change the filters. Just keep it on. Just turn it on. So they were willing to do that, and that at least made a good environment for them at their daycare too. And in our cabin, we ended up putting these. We put two of them in the cabin, circulated the air. We had them in there for about two months before we cleaned the cabin out. And we were living in our camper at the time. And I went in the cabin to help clean everything out and box it all up and the stuff that we wanted to try and save. And I told my husband, I said, you know what, I feel better in this cabin than I do in the camper. Well, come to find out, we were living on that moldy mattress the whole time. So it made sense why I felt better in there with the high tech than I did in the camper.

What's something like that cost, if you don't mind sharing?

So this is a Model 101. So this one's about $2,000. You change the filters. So the whole filter replacement kit, I want to say, is about $140, if I remember correctly. And that's for the whole year. So sometimes the filters and the air purifiers that you buy, maybe the air purifier is more affordable, say $600, but the filter replacement might be $300 and you have to do it every six months. So keeping that in mind, this also does go after VOCs, bacteria, viruses. So it's going after more than just mold itself. So another reason that I invested in them as well with building, we wanted to be able to Capture all those VOCs too.

Nice. Thank you.

And if anyone's interested in those, I can help you out and get you, get you hooked up with that. So how to remediate some mold? So we talked about bleach. We don't want to do that because that feeds the mold growth. Any disturbing of mold, you're really spreading all those spores and those mycotoxins. So proper remediation is key. So we want to remove the physical mold. We want to make that negative airflow, create that HEPA filtration. So the HEPA vacuums, there are specialized cleaners like enzyme cleaners, thieves cleaner, EC3 products that you can use to clean the mold. Fogging. So some people do either hot fogging or cold fogging. That means you're spraying that EC3 concentrate all over and then wiping off those surfaces to really get rid of all the dust. And the mycotoxins there and then the high tech air reactors. Those are helpful while you're cleaning the mold because you are going to be stirring up a lot of things when you're scrubbing everything, doing any demo work. So I tell people, try and get those as soon as you can because that's going to help trap those mold and mycotoxins sooner than later. EC3 also does make a laundry additive, so you can use that in your washing machine for your clothes. Especially if you have found mold in your washer. Wash your clothes with that laundry active for a while to really trap those spores off of your clothes and in your bedding as well. So EMFs. So EMFs are a hidden, hidden issue. And EMFs actually increase mold growth. So EMFs are things like our cell phones, computers, smart meters. Those are a big one. So it's been found that EMF exposure actually accelerates the growth of mold. So if you have say a smart meter right next to your bathroom behind your shower, and that smart meter's on all the time, and maybe there's a leak behind your shower, that mold is going to grow even faster. So with smart meters, if you can have them put on a pole off of your house, that's more ideal. Also, you'll probably sleep better if you do that just because the EMF exposure on your house is so high. Or if you can even go back to an analog meter, that would be ideal, an ideal situation.

Oh, the good old days.

I know, right? There are some, some companies that'll let you do that. Thankfully ours is on a poll. But yeah, you, they, they charge a fee for it. So you have to pay that fee if you want to go back to analog. So some things you can do to mitigate EMFs and mold so you can reduce your EMF exposure. Like we said, put the smart meter, turn off your WI FI routers at night so you can buy Christmas tree timer, have it be off at night while you're sleeping. That's going to help promote a better sleeping environment as well. Keep your electronic devices off of you, away from you. Put some EMF stickers on them. They do make EMF blankets. So if you're going to sit on your couch with your computer, you can put a blanket on and protect yourself that way with those shields.

You can also buy lambs or it's called Haven. Now they actually make clothing that is impregnated with silver to protect you too. We have, we have the blankets, the EMF blankets and you know, the WI FI timer and things like that and. And we can't always control the environments we're in. So if you work in an environment where there's a lot of WI fi, then perhaps even EMF protective clothing can be beneficial for people.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Cause when I was pregnant with my daughter, I actually worked in the icu, so there was monitors everywhere. And hospitals just have a high level of EMFs as well. And they actually make a belly band that you can put around for pregnant women that protect with EMFs as well. So I utilize that for that pregnancy too, in that setting. So they do make hats too. I know a lot of people that have hats. I had a little baby hat I put on my kids. So there's different ways to do that. So is there a link with mold and cognitive decline? So, yeah, because mold and mycotoxins can actually cross that blood brain barrier. So. So that's your protective shield that protects harmful substances from entering the brain. And the mycotoxins are able to cross that and cause some inflammation, really damaging your neurons, disrupting your neurotransmitter function and leading to accelerated brain aging. So that's going to impair your cognition that way, your memory, your learning, your decision making abilities, mood mitochondria. So your mitochondria are not able to function as well when those mycotoxins are floating around in your brain. Can also lead to reduced brain oxygen levels. So I figured you'd like that with all your breath work. When you have hypoxia in your brain, you're not. Your brain doesn't function very well when you're hypoxic, so can make you feel more, can make you feel like you're losing control or your ability to think clearly because it's disrupting those chemicals in your brain which you need to function. So they really kind of take over your brain in that aspect. So there is a study here. So in 2020, there was actually a study from Alzheimer's Drug Discovery foundation that found that people exposed to mycotoxins showed higher rates of cognitive deficits, including memory loss, attention issues and executive function problems. Then there was another study that linked ochratoxin a exposure to an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. So it does show that there's long term cognitive issues that are tied back to mold. So the earlier you find it, the better off that you are. And then how do I address mold? So we talked. Get yourself out of mold, purify the air, support your detoxification pathways. So we want to make sure that all your drainage in your body is open so you're able to detox and bind to that mold. Really work on that gut health, replenish your nutrients, make sure you're absorbing those nutrients. You might need some enzymes, you might need to change your diet, balancing out those hormones, and then emotional support as well. So the emotional toll was huge. I really saw my husband was sick with topical steroid withdrawal. He was bedbound for over three months. I had. Silas was four months old at the time, and he couldn't even pick him up off the floor. That's how sick he was. So just addressing that, too, is really one of the first steps to rebuilding and repairing not only yourself, but your home. So what to do at a hotel? So trust your nose. Bring an EC3 mold candle. I bring one with, I throw it in my suitcase, and I buy a lighter when I get there, because that's going to help really trap those mold spores out of the air. If it's a place where you can bring an air purifier, they even make little small ones. Or if you can, if you're driving, you can throw one in your car. That's something that you can throw in the hotel room. Take a minimum. You're usually spending a minimal amount of time at the hotel, and you can always look at, like, the H vac system or looking at the air conditioner and making sure there's not any visible mold growth. If there is, that might be something. Maybe you could switch to a different room and see if a different room would be a little bit better for you.

And have courage to ask. Right. A lot of people don't have the. They might walk into a moldy room and say, oh, it's only for a couple days, no big deal. But you're also taking it back with you in your suitcase.

Right. It goes on all your stuff, and you travel with that. So keeping that in mind and get home, wash all your stuff right away. Don't just put it right back in your closet, wash it. Put some EC3 concentrate in your wash machine. Get all those mold spores off, because mold does travel with you wherever you go. So that's why a lot of mold people say, throw all your stuff away and start over. Thankfully, with the high techs, we didn't have to do that as much. But assessing those things that you have and seeing is it worth keeping or should we get rid of it and start over? So does mold impact your kids? Yes. So talked about the tonsils and A lot of. A lot of tonsils issues that I found in kids are actually related to mold as well, usually from the school or potentially even that home environment too. They're a very tiny body. They're also laying on the floor. They're playing on the floor a lot. So if you have mold in your carpet and they're stirring up all those mycotoxins. There was actually a school around here too that had done. They shampooed all the carpets well, then they left all the windows closed and there was no airflow. And I had one little girl, if she'd sit on the floor at her school with like a dress on and her legs were bare, her whole legs would turn into a huge rash. So they're very tiny and they are very sensitive as well. So how to talk to your landlord. So this is a little bit tricky. Landlords are a little bit hard sometimes. So you do have a right to live in a safe environment. So really making sure you document everything. So take pictures of the mold. If there's any water damage, if there's any areas of concern. Concern. You can keep a log of your symptoms, too, in their correlation to when you've been in that property. You can notify your landlord. You can suggest any professional testing or if you want to explore that avenue yourself to see if there is mold and just staying persistent. So following up with that landlord, seeing if there's anything that you can do or maybe if they have a different unit that they can move you to as well. So I'll talk a little bit about the topical steroid cream. So a lot of times I find that mold has the skin issues. Well, then people go and they get a topical steroid cream, they put it on their skin and they want the itch to go away, they want the rash to go away. So this is my husband's leg and he's like, I just want this spot to go away. It rubs on my work boots. It's driving me nuts. I can't do it anymore. So he was that creamy. Did use it pretty sparingly. He did not use it as often as they wanted him to because he's like, I. I don't like using medications, but I'm just going to use it a little bit. So that's a picture of his leg and then that's a picture of his skin after he went through the withdrawal. So he actually stopped using the steroid creams because they stopped working. Spots were popping up all over his skin. He put the steroids on a couple of Them he found that it wasn't working. So he's like, well, I'm just going to stop this because it's. It's not working. And then it just kept progressing and progressing and progressing. And topical steroid withdrawal really takes a toll on your adrenals and all your hormones or cortisol. He couldn't stop sleep. He couldn't walk, he couldn't. He literally couldn't get out of bed or pick the kids up off the floor. So it's been a journey with him. They can say it takes up to four years to heal from this fully. I mean, your skin is your largest organ on your body. And we're. I mean, replenishing and rejuvenating all of his skin on his entire body. So all of his skin turned red. It all flaked off. It was swelling, it was oozing. That's part of the reason why we changed our sheets every night because of these skin issues as well.

Oh, man. Poor guy.

So, thankfully, we have all resolved a lot of our issues from mold. We're in a healthy environment. My husband has hands and his skin, his face, his chest, his upper arms, those are all pretty much healed. So his legs are still a little bit rough, and his back's still a little bit rough, but they're getting a lot better than they were. So we're really grateful for that and were able. That we were able to make it through all of this because it was a very long journey. And to put it in perspective in that picture, My son is 2 and my daughter's 4, and we started this when Silas was 4 months old. So the mold exposure was longer than that. But all the symptoms really triggered at that point in our lives.

Wow. Well, thank you for. I'm sorry, thankful that you shared what you did today. However, obviously, I'm not glad that you went through this, but I'm also happy that you're now sharing this with more people because so many people might be struggling and not really know where to look for for answers. I'd love to know where people can learn more about the work that you're doing, how they can follow up, perhaps even schedule a time to connect with you. Perhaps if you've got some tools or resources you'd like to share, feel free to offer those, because again, I bring in people who are. Who talk about fascinating topics that I want to learn more about and are impacting. Sometimes me personally, sometimes me clinically, and this has been very enlightening for me personally. So thank you for offering your knowledge today and putting together such a wonderful presentation and being so all encompassing. I think we covered so many different angles and vantage points gives us all so much to think about. You've got some tools here. I'd love for you to share them with us and what we can expect if we access them.

Yeah. So the first code here is a free discovery call with me. So if you have been struggling with mold or if your kids are struggling with mold, you can reach out there and book a call. It is free and we'll go through and see what steps we can take to help you with that. The next one is a step by step guide for mold cleaning. So it outlines everything that we talked about today and how you can find those products and the right products to work for you if you are going to tackle that mold yourself. The next QR code is the high tech air reactors. So those are the air reactors that we use in our house that really destroy the mold and mycotoxins at that molecular level. I encourage getting those as soon as possible. And I do have a few clients that actually still live in a moldy environment. But with the high techs, they are able to tolerate that because it keeps up with the mold. So they do need to be sized appropriately to you. So I would reach out to me as well if you want to book a discovery call. We can talk a little bit more about the high techs because it's not only about the square footage in your house, it's about how much airspace you have and how big of the mold problem is for the sizing of those units and then the EC3 products. So those are the mold candles, the laundry additive and the spray for cleaning. So those are great to just have on hand. You can even spray down your shower after you take a shower and that traps those mold spores down. Good for on the window sills for those condensation. Trap those mold spores down so they're not flying all over.

This is great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Such a wonderful conversation. I appreciate everything that you shared. Thank you for providing us with these additional tools and we'll share the link. So everyone has them in the show notes so they can access them and yeah, this is very enlightening. Thank you. Once again. If you, if somebody were to go home right now, let's say they see mold in their shower, what would be the first thing they should do?

Hmm. Put some gloves on and clean it.

Okay.

I mean I you want to ideally get to the root source of what it is, but if you do have Some mold in your shower, you might want to put that mask on, put some gloves, gloves on, put some long sleeves on, clean that mold with the proper tools, whether that be some thieves cleaner, enzyme cleaner, or the EC3 products. So you can find some of those even at your local hardware store. They do have some of the enzyme cleaners. So cleaning that off and then that EC3 spray over it to trap those spores in and making sure that you are caulking your shower so it's not going behind your shower as well.

Okay. I think a big thing for a lot of people is that I've noticed we moved into our house is that they have their fans on timers. So their fan, you push the button and the fan stays on for 60 minutes. But it might actually require, you know, I like to keep the air circulating as much as I can. But if your fan is on a timer, then it may not be venting out appropriately and getting rid of all that moisture, assuming it's vented correctly too. Right?

Yeah. I was going to say check your venting first and make sure that it is actually going outside and not in your attic, creating more issues in your house.

Awesome. Again, thank you so much appreciation and gratitude for those of you that are practitioners listening to this. I hope you found this really insightful. Connect with Brianna. She's got some great tools and resources. We'll also post her social media handles so you can follow her and learn more about the work that she's doing. And if you're somebody who's struggling with mold, then please reach out to her. You deserve it. Your family deserves it. And mold doesn't just destroy one person's health. It can destroy or impact negatively the entire family's health. So highly encourage all of you to take some sort of action, whether it's just inspecting certain spaces in your home, if you're suspecting that there's water damage, maybe you know, calling a mole dog to see if that's a good, you know, first line solution for you. And of course, if you have a bathroom with mold in it, maybe use a different one for the time being until you can order the products and come up with a good mitigation strategy. And certainly I love what you shared about your daughter's intuition. If your child is telling you something, pay closer attention. It may not be that they're scared, maybe that they don't feel good and their intuitive faculties are telling them maybe not exactly what it is, but that something isn't quite right. So, you know, I think as, as functional parents we need to, you know, teach our kids to trust their intuition, and we need to learn how to trust their intuition as well. Brianna, is there anything you'd like to say before we sign off?

Oh, and just make sure you are worth it to ensure that you are healthy and your family is healthy. So if you do suspect it and you're thinking you're struggling, definitely reach out, because there's nothing worse than trying to go through the journey alone. So I did do the journey alone for a while, bounced around until I found someone that could actually help me. So just find the right person for you, whether it be me or someone else, and just have someone help you through that journey. You don't have to do it alone.

Amazing. Thank you. Thank you all for tuning in today. Here's to your health, happiness and wholeness. Bye for now.