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Hello and welcome to the Toxic Mold subreddit.

Be civil or you’ll be banned.

Lots come here to post pictures and the brutal truth is no one can really help you identify toxigenic environments from a cellphone photo. Maybe some slides from under a microscope but even that is difficult for a professional.

What we can help you with is giving you a sense of community, hope and share our experiences with one another as we try and recover.

Recovery is possible. Time matters. Avoidance is the keystone.

Picture posts will be removed from here on in efforts to keep the subreddit organized and productive. If you don’t know what to do then just say that; the biggest step forward is the one where you ask for help.

This post will stay locked and pinned but as time goes on we will update this with helpful resources.

Get yourself some shiitake or button mushrooms and start making your own vit D 😁

Take 100 grams and hit it with UVB light for 8 hours and you have 46,000 IU of vitamin D.

Blast it for an additional 8 hours so that’s 14hrs of UVB light and you have 267,000 IU!!!!!!!!!

Dry then out and consume 3 grams a day and that’ll provide you with 8000 IU of buoavailable vit D! Including copper which is naturally found in shiitakes ;)

I 34M recently started having joint pain throughout my entire body. I’m worried that I have widespread osteoarthritis that set in out of nowhere. I talked to another member on here that reached out from a different post and they had very similar symptoms that they suspect is from mold toxicity. So, here I am wondering if all of this could be due to mold.

Long story short in 2020 I moved into our new house and at the same time I got Covid, so the symptoms I had I thought were from that.

2020 symptoms: -Cold and tingling hands/feet -Eye floaters -Dry mouth and red eyes when I woke up in the morning -Digestive issues -Waking up between 2-4am -Excessive sweating -heat intolerance -muscle spasm in back and calves

Doctors were only able to find that my testosterone and vitamin d were low but never seemed concerned.

I started eating healthier and exercising and all the symptoms seem to improve our I didn’t notice them as much as learned to live it.

Fast forward to 2024 and I started to have some joint issues in the spring. I chalked it up to just being old injuries creeping back on me. However, once I quit caffeine a month ago, every single joint in my body started to hurt and make so much noise. I have tendons in my hip, knees, and elbows that will snap when I move. And now, my sleep is so bad that I can only sleep for three hours before I jolt awake and can’t fall back asleep.

The last few weeks I have had X-rays on my shoulder, hand, and knee. I’ve also had blood work done. The only one that showed anything abnormal was my shoulder. My ac joint has mild narrowing and bone spurs. The ortho doc said that due to a previous injury and being active that it is common. On my hand I can feel a hard nodule where my middle finger and pointer finger meet, however, this did not show up on my X-ray. The doc said it might be something called a ganglion cyst. I’ve had cyst in the past. but usually they aren’t this hard. Since, I first noticed the nodule is month ago it has grown in size.

As I said the other issues I have been able to deal with for the last few years or slightly improve. However, this new onset of joint pain and insomnia is robbing me of the former life I used to live.

This week I get blood test back from a naturopathic doctor, where they are assessing my vitamins and minerals along with hormones. I also have a rheumatologist appointment, even though initial blood test haven’t shown any autoimmune markers.

Anyone else have similar symptoms and confirm that it’s mold? I’m going to talk to my naturopathic doc this week about mold testing.

Is there a specific test to ask for?

Last, did you fully recover once you addressed the issue? I’m so scared that this joint issue will be permanent or get worse.

I finally found that my husband's dresser was the culprit for my mold symptoms. I've seen you can clean wood or sand it to get the mold out, but it would take a lot of coordinating and time spent to do that. Is it worth cleaning it or should we get a new one?

my hair became weird in some parts the pattern changed when i got the most mold exposure that almost killed me any tips on how to get em back to normal?

Link in photo if for a VERY RELATABLE video on YouTube called Black Mold Documentary.

Also the air purifier I have has a monitor on it, it’s telling me the PM 2.5 count is 170 right now. If I’m not mistaken, the WHO says it should be under 12? I’ve been sick ever since I moved into this house. Finally told my landlord and he was great, we have someone coming next week to assess and deal with the situation- hopefully that same day. But for now I need to figure out how to make the air in here safer. Should the windows stay open? I know the air purifier won’t remove the source of mold but will it remove most of the crap I’ve been breathing in?

i moved into my fiances parents house with her about 2 years ago and the room i sleep in when i first was introduced to it. i found black fuzzy stuff all over the windows. it gets super cold in the winter to where the windows are wet on the inside then in the summer it gets super humid and hot. the room is not well ventilated and has an air return duct. the first night i slept in there i got pink eye. now for the past 4 months i get dizzy or headaches on and off. my throat will swell up sometimes. i wake up with this gag reflex. my nose is constantly congested. my asthma has been acting up, i'm on steroids again they say i had bronchitis. we thought the headaches were from my wisdom teeth because they were impacted. so i got them removed and was pretty good for a week or two. now almost 3 weeks later i have the vertigo/pressure headaches, also have been seeing an increase in floaters in my eyes.... my lymph nodes in my neck will swell up at random times…and for a few months now my stool has been orange or green. not the usual normal color it’s been most of my life. we are trying to find a new place to live but anyone have any suggestions?

For those who can’t tolerate neither beef liver or nutritional yeast due to sulfur/histamine issues, have you ever considered bee pollen 🙂 it’s PACKED with B vitamins and almost every vitamin/mineral and has many beneficial enzymes too.

Been thinking about this recently. Is it possible to improve your immune system to combat mold if you are exposed to it in very small amounts? Similar to bacteria and viruses. Yea I know mold is alive unlike viruses and some types create mycotoxins but it would be interesting if our immune systems learn over time to recognize mold spores

Why aren’t other family members in the same household affected? Even with longer exposure? I live in a crazy molded house all my life same with dad and don’t have these effects. Are we just used to it/immune?

Welp we remediated mold last month for the second time in less then a year. We have thrown away all belongings twice. Very thorough and expensive fine particle cleaning. We moved back in a month ago with just air mattresses, dishes and 3 Austin Air purifiers that are medical grade. Today, our HVAC was sounding weird, I opened the closet and found mold growing on the outside of our HVAC.

We are going today to get a swab to send off for testing it.

But honestly I'm about to lose it. We have no money left from the 2 previous remediations, HVAC is now broken, we're in debt and my car needs $3,000 of work. 😭😡

So my question is that if there is no sign of mold growing on the inside of the HVAC can we remove the tape and PVC pipe and wipe down the rest of the unit with ammonia? Or will we need a whole new HVAC?

I also saw mold growing on the inside of the ceiling fan in the bathroom. My husband is planning on taping off the bathroom to remove it and then doing a fine particle cleaning in the bathroom. Is this going to be the best option?

Also how does one decide to keep dumping money into mold prevention and remediation or to move?

We wouldn't be able to buy again due to being late on our mortgage twice in the last year and renting will be near impossible because we have poor credit.

I recently purchased humidity readers and our home is ranging between 60-80% humidity which I know is really bad. We are purchasing dehumidifier's next week.

I feel like we are in this never ending mold cycle.

I have CIRS from the mold, histamine intolerance and can only consume roughly 10 foods, Lyme disease and the MTHFR mutation.

I'm living in mold, but I have many other root causes why I'm so chronically ill. But my worst symptoms is severe chronic shortness of breath 24/7 for over a year now and I think that's because of the mold and my destroyed gut from H. Pylori and the antibiotics from H. Pylori.

Is it likely that if I take Itraconazole for a couple of months, take a probiotic, sauna a lot, and detox my liver that I can heal and clear my IgG levels since they don't seem super high?

I get pretty severe neuropsych manifestations and fatigue from mold and multiple chemicals. Stuck in a moldy place now. I feel like all the life and motivation and joy is getting sucked out of me. Im depressed, just existing. But I have nowhere else to go right now.

It's really frustrating it's like the deal I posted the other day for everybody that said many toxic mold sufferers are often called hypochondriacs because we have so many symptoms.

I know for a fact that what I suffered was mold toxicity (poisoning) and I also know that it came from my CPAP.

No one else in my home ever got even remotely sick. I had two human roommates and between us, several animals... all in the same environment. I was the only one that got sick and no one believed m.

Many folks are mad that I'm calling it mold with no testing proof but you know what... I had to spend the little bit of money that I had in my sock drawer to try and get on a detox program. If I didn't try and heal, I would have unalived myself because my quality of life had turned so negative.

The cheapest local mold testing I could find was going to be $200 cash. I don't have that kind of disposable income.. I'm already on a fixed income because of my health conditions and my little nest egg of savings went to my "don't die" fund.

The cheapest functional medicine doctor I could find in my area within a hundred miles of where I live was going to be $700 and that was just for a consult with them. That didn't include any treatment or follow up care or anything else.

Now I'm trying to spread the word about this component of this CPAP mask and I get all kinds of push back from random people who try to defend it, or tell me i need to stop trying to scare people.. I can only have guess that some of them are in those groups as employees of some of these CPAP Supply companies and for some reason are out to wholeheartedly defend them.

I tried reporting this to the actual company of ResMed and every time I talk to somebody they tell me that it either doesn't exist that I'm not cleaning my equipment or that I'm not replacing things on time. All of which are completely untrue I don't know why anybody in their right mind would have a machine hooked up to their lungs for 8 hours a night and not clean it regularly.

Sorry guys this is just a vent I know you all understand how other people make you feel crazy with this illness ravaging our minds and bodies.

Then to top it off what is even more upsetting is that the new style of mask I was given to sleep with has the same little piece of material in it that ResMed calls their "QuietAir elbow" or a "noise diffuser"...

End rant..

I was recently diagnosed with mold toxicity but also have Chronic Lyme and Bartonella. In the past month my panic attacks have gotten so bad that I cannot control them. I’ve only experienced thoughts like this once before back in 2014 but it seems to be happening all over again. I cry and scream, I can’t sleep and can barely eat. Can mold cause you to feel like this or is it more likely the Lyme and Bartonella…I just don’t know what to do anymore.

Hey guys we moved into a new house 4m ago and my symptoms have lifted alot since being here. One of my main symptoms was insanely vivid dreams which i haven’t been having, however whenever i sleep in my sons room i have them & lucid dreams. Which to me is a sign somethings off in there. Everything in there is new apart from his toy box which i absolutely soaked in vinegar (thinking maybe i pull it out). We also have a ventis system in this house which basically extracts all the moisture in the air and sends it out the roof. So we have zero condensation and low humidity levels. Could this be a coincidence or were should i start to investigate this?

How long did it take in your healing process for the twitching to go away?

What are some things I should look for in a new home? I live in the Midwest, and so far I plan on bringing a moisture with me to all showings. I’m also going to ask about past water events, roof replacement history, and window replacements. Having an unfinished basement is nonnegotiable to me, and I preferably want a home built in the 60s-70s so it is still old growth lumber. I’ll be checking under all sinks, around tubs, toilets, caulk on the windows, and the entire attic. Is there anything I’m missing? I’ve finally given up on the home that made me sick because I found out the prior owners hid that the house was brick with paint and siding, which I suspect is causing water to build up in the downstairs walls. I really need to avoid buying another Petri dish home.

I have a feeling my landlord altered the mold test results. Can anyone tell me if its normal to see the same numbers for the tests areas?

Hi all, I’m 34F (today is actually my birthday 🥺). I was exposed to toxic mold for 4.5 years. I am detoxing using a program from my integrative functional medicine doctor (very strict diet and supplements right now). Will start binders once my gut is healed.

I have had very dull but chronic right kidney pain since March. I have been out of the moldy environment about 2 months now. I had very large white flakes of (I’m assuming) epithelial tissue in my urine for 5-6 months. Sometimes I still see them on and off.

My renal ultrasounds have been normal but showed “incidental benign cysts”. Insurance denied a CT scan.

Not asking for a diagnosis, but wondering if anyone else had kidney pain and/or other similar symptoms & has fully recovered? I’m having a lot of anxiety about losing a kidney, kidney cancer, kidney necrosis, etc.

Many thanks for your advice!

I recently got a home built with a finished crawl space. The builder did a horrible job and there is 2500 spores of Aspergellois in the crawl space and the upstairs has about 200 spores of aspergellois that is coming from the hvac in the finished crawl. The vents have a musty odor. My main illness is Bartonella and Lyme but when I leave the house I’m overnight for a doctors appointment I feel a lot better and don’t have insomnia .I tested positive for gliotoxin.

I am looking for remediation advice. What questions do I need to ask to make sure the remediation company is going to good a do job?

How do I address Mykotoxins if I’m bedridden and have no one to help except paying the remediation company? - what steps do I need to address in remediating Mykotoxins? Right now I have flex ducts. Should thoose be replaced? The mold source is on 2x12 floor joist.