Mold Case Part 3

Previously on Mold Case : Part 1 and Part 2 we had fired the environmental doctor that we were seeing and had gone back to see our HBOT doctor who had ordered some tests to see if the mycotoxins from the mold were in Annabelle's body.......

Well the results are back.... read on to find out what they are.


I grew up in South Africa and lived there until I met my husband who was working in South Africa from England on a 2 year contract, well needless to say we met, fell in love, got married and we decided that we would move to England because of better job prospects for my husband and I. So we had all our worldly possessions packed up, and shipped in a container to England. The container took 8 weeks to get there, living out of a suitcase for 8 weeks is pretty hard but we managed and we were really grateful to see "our stuff" again. Being in a new country is really challenging but being around furniture and stuff that I recognized helped me through, it comforted me when I was so far away from my home country and my family.


We settled down and decided to start a family and  after 41 weeks of being pregnant and 13 hours of labor, Matthew was born. Things were going well and then my husband comes home and says " How would you like to move to America?" He had been offered a job to head up a new business in the USA and the head office was in California, he went on a 2 week trip to see what it was all about and left me at home with a child who had just contracted chicken pox so I was confined to our home for 2 weeks! What fun.


Well our possessions were packed up once again (I'd hate to know what our carbon footprint looks like!) and shipped to California where we moved to our previous house that we moved from because of the mold issues. We decided to have a second child, I fell pregnant and 9 weeks later I lost the baby to a miscarriage, we decide that we were going to try again and 42 weeks later and only 6 hours of labor Annabelle was born.


Well what I am trying to get to really is that no matter where we moved to I always felt I could cope with the stress of living in a new country because I always had "our stuff" with us.


The test results are back and here they are :
Aflatoxin 0 ppb (NP)
Ochratoxin 4,9 ppb (P)
Tricothecene 0,47 ppb (P)

NP - Not present
P - Present
So to explain this result Ochratoxin is the mycotoxins that are produced by Aspergillus/ Penicillium and Chaetomium, that figure is quite high amount in her system.
The Tricothecene is the mycotoxin that is produced by Stachybotrys, that figure is low.
These were the 4 prevalent Molds found in the house by the air quality tests that were done so she has been exposed to the mycotoxins and they are still in her system.


So when we left the house just as a precaution we decided that it would be prudent to start some sort of detoxing, so we decided on Modifilan Brown Seaweed and is known to "Detoxifies the body from heavy metals, radioactive elements, free radicals and toxins."We felt great better than we had in months but then after a month the detoxing kicked in headaches, mood swings and dizziness. Eventually things smoothed out and we started to feel better again.

We got the test results so now what? I emailed Andrea over at Our mold Journey and asked her that question? She recommended we see a mold specialist and recommended a good one who is in Santa Barbara, I have already had 2 phone calls with her and we are heading up there on Thursday. The other part of Andrea's email was "You have done the most important treatment possible and that is leave the environment. (Do you have anything from the house with you? It might be good to store those items)…" She added her post that she had written on the subject which was a real eyeopener. Well as you know we had packed up all "our stuff" after wiping it down with Lysol wipes and moved it to our new house with exception of soft furnishings, rugs, soft toys which we threw out. Supposedly this is not good enough mycotoxins are so small that 20 million 5 micron spores would fit on a postage stamp, scary stuff!

Well when I really started to think about it did we get everything? Eveything was such a rush to move, then I thought Oh no! our broom was something we brought with us that was used in the other house and we've been sweeping the floor in the new house did we bring the mold with us? Do we have to get rid of all "OUR STUFF" for the sake of our health? That comfort of knowing that even being in a foreign country I have "my stuff" with me gone, how would I explain to my six year old he has to throw away his lego's because its making him sick? Even worse how do I explain to Annabelle, she loves brother's lego's?