The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - How to Identify and Treat Mold Illness (CIRS) ｜ Ariana Thacker EP 228

00:00:00.000 You're probably going to find this surprising, there isn't an ICD code for mold-related illness.

00:00:04.560 There's a code for if you got bit by a turtle, but there isn't a code for if you have mold-related illness.

00:00:10.020 And also if you think back over the last like 200 years,

00:00:13.000 there have been decades where people have been exposed to certain chemicals without knowing they were making them sick.

00:00:18.040 So lead, people were putting it on their face and makeup.

00:00:21.240 Oh my gosh.

00:00:21.620 Because they didn't know it was making them sick.

00:00:23.360 And it was only banned in gasoline in the 80s because they figured out,

00:00:26.880 oh, we can't even have lead in gasoline because that makes people sick.

00:00:31.240 This place gives me the creeps.

00:00:32.480 So people have been exposed to biotoxins repeatedly,

00:00:35.580 but then you grow up and we have AI and you're like,

00:00:38.140 well, we don't have that anymore.

00:00:47.460 Ariana, welcome to my podcast.

00:00:49.720 Hi, Michaela. Excited to be here.

00:00:51.560 I am so excited to talk about this.

00:00:53.440 uh before we get started so we're going to cover mold amongst other things immune system issues

00:00:59.460 uh but i wanted to i've done this before on my podcast oh like a long time ago but i wanted to

00:01:05.920 bring you on to talk because i think that this is a like bigger problem for people to know about

00:01:11.600 than diet i know it's missing in a lot of the biohacking spheres they're kind of onto it but

00:01:18.120 it's not a major focus and i think mold and people's awareness of mold really needs to grow

00:01:23.360 because it's everywhere and it's making a lot of people sick and they're being misdiagnosed

00:01:27.880 with random autoimmune symptoms. So I've brought you here to talk about what you're doing and what

00:01:34.200 you went through and what people can do to fix their health. So I guess, can we start off by

00:01:39.940 you just doing a bit of an intro about who you are and what it is you do? Yeah, absolutely. And

00:01:44.800 I think you've summarized that super well. So thank you for teeing that up. So hi, Arianna

00:01:49.980 Thacker, founder and CEO of MoldCo. I'm here from a personal health journey, so I started off as a

00:01:55.080 patient first. And prior to starting, MoldCo was a chemical engineer, also built a venture capital

00:02:00.240 firm, really focused on this intersection of consumer and science. So in a strange way,

00:02:05.420 it felt like so many of these events in my life led up to building MoldCo. And I'm really excited

00:02:11.000 to just drive value for humanity in this way. So what happened? You were a chemical engineer

00:02:16.220 engineer and you were did you start a VC? Yeah I started a firm called Conscience VC doing early

00:02:22.900 stage investments pre-seed and seed largely bio health and deep tech. Wow yeah okay and then did

00:02:30.200 you move to Miami and get sick? That's right yeah so unknown to me there was mold throughout the

00:02:38.060 HVAC system I haven't had a history of health issues I moved in and in a six and a half month

00:02:43.000 timeframe of being in this unit, I developed SIRS. So just started experiencing near debilitating

00:02:48.660 symptoms. I had just a handful of functional hours in the day. I was largely in bed.

00:02:53.340 I even purchased a hospital bed tray to do some work from my bed just because of how fatigued I

00:02:59.700 was feeling. I was having to reread emails multiple times over. You're familiar with all

00:03:05.060 the symptoms. So it presents us something called the symptom clusters online and connected the

00:03:11.160 dots after the fact, after I got sick, that mold could cause these health issues, health issues

00:03:16.660 beyond asthma, allergies, or fungal infections. It's a completely distinct animal at the zoo.

00:03:22.520 It's nothing like those illnesses for mold. Children are often the best philosophers.

00:03:27.140 They're always asking why. How am I supposed to live my life? What is good, right, correct,

00:03:32.400 proper, best? Beauty used to be considered sacred. What have we replaced this ancient

00:03:38.820 notion of beauty with? Do you believe that truths are absolute or are they all relevant?

00:03:44.100 The answers are different in the leading intellectuals. What is it that sets apart

00:03:47.880 these thinkers? Plato and Aristotle, Chrysippus, Diogenes and Marcus Aurelius.

00:03:53.060 Søren Kierkegaard, Ruth Benedict, Philippus. Where nature is daunting psychologically. He's

00:03:59.340 like a motivational speaker. He's practical in a way that philosophers seldom are. Philosophy

00:04:03.760 begins in wonder i hope that you can take it with you in a further philosophical quest and

00:04:10.560 work out your own answers to the big questions

00:04:13.420 so this is what i think dad has and he's had all his like i said we can get into the blood work and

00:04:27.820 everything and how you test for it yeah but sirs uh if somebody's watching who has weird health

00:04:33.740 issues and maybe chronic fatigue and stuff. How does it present? How does it differ between people?

00:04:39.900 Yeah, for sure. So I'll run through the list of symptoms and then also some deeper cuts. So some

00:04:46.540 people might see themselves as we go through the symptoms. So the fatigue is not just feeling tired.

00:04:52.640 It's this almost push crash phenomenon. So some days you can feel good. Other days you feel like

00:04:57.800 you're set behind, especially if you work out and you exert yourself. The brain fog is pretty

00:05:03.440 peculiar. It feels like you're just fuzzy, but it also feels like you're not able to

00:05:06.960 learn new information. So poor knowledge assimilation. An interesting thing I've heard

00:05:13.760 amongst patients and noticed for myself is I would see people speaking English and register that

00:05:19.740 they were speaking a language I was familiar with, but I wasn't able to absorb the words that

00:05:23.900 they were saying. It was like very peculiar. Other people feel like their brain is on fire,

00:05:28.720 this like inflammation going through their brain and through their veins. Due to the high TGF beta

00:05:34.300 1 levels, we also see hair falling out. For me, it looked like little furry critters every time I

00:05:39.380 would brush my hair, far more than normal. The far majority of patients experience weight gain

00:05:46.420 versus weight loss, but we do see a small subset with pretty extreme weight loss, but most people

00:05:51.320 weight gain often due to leptin resistance, due to mold exposure. We also see gastrointestinal

00:05:57.980 issues. So that tends to present first this IBS type response where alternating constipation

00:06:04.420 diarrhea. We also see sleep issues, frequent urination at night, people having to get up

00:06:11.360 multiple times in the middle of the night, and also overcompensating by drinking a lot more water

00:06:17.300 too. So this is just this multi-symptom issue that presents. It's not just one acute issue in

00:06:23.740 the body. So you're experiencing the cognitive issues. You're also experiencing hormonal changes,

00:06:29.360 especially in women. We notice that this impacts three to one women to men so far in clinical

00:06:34.440 practice. Oh, yeah. This isn't published, but this is in clinical observation. What we've seen

00:06:40.960 is 60% of the women that end up developing SIRS have heavy periods, like I'm talking like 10

00:06:48.500 pads a day plus extreme pain with their menstrual cycles changes in their period so it's no longer

00:06:56.860 consistent multiple miscarriages even infertility early onset menopause etc so these are some of the

00:07:03.900 health impacts we've noticed in women that do develop SIRS and the list goes on and on essentially

00:07:09.880 it's not just one acute response and it's not just when you're presented with mold like an allergy

00:07:15.600 It's not just having a reaction when you're in the environment.

00:07:17.980 It's something that stays with you in this inflammatory way, impacting the brain, the

00:07:22.680 gut, the vascular system, hormonal system, respiratory system, et cetera.

00:07:28.280 Those are basically all the symptoms I had.

00:07:32.120 So I can like track, I've been obviously trying to figure out why did I get so sick

00:07:36.740 as a child and have these autoimmune issues, severe psych issues and chronic fatigue, like

00:07:41.760 what was going on?

00:07:42.740 because my body was just breaking down and tracked it back down to all every single building I've

00:07:49.800 lived in had severe water damage and it was just like I lived in two places once I went to

00:07:55.260 university and I didn't have very much money so they were like terrifying places where the ceiling

00:08:01.820 fell in in two of the buildings I was in which is like severe water damage and I was not okay in

00:08:08.820 anyway, cognitively, chronic fatigue. Um, one of the things I had when I moved and then I kind of

00:08:16.340 got better with diet, it like band-aided it. So then I was like, okay, diet's the cure to all

00:08:21.720 these health problems. And then six years into the diet, I think it was six years into the diet,

00:08:27.280 I moved to Miami and I started getting some of the autoimmune symptoms that diet had completely

00:08:34.000 resolved, but my diet hadn't changed. And I was like, what's left to change? And at that point,

00:08:39.640 I was like, do I have a salt sensitivity? No, like, I don't even know if people have salt

00:08:44.640 sensitivities, but I was like, is sparkling water doing it? Like, I have no variables left to play

00:08:48.880 with. I had air purifiers in my house. My house was super clean and my HVAC was riddled with mold

00:08:54.880 and it would just, it destroyed me over like a four month period. I did, the place I lived before

00:09:02.520 that in Miami was also moldy and I had kind of known that but really like really nice building

00:09:09.200 mold I ended up having a miscarriage there didn't know why that happened and then kind of pieced it

00:09:14.780 back together because I was very sick at the time but my symptoms one of the main one was like

00:09:20.920 debilitating insomnia as well as the chronic fatigue so like weakness I was on the couch for

00:09:27.540 like four months at the last place when I finally figured it out but I was like whatever I'm just

00:09:32.500 tired I don't know you know I wasn't really thinking about it I guess but I was waking up

00:09:37.480 at three or four in the morning like panicking being like wide awake oh no I'm not going to be

00:09:42.520 able to sleep again having heart palpitations I had heart palpitations really badly which stops

00:09:47.280 you from sleeping and then it got so bad that I couldn't do emails anymore so just the action of

00:09:56.220 like when you have an email there's usually a problem in the email and sometimes you have to

00:10:00.800 do like two types of solutions to fix the problem and I didn't have the cognitive ability to be like

00:10:07.340 one solution leads to this leads to fixing the email and I was like I can't work and that's that

00:10:13.880 was maybe that was probably the day I figured out it was mold and then was like I need a couple

00:10:20.280 weeks off to get my brain back because I can't answer emails anymore I took a break from the

00:10:23.800 podcast moved but it was really tricky at that time to find a doctor that knew what this was

00:10:32.100 the only reason I pieced together it was mold was because I'd done a couple of podcasts about mold

00:10:38.200 before and I was like well that's not my problem but maybe other people are sick from it um and

00:10:43.880 then realized there were some patterns in the house with like water damage and it kind of clicked

00:10:49.360 But I couldn't find a doctor. I had to actually fly somewhere to see a doctor that would prescribe a binder that would start helping me detox. So what you've developed with MoldCo, which I think everybody should be aware of, solves that entire problem. And this was only, was it three years ago for me? I think it was three years ago for me when I started getting treated for stories. But tell us about what MoldCo does.

00:11:15.040 yeah absolutely um one sorry you went through that um and it was great actually I spent 10

00:11:23.140 years trying to figure out my health being like what's at the bottom there's a root cause what's

00:11:26.800 the root cause going down all these rabbit holes and then when I finally got sick on the diet I

00:11:31.720 was like oh my gosh it's mold and then since then since I've done people should know this too since

00:11:37.240 I've done a couple of treatments I did SERS treatment and then I did some gut treatments

00:11:42.180 which I'll talk about on another podcast I've been able to eat like healthy paleo foods again

00:11:48.620 I don't I'm still on the meat diet because I still feel the best on it but if I eat something

00:11:54.060 it's not like this inflammatory absolute catastrophe it's more of a normal like yeah

00:11:59.600 maybe I don't feel as good when I'm not in ketosis or something but it's normal and that's after

00:12:05.000 I've been on this diet since 2017 so it's after so long on the diet staying on the diet didn't

00:12:11.820 resolve things it was going after mold that actually ended up resolving things um anyway

00:12:17.700 sorry i interrupted you no it's just a big deal i feel the same way and i what you described is

00:12:24.320 what so many patients describe as well where they discover it so far down the line and often

00:12:29.500 they're referred to so many different specialists they go through this ping pong and sequence of

00:12:34.300 gaslighting and maybe they go through functional health clinics too um where they're just thrown

00:12:39.080 guesswork and they end up spending tens of thousands of dollars. So what we're doing at

00:12:43.420 MoldCo is just shortening that entire cycle of pain and time spent and money spent by these

00:12:48.300 patients to find the most evidence-based solutions in the field developed from 30 years of research.

00:12:54.200 And that includes lab testing. So we do the Shoemaker biomarkers, which includes the

00:12:59.840 highest signal lab test for immune and inflammatory markers related to SIRS. That

00:13:07.060 includes MMP9, MSH, TGF-beta-1, C4A, VEGF, etc. So these are the markers that are consistently

00:13:15.100 off following mold exposure, leading to an inflammatory event. So we have that. We also

00:13:20.400 have the HLA haplotype testing too. As you know, there's a genetic susceptibility impacting one in

00:13:25.720 four Americans. So we test that with a cheek swab. I love cheek swabs because I was really phobic of

00:13:31.240 needles going into this whole journey. Yeah. Yeah, it is nice. I'm like, okay, the more cheek

00:13:38.120 swabs, the better. And we also have a dust test too. So we're looking for some of those fungal

00:13:44.020 strains in the home and prevalence rates for that. So that's on the lab testing side. And

00:13:47.920 then on the care side, what we've done was translate Dr. Shoemaker's work into what's

00:13:53.320 now a virtual clinic. So we have our protocol following his approach, starting with the

00:13:59.460 cholecevolam binders instead of cholestyramine for quite a few reasons. The second step is an

00:14:05.580 EDTA and xylitol-based nasal spray to address more cons in the nasal passages. And the third step is

00:14:11.160 VIP, so basal intestinal polypeptide. And we label that detox, clear, and repair. So we're guiding

00:14:18.600 these patients through this journey. There's concierge care where you can ping your specialists

00:14:23.160 at any time. So we have that on the care side. And we've cut the cost there for patients. Our

00:14:29.000 estimates are about a tenth to a hundredth the cost of what they would normally pay going through

00:14:34.180 traditional care for mold related illness, which as you know, is pretty hard to access in itself.

00:14:39.880 It often takes months, if not years to even get off the wait list or even find these specialized

00:14:44.000 providers. Yeah. Wow. No, it's incredible. So it's telehealth and you're where, where are you

00:14:50.780 available and where are you going to be available? Yeah. So we're live in eight states now for care

00:14:56.000 in 46 states for labs. We'll be live. Oh, nice. Yeah. All 50 states by Q1 2026. So we're on track

00:15:02.880 for that. Beautiful. Yeah. We're really excited. Yeah. That's huge. The nice thing about the SIRS,

00:15:09.200 so after going down so many rabbit holes for health, and I went down every, like I got really

00:15:14.180 far out there. The nice thing about SIRS is there is a ton of research behind it. And these blood

00:15:21.500 markers, you can actually, if you want, go and look at peer-reviewed literature on each blood

00:15:27.840 marker. I had never heard of any, I would say any of the blood markers, not, well, maybe a few of

00:15:35.240 them, but the major ones, I hadn't heard of them from having an autoimmune disorder for like 20

00:15:40.780 years. I'd never had C4A or MMP9 tested, which are super interesting biomarkers. And these are

00:15:48.380 all solid things people can test that show massive, massive problems. And then you can look at the

00:15:54.480 literature and go, oh yeah, this shouldn't be 10 times above the upper limit range. Something's

00:16:01.240 very wrong here. Yeah, absolutely. Similar to you, I haven't heard of any of these biomarkers prior

00:16:06.980 to getting sick. And what we normally see too is that the normal markers tested for autoimmune

00:16:12.760 conditions for most of the patients end up looking normal. So it's even more perplexing. You go to

00:16:19.020 your immunologist or allergist and the lab tests getting assigned to you show up normal and you

00:16:24.060 know you're sick. So at that point, the doctor's like, you know what, maybe it's all in your head

00:16:27.900 or maybe you just need anxiety medication or just take a break because this is probably burnout.

00:16:32.380 And it's a progressive illness. So that statement ends up being quite dangerous for these patients

00:16:36.880 as they continue to have exposure and ongoing inflammation in the body.

00:16:40.760 i think that's what hit like my family so we've got some some serious serious genetics

00:16:48.080 interplayed in there but we had this like familial really terrible depression like that

00:16:56.080 my great grandpa spent the last 30 years on on the couch just kind of sitting there and then my

00:17:01.260 grandpa kind of the same in his mid-50s just deteriorated and it was like oh well you have

00:17:07.480 this weird genetic depression. They can't really identify the gene, but it seems to run in your

00:17:11.300 family. And then I like, I'm completely positive that it's mold related and diet helped. I also

00:17:22.340 ended up moving into a house that I think was a little bit better at the same time, but diet

00:17:28.100 helped massively help massively. Um, but it didn't help enough to get rid of the root cause. Like

00:17:34.720 you can't just bandaid it over with dietary changes, which I found out the hard way after

00:17:38.940 like eight years on the diet. But it's huge. It's huge. So you're going to do mold co and expand

00:17:47.240 that. You also have lime co in the works. Yeah. So the parent company for these different

00:17:55.380 store friends addressing what we believe are the biggest medical blind spots to achieve

00:18:00.860 aspirational health is the ImmuneCo. So our vision is to spin out MoldCo, which we've done

00:18:06.480 next up is LymeCo, next up is LongCo for LongCOVID. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. LongCo. We like that.

00:18:13.300 And what we've done to really have this be high signal and evidence-based is also amass the

00:18:18.660 largest data set in the world for mold. And we'll continue that thread for LymeCo and LongCo. So

00:18:24.120 we've amassed thousands of biospecimens, close to 10,000 patient history forms, looking at a

00:18:29.200 360-degree analysis of these patients, looking at their environmental history, HLA types,

00:18:35.800 key biomarkers, past medical history, symptoms, RNA-seq data, et cetera.

00:18:42.160 So our vision is to not just provide the most accessible and affordable solutions

00:18:46.660 for these illnesses not currently addressed by standard medical care, but also drive the

00:18:51.860 standard of care through this very evidence-based way, just to help humanity get better and

00:18:57.980 reverse the tides on chronic illness, which, as you know, impacts now 76% of U.S. adults have at

00:19:04.560 least one chronic illness. That number jumps somewhere in the 90s over the age of 64.

00:19:09.160 So it's almost an inevitability for people here in the U.S. to get sick.

00:19:15.140 Yeah, 100%. Okay, a few things. I spent some time in Switzerland this year, and

00:19:24.020 they've got more like house mandated ervs which take i didn't know this about hvac so when you

00:19:30.780 have a regular hvac it just recirculates indoor air and when i hadn't i hadn't thought about it

00:19:36.380 at all just like hvac sounds good i always thought that was fresh air it's not it's indoor air

00:19:42.160 recirculated unless you have an erv attached to it or an hrv or something that brings in fresh air

00:19:47.960 and then recirculates it so part of the problem here is a major housing issue where all the air

00:19:54.260 inside you end up like it gets moldy somehow and then you just recirculate recirculate recirculate

00:19:59.600 um what are you doing just out of curiosity what do you tell like what do you tell people

00:20:06.340 if they end up having SIRS and they figured out there's mold exposure do you say you need to

00:20:12.420 remediate. Yeah. Step one. It's it's step one. We also still start treatment if patients are still

00:20:20.060 in the environment, if we deem it to be safe, which is the case for the majority of the patients

00:20:24.220 that we're treating. Fortunately for renters, they have more options than owners. Yeah. So they can

00:20:31.000 break the lease. They can initiate a cure notice to their landlord. They can work with their

00:20:35.840 landlord, ideally to help correct the issues. New state laws are coming out in favor of the tenant

00:20:41.600 now, which I love to see. I think there's a lot of movement and initiative to continue to support

00:20:48.180 tenants across the U.S. So there's that. There's also the last option of just relocating if you're

00:20:54.560 not able to have corrective measures by your landlord. There's also isolation techniques to

00:21:00.800 really identifying where the source is and trying to find ways to keep that where it is.

00:21:06.420 So is that like you think it's a bathroom or you think it's an area of the house and you kind of

00:21:11.200 like you isolate plastic it off yeah it's like a band-aid solution there and always work with

00:21:16.080 an iep a qualified environmental professional to navigate that alternatively for owners the

00:21:23.860 only option tends to be remediation so we have a network of ieps across the u.s that we refer out

00:21:30.600 to patients and depending on the patient if they tend to be more sensitive we also know who in our

00:21:36.260 network is better equipped to handle a more medically informed remediation and inspection

00:21:41.020 too. Yeah. So it tends to be an investment, but we also encourage patients to start care early

00:21:47.060 because this is a progressive illness and patients do tend to get better even when they're still in

00:21:50.960 the environment on care. So it's still something we encourage. Yeah. And there's also air purifiers

00:21:56.140 and other things you can do to just get fresh air as well in the home. So. Okay. Interesting.

00:22:01.980 well that's less dire I think I got so I mean I was sick for my entire life I got so sick that I

00:22:08.060 was like if I am near mold I feel like I'm gonna die just in general and I was like how is anyone

00:22:14.060 who's in my situation gonna do this without having a hordes of money but I didn't start

00:22:19.120 treatment I just left I didn't start treatment in there yeah I starting treatment when under

00:22:24.920 a qualified medical professional of course this isn't medical advice everyone's a snowflake in

00:22:30.780 their journey and a lot of factors have to be considered and then also we have noticed improvement

00:22:36.660 with the air purifiers too and we think that's band-aid until you can get somewhere better but

00:22:41.420 if that's the best you can do right now in the current state you're in to reach a level of

00:22:45.580 stability with your health and also it takes a toll on your mental health too just to feel more

00:22:50.980 safe and secure in your home that's a great place to get started. Yeah I was so I got an air purifier

00:22:57.080 this is before I knew about mold but I thought I was allergic to something in a condo I was living

00:23:01.080 in Toronto and I thought it was the carpet because they might have had animals there and I was like

00:23:05.380 I'm probably allergic to carpet I think it was mold but I ended up getting an air purifier and

00:23:09.580 it was a it actually wasn't a very good one I have like great ones from IQ air now um that I love

00:23:15.840 but it was just one from Amazon and I was wearing an aura ring and my deep sleep went from six

00:23:22.180 minutes a night to two hours by putting an air purifier by my bed and it wasn't even a

00:23:26.660 high-end air purifier and I was like oh I must have been allergic to the carpet and then didn't

00:23:32.240 really think about it again but yeah air purifiers are key that's significant six minutes to two

00:23:39.320 hours it was huge minutes I was have it was horrible for like I kind of attribute it this

00:23:46.300 was when my dad was sick again like five years ago and I was like okay it's trauma I'm like

00:23:52.960 having trouble sleeping because I was having insomnia and like night terrors basically when

00:23:58.100 my mom had cancer and life was hell and so I was attributing all almost all of my like mental

00:24:05.220 well-being to situational and then I got an air purifier and it increased my deep sleep and I was

00:24:10.960 like oh so this isn't just it's so easy when you have cognitive problems depending on how severe

00:24:18.600 they are but if they're mostly mood related to be like something in my life is wrong so relationship

00:24:25.160 work like because you end up getting hyper stressed about everything in your life so you're

00:24:29.940 like no I'm stressed out because I'm about to move or I'm stressed out because somebody at work is

00:24:35.200 annoying when it's really a health problem that's making you stress out about everything.

00:24:41.340 Yeah, absolutely. And we talked about the mental health element of this a bit, but anxiety and

00:24:46.360 depression is really common, even to the point of suicidal ideation. So we see that in these

00:24:53.900 patients. And there's also an interesting gene that we've noted as being upregulated in a subset

00:25:00.400 of patients which is known as the trauma gene too and i think that makes sense i'm not sure if it's

00:25:05.960 chicken or egg but it's essentially an intruder in your home that has wrecked your health and

00:25:11.260 your life so that is a traumatic event that has happened so it makes sense to me that something

00:25:15.660 like that would be upregulated if it wasn't that in advance that caused susceptibility to the

00:25:20.420 illness it's a complete scam i'm from canada too and i found out how much it costs for like

00:25:26.360 schools in the states yeah it's almost unfathomable peterson academy if you want an actual education

00:25:32.360 join up the progressives hope for universal education at something approximating zero cost

00:25:37.620 that's what we've got they're the best courses that have ever been offered publicly in terms

00:25:42.940 of their quality of content and also the production values are unparalleled

00:25:47.320 okay so have you guys seen so with Lyme and you're going to put out long COVID treatment

00:25:57.020 SIRS can be triggered by a number of biotoxins right so mold seems to be the one that is in

00:26:03.920 do you know what percentage of houses are impacted so there's different studies for this our best

00:26:09.140 guess is roughly 50 percent of homes that was the more reliable studies that we've seen I've heard

00:26:13.920 estimates as high as 70 percent, which feels a bit high to me. But I think there's a number of

00:26:21.240 different trends that could support that number. One, increased natural disasters and flooding

00:26:28.040 events. Two, this move towards more energy efficient buildings, causing more microbial

00:26:33.080 growth in the homes. Three, the rate of impacted homes ramping up faster than what's getting

00:26:41.220 remediated because this does tend to be a more significant financial cost for homes. So I can

00:26:47.100 see that over time. And if it's not in the home, it could be in your office or school place. 85%

00:26:52.580 of commercial buildings have had historic water damage, 45% ongoing water damage. That's an EPA

00:26:57.560 stat. 24 to 48 hours for mold to grow following water intrusion. So I'd say it's north of 50%

00:27:05.200 Is our best guess probably closer to 50%, if not 70?

00:27:09.440 Something that was super convincing to me, too,

00:27:11.720 because I was trying to convince my dad.

00:27:13.120 I was like, mold.

00:27:14.400 Mold is at the bottom.

00:27:15.340 Finally found the root cause.

00:27:17.700 One, there was a huge housing growth period over 30 years ago

00:27:25.940 where a lot of America was built.

00:27:27.940 So a lot of the houses we see now are old houses

00:27:30.600 that at some point had water damage.

00:27:33.220 so that makes things problematic too what was I going to say about oh do you know the stats on

00:27:39.600 dorms and military housing too um so not that I'm asking you to pull out numbers

00:27:47.720 yeah so um there's there's we're looking into the military housing um because it's been cited

00:27:54.280 as the number one issue mold is the number one issue on the military basis we actually went to

00:27:58.340 a mold health or a military health conference to scope that out further. There's over 20,000 work

00:28:06.560 orders, I believe, in a two-year period related to mold. There's a number of these military families

00:28:11.600 going to D.C. looking for reform, change the air. It's also really leading in to help the military

00:28:17.480 families, too. There's Operation Counter Mold as well. So there is a lot more attention being

00:28:24.220 focused on the military bases. And then for the school systems and the universities, I am noting

00:28:30.200 an increase in lawsuits. Recently, there was a $35 million claim by students in the dorm. And we

00:28:38.040 also get a number of emails from concerned parents for their kids in these different universities.

00:28:43.400 And I'm also hearing it from different law firms as well. So I think we're going to see an uptick

00:28:49.080 in the legal claims by university students against universities for mold exposure in the dorms,

00:28:55.960 similar to what happened to you. And I also think there's going to be increased repair

00:29:01.920 of the basis. There's another data point there too. Dr. Heyman, who's a shoemaker-certified

00:29:10.120 physician, partnered with NORMI, which is a big organization that helps certify inspectors and

00:29:16.480 remediators to help do something on the military basis. I think it's creating informed guidelines

00:29:22.360 to reduce mold exposure for our servicemen and women, which makes sense in terms of military

00:29:28.260 readiness. If you're getting exposed to mold, you're probably not your best self. So I think

00:29:34.500 there's an economic incentive there as well. Oh, that's good. So going back to the like long COVID

00:29:40.580 other things that can trigger immune responses what do you have any idea what percentage of

00:29:46.680 people exhibit SERS that haven't been exposed to mold that it's just been Lyme or long COVID

00:29:54.940 or is mold usually intertwined with other kind of infections yeah that's a really great question

00:30:03.280 and it's something we're trying to better understand too most of the published works

00:30:08.380 in the space have been on the SIRS water damage building subtype. There's a little bit on

00:30:13.240 fisteria and ciguatera and dinoflagellates and some of these other biotoxins as well.

00:30:18.620 There's this thesis as well from our team that COVID was a priming event for worse outcomes

00:30:24.040 for mold exposure too. And what we've also noticed with these patients, especially those

00:30:29.240 further progressed in the illness, is they tend to have a number of these microbial,

00:30:34.960 not infections, but exposures, like we see upregulated Epstein-Barr virus, the Lyme

00:30:43.140 antigens, Bartonella antigens. So we're starting to see these patterns in these patients,

00:30:49.280 later stage as well, parasites, et cetera. So I think there's something there. We're not entirely

00:30:55.520 certain what's going on, but it seems to be this concept of microbial burden over time,

00:31:01.240 leading to worse outcomes for patients that are inflammatory in nature. But I think mold is a very

00:31:08.200 large percentage of the patients impacted. And that tends to be the right starting point for

00:31:14.620 these patients too. And hence why we're starting with mold co versus with Lyme co. Yeah. So you'd

00:31:21.200 recommend people that have Lyme as their primary diagnosis or long COVID as their primary diagnosis

00:31:27.500 to just look into? I mean, they might as well do the SERS blood work at least, but mold exposure.

00:31:33.440 Yeah. And the SERS blood work too, it's sensitive, but not specific for the illness.

00:31:40.940 So it's more of a checklist. So you have to have exposure often that's mold in the home,

00:31:46.260 the representative symptoms too, the symptom clusters we discussed, and then also the

00:31:50.600 laboratory testing. Would you include all of that with the genetic susceptibility too,

00:31:55.800 which is specific for mold-related illness is what we've seen. It's over 90% of patients that

00:32:02.200 have the same HLA haplotypes get sick with SIRS when they're exposed to mold, then that paints

00:32:08.200 the picture reinforcing that mold could be at the root. I think a lot more diagnostics are needed

00:32:14.900 if you want to get so personalized and so specific, but I also think starting with mold

00:32:20.000 and really sussing that out is a great initial step and over time us as a company will layer on

00:32:26.360 more specificity with our lab testing and treatments as we build out these different

00:32:30.820 storefronts yeah i mean that's also what's super exciting about moldco and your like companies and

00:32:36.880 parent company and everything is the more people sign up go through it the more data you have to

00:32:44.460 help more people which is like what is so needed is the treatment for long COVID and um Lyme that

00:32:51.880 end up presenting with SERS symptoms is it the same treatment as mold treatment um this is a

00:32:59.500 tricky question because I there's there's um answers I'm getting from um our team and different

00:33:05.040 providers in the space and then where we want to take the company to so I do want us to do a lot

00:33:09.820 more research first and really scope out the best and most efficacious and safest possible

00:33:16.960 solution. So I think it'll be a meeting of the minds. But what we're seeing right now

00:33:21.860 in clinical practice for post-Lyme syndrome, different from acute Lyme, and for long COVID,

00:33:27.980 we are seeing some resolution of symptoms following the Shoemaker protocol. But I do

00:33:33.720 want to caveat that with we want just a lot more research in the space and we'll do our diligence

00:33:37.960 and really understand what's the best possible solution for these patients because there is a lot

00:33:42.640 of really interesting research happening now across prominent universities and private research

00:33:49.240 groups and Mount Sinai too we're tracking and a number of independent researchers so we're just

00:33:54.180 surveying the field and seeing what the right path forward is. How fringe is this? Like how much is

00:34:01.660 the government aware of this? How much is mainstream medicine aware of this? Like I know that

00:34:07.960 From my experience, if you go to a regular doctor, they're just like, you're insane.

00:34:14.420 If you say mold is making, you can be allergic to it, like a normal tree allergy type thing,

00:34:19.840 but it can't destroy your immune system, basically.

00:34:22.980 That's like fringe.

00:34:24.280 But you're more into the research and what's being done at hospitals and things.

00:34:29.920 So how much is this infiltrating mainstream medical people?

00:34:35.120 This year has been a turning point for that question for many reasons.

00:34:39.260 One, George Washington University just launched a program for this following the Shoemaker

00:34:44.960 protocol and Shoemaker approach.

00:34:46.840 Yeah.

00:34:47.120 So I'm pretty sure that's the first medical program focused on this.

00:34:50.860 That was this year.

00:34:52.260 So Dr. Shoemaker, our founding physician, is very much a part of that.

00:34:57.080 So that's pretty cool.

00:34:58.140 Wow.

00:34:58.600 Yeah.

00:34:58.980 And I think there's just been an enormous cultural awakening happening now.

00:35:03.460 a number of different providers and clinics have reached out to us wanting to learn and stay

00:35:08.800 educated. They actually serve as some of our referral partners too. I believe different

00:35:16.560 governmental research organizations are now interested in this because one of those has

00:35:22.240 reached out to us. So it's an area that they're looking to scope out further. And I think a lot

00:35:27.960 of our research too will help ignite the field because once you see that evidence and it's

00:35:32.460 undeniable how could there not be resources attributed towards this and better health

00:35:36.900 um this year was a turning point in in the medical community and the scientific community

00:35:42.540 not to say there aren't skeptics i think there will always um be skeptics in in the near term

00:35:47.720 but i think that opinion's shifting really quickly oh that's really promising yeah it makes so much

00:35:53.320 more sense like something there's so many people trying to figure out like what's going on with

00:35:58.240 america and like i said for years i was like well it's the diet and i think a lot of people still

00:36:03.980 think that and there are massive problems with the diet and there's a mass massive problems about

00:36:07.780 how much processed foods people are eating and that definitely contributes to things

00:36:11.440 but once i learned what mold can do to leptin to increase hunger and saw that happening to people

00:36:20.300 who were eating healthily and still getting sick was like okay what if part of the reason people

00:36:28.380 are having such I mean what's your opinion on this do you think mold is a big factor behind

00:36:34.940 the serious obesity epidemic we're seeing um like leading people to eating more processed foods and

00:36:41.960 sugar and things because it's a fungus it's like you know I felt like my house was eating me when

00:36:47.940 I was in my house in Miami I was like I can't get off the couch I think it was just trying to

00:36:51.880 decompose me from the from the inside out I felt the same way yeah super weird and I'm yeah my

00:37:00.480 thought on that too is that it's a highly intelligent microorganism that really understands

00:37:06.940 our biology like we co-evolved with it too so I'm like this is like a stealth sniper that has

00:37:11.560 infiltrated my systems and now we can have it so my mind yeah same wavelength there um it is our

00:37:18.580 medical team's opinion so dr shoemaker dr scott mcmahon and others that um mold is a significant

00:37:24.900 um factor in driving the obesity issues that we have here um largely due to this leptin resistance

00:37:32.060 concept um i don't have firm data to say either way but we do see that with sirs and we estimate

00:37:38.620 25 million Americans are severely impacted. So that's quite a bit. And we also see

00:37:45.220 mold being at the root of neurodegenerative issues. There's, you know, Dr. Dale Bredesen

00:37:50.800 talks about inhalational Alzheimer's and mycotoxins being at the root of that. We see that in

00:37:55.340 the published research too, and IBS and fibromyalgia and ME-CFS, et cetera. So it's our

00:38:01.680 thesis that yes, obesity, yes, several of these other chronic conditions, and yes, to the mental

00:38:07.000 health, um, issues too. And the NIH just updated their website as well to now account for these

00:38:12.680 non, um, um, infection allergy, asthma related health issues due to mold. It's now citing the

00:38:20.500 immune and inflammatory response and the mental health issues as well. So the NIH just updated

00:38:24.940 that this year. Oh, wow. Yeah. On the mold website. That's big. I know there've been some

00:38:30.260 recent studies on Parkinson's and exposure to pesticides and an increased, uh, increased risk

00:38:36.040 of Parkinson's depending on where you live and that research is pretty solid I found research

00:38:41.760 when I was doing a deep dive because I couldn't believe it was mold I was like that's it's the

00:38:46.680 air that's crazy um and there's there's a lot of solid research under different names around the

00:38:54.440 world for some sort of inhaled neurodegenerative disorder so I remember there's there were quite a

00:39:03.720 few peer-reviewed studies on sick building syndrome so it wasn't called SIRS it was sick

00:39:07.860 building syndrome there was something I think out of Europe that was wet and dampness syndrome it

00:39:13.720 was something like that and so it turns out which was I just it's shocking how at the forefront

00:39:21.600 you are with this because it's named different things around the world and they're like well

00:39:28.160 we don't really know what's going on it's this weird like it's kind of like people decompose

00:39:32.960 honestly which is what and i know that sounds out there but it's kind of what mold does um but it's

00:39:41.560 under a whole bunch of different names and there's hordes of studies on them i listed them on my

00:39:45.300 website so they're all listed all the ones i could find um on biotoxin.com because i was like

00:39:50.960 compared to diet research there's so much research here on like toxin-caused neurodegenerative

00:40:00.480 disorders and it and it's scary like people especially people are more who are more health

00:40:07.240 minded but everybody should be aware that like you can fix your diet you can fix a whole bunch

00:40:14.120 of the thing of things and if you don't fix your air and you've been sick in the past from this

00:40:21.120 that you can still decline which is crazy it's crazy and I also love that you connected the

00:40:28.880 dots in that way you're probably going to find this surprising there isn't an icd code for mold

00:40:34.180 related illness there's a code for suspected exposure but not the health impacts of that

00:40:39.400 and there's a code for if you got bit by a turtle but there isn't a code for if you have mold

00:40:44.400 related illness in any way shape or form despite all these different names is that wild that's

00:40:50.120 crazy and also if you think back i was thinking think back over the last like 200 years there

00:40:55.620 have been decades or hundreds of years where people have been exposed to certain chemicals

00:41:00.280 without knowing they were making them sick so lead oh yeah like back back in the day a long

00:41:05.180 time ago people were putting it on their face and makeup oh my gosh they didn't know it was making

00:41:09.340 them sick and it was only banned in gasoline in the 80s because they figured out oh we can't even

00:41:14.300 have lead in gasoline because that makes people sick and then there was asbestos which was put in

00:41:20.900 like every house basically i had relatives the great aunts these are people i didn't know a

00:41:27.540 great aunt and uncle that died from asbestos poisoning because he worked with asbestos and

00:41:31.900 his wife washed his clothes and that was enough to get them both so people have been exposed to

00:41:37.200 biotoxins repeatedly but then you grow up and it's like 2025 and we have ai and you're like well

00:41:42.440 we don't have that anymore and that's just seems to not be true which is just i don't know it's

00:41:50.740 crazy but it makes more sense than oh your entire population is just dying it makes more sense that

00:41:57.380 maybe everyone's being exposed to something that they're not aware of yeah absolutely and

00:42:02.020 the ripple effects from that are are significant um like how do we retool our entire infrastructure

00:42:09.840 if if this is true and it's huge of true right if this is at the root of so many different chronic

00:42:15.960 conditions then we wouldn't have to essentially rip out and replace so much of what we've built

00:42:21.460 out here and that's just an intractable problem right like how do we even solve something like

00:42:25.960 that so i i think there's ignorance is bliss is a big part of this like subconscious block from

00:42:32.700 even wanting to address the problem definitely right like you almost don't want to know but

00:42:37.480 you you have to know and your family has to know because this is a progressive illness

00:42:42.340 yeah i agree that was kind of dad's response when i was like this percentage so the data i read was

00:42:49.720 like 50 to 80 percent of houses and i was like it's every house because i was just sick all the

00:42:54.380 time so i was like they're all water damaged but even 50 of houses is catastrophic and he was like

00:43:00.080 so if 50 of houses are impacted and one in four people can get very sick although no one even

00:43:08.400 people without the genetics probably shouldn't be living in a moldy house like it doesn't make you

00:43:13.600 invisible to mold you maybe just don't get sick as fast but he was like what does that mean for

00:43:18.760 like America and society how are you going to fix that like how are you going to fix it but then you

00:43:24.300 guys popped around and so you're like trying to fix it which is cool yeah and I love the innovation

00:43:30.380 that's happening on the environmental side I think the environmental side is is a more complicated

00:43:36.500 problem to solve every building is so different there's so much dramatic irony in terms of what

00:43:41.620 was built and it may not match up with the drawings and it may even be in the building

00:43:45.340 materials initially used left outside in the rain or maybe a single loose nail head on your roof

00:43:51.260 or flashing not properly installed like there's just so much you don't know and the the cost and

00:43:57.240 time is is so intensive to have someone come in and scope out every nook and cranny and really

00:44:02.640 figure that out. But I think there's some really interesting solutions being introduced. It's still

00:44:08.540 it's still getting developed. Like I haven't seen anything that's like the savior or the holy grail

00:44:13.460 opportunity, but I think it's coming. And now with more national attention on this issue,

00:44:18.500 I think there's going to be a whole crop of founders and entrepreneurs and builders

00:44:21.780 really trying to help humanity in this way. So I'm just really excited about that. And maybe

00:44:26.340 this won't be such an enormous problem where we just want to turn a blind eye and not even

00:44:31.800 address it at all. Yeah, I agree. I mean, things are looking a lot more promising than they were

00:44:36.740 three years ago. Like you've popped up. So now people can get telehealth. So labs are easier

00:44:42.120 to access. That's huge. So I think anybody who has a weird chronic illness should get their labs

00:44:47.660 done and see because that was my problem. And it took me. I've been trying to figure it out since

00:44:53.380 2015 so it took it took like well I guess eight years of really solidly digging yeah and I was

00:45:01.960 living with air purifiers so I was like my air is clean but because I was so sick prior to that

00:45:07.920 that wasn't good enough for me so I just I didn't think about it but it took me eight years to

00:45:12.040 figure out and it turns out it was mold and that's why my family has been sick and my brother wasn't

00:45:17.920 sick so we never thought oh it's the house my dog was sick yeah I was sick my mom was sick my dad

00:45:26.600 was sick and my brother was fine and so you don't think well you're all being exposed to the same

00:45:31.280 thing like he lived in the black mold dungeon basement I grew up well yeah but you know what

00:45:36.980 happened they found out we lived in we like moved into a place that was built in I think 1915 like

00:45:43.640 a semi-detached place in Toronto and my parents gutted the whole thing and rebuilt it and dug out

00:45:49.020 the basement and behind the drywall a plumber left a cap off a pipe and no one figured it out for 18

00:45:57.240 years so when they finally tore out the basement once we left my mom redid the basement and took

00:46:03.280 out the drywall and it was black mold all around the basement and that's where we grew up which is

00:46:09.220 like one cap left off behind drywall like it's so it's crazy people should also be more educated on

00:46:18.220 on buildings because you move in and you're just like it looks pretty and that's about as much as

00:46:22.580 people know about buildings which turns out it's kind of boring but it's kind of like learning

00:46:27.760 taxes you kind of need to know you need to know this is a little bit more important I would say

00:46:32.700 yeah you need to know um and i'm seeing more home buyers optimizing for requiring a mold inspection

00:46:40.060 before signing anything um you touched on a really important point not everyone in the household is

00:46:45.800 impacted the same yeah um definitely pay attention if someone's getting mysteriously sick in your

00:46:51.420 home that could be the canary in the coal mine right um don't wait until the whole family's sick

00:46:56.560 or until it's too too far along and yeah I think also knowing some of the common signs even in the

00:47:04.800 absence of visible mold like that earthy musty odor is really important or by proxy like paint

00:47:10.560 like paint peeling cracks there's just a long checklist of these different things to be aware

00:47:15.340 of that indicates that water damage happen even high indoor humidity above 70 percent that's a

00:47:21.400 telltale sign. There could be a hidden mold issue too. In the HVAC systems, if you see dust

00:47:26.160 especially accumulating on the outside of the vents, that's what happened to me. It was dust

00:47:31.800 is essentially organic matter. That's mold food. I talk about the mold triangle. You have water

00:47:37.440 intrusion, lack of airflow and dust all combined. Now you have a situation that's prime for microbial

00:47:44.760 growth. And that also includes like the endotoxins and some of these other bacterial species too.

00:47:49.800 it's not just the mold so just getting more uh fluent on the dynamics of the space you're living

00:47:56.240 in and most americans spend 90 of their time indoors so it's worth optimizing for yeah

00:48:01.900 definitely okay let me see we covered a bunch now i can get to my list of questions i actually had

00:48:08.980 prepared let's see oh one thing um have you guys figured out so a lot of people think black mold

00:48:18.440 is the bad one and the other molds are the fine ones what's the truth here uh several there are

00:48:26.340 several bad molds um some are worse than others but um we love the hurts me too test um we love

00:48:34.380 the ermy test you get a score of how those inflammation causing mold species map to human

00:48:39.840 health data too so there's just way more molds and it's not just the molds it's also their

00:48:45.940 fragments, the mycotoxins, the VOCs, some of these bacterial species too. There's emerging

00:48:51.760 research now from our founding team and some of our clinical research partners around endotoxins

00:48:57.520 and actinobacteria. So the issue is far greater than that. And even air spore trap sampling won't

00:49:02.880 pick up on many of the fragments. And we think there's possibly a hundred times the level of

00:49:08.180 fragments in the air too. So it's this particulate matter that you're also inhaling. The list goes

00:49:14.780 on and on but i i wouldn't have the mindset that oh if it's not black mold it's not harmful to me

00:49:21.140 it's just not the case yeah um testing so that house that like destroyed my health in miami

00:49:29.200 we had a mold inspector go in i don't know how some of these people get jobs because they have

00:49:34.080 no idea what they're doing they just look around they're like well everything's not covered in mold

00:49:38.420 so you're good which is basically what my house inspector did but what's the problem like what's

00:49:45.580 the proper way to test a house because most my experience was you can't just hire a mold testing

00:49:51.980 company because most of them have no idea what they're doing so how do you do it I think that's

00:49:57.180 true I would look for someone certified there's normie certification IICRC ACAC so find someone

00:50:04.140 who's stacked in certifications. Find someone who's very highly rated. It's all they do. It's

00:50:08.980 not a subset of a pest company. Try to avoid that. It's usually a good sign if your inspector is not

00:50:15.280 on time and too busy to return your calls, especially if they're highly rated. That

00:50:19.080 probably means they're really in demand and really good and have a lot of word of mouth

00:50:22.680 as well. Find someone who has a complete tool set. It's not just a visual inspection.

00:50:29.920 They are doing the air spore trap sampling. Sure, you shouldn't just rely on that, but the bulk

00:50:34.040 testing too. They're using a thermal gun behind the walls. They're really moving things around.

00:50:40.580 They're also looking for the signs within the home, not just pure visible mold. So some of

00:50:45.320 the signs we mentioned, like the peeling paint, they're looking at the common places like under

00:50:50.180 the sink in the kitchen. I would also couple all of that with a dust test too. It's important. So

00:50:57.880 then you get a historical fingerprint of everything that room has been exposed to. Try to keep it to

00:51:03.800 one test per room. And the dust test really quick is just a Swiffer pad that you wipe down

00:51:09.400 different surfaces with, try to get at least 10 different surfaces, saturate the Swiffer pad,

00:51:14.420 and then mail that in. And that's a test that we offer as well. And we believe that also helps

00:51:18.960 pick up some of these hidden mold issues too. Yeah, that's smart. Have you heard, so if people

00:51:27.460 are overwhelmed, they should just get blood work done and start there. Because I know the whole

00:51:31.140 thing is pretty overwhelming. And you're like, this is a huge problem. One of the tricks I've

00:51:36.200 heard, so tell me if this is true, is if you look in the back of toilets, I swear everywhere I grew

00:51:41.340 up was kind of like black in the back of toilets. And these are clean houses, but I just thought

00:51:47.040 that's what happened. But is that a representation? So apparently when you flush a toilet, it drags

00:51:52.800 in air from the bathroom. And if your air is full of these fragments or mold, then it'll suck into

00:51:59.820 the back of your toilet and start growing in the back of your toilet because there's water there

00:52:03.520 have you heard about that for checking out houses it's good for when you're renting too because if

00:52:07.580 it looks clean and then you lift up the toilet tank and there's mold in it you're like oh air

00:52:12.200 is probably moldy oh interesting um a couple of the inspectors i've hired have have looked there

00:52:18.580 but um that that makes total sense to me and um i also think if you have a sump pump or it smells

00:52:25.040 like dirty diapers or there could be like a sewage issue that's also another um source of

00:52:30.700 biotoxins specifically endotoxins too and and that should be investigated further so not just thinking

00:52:36.520 mold but also thinking okay is there could there be a sewer gas issue or a sewage line issue or

00:52:41.480 some sort of other problematic situation in the home um where you could get exposed to other

00:52:46.720 biotoxins yeah that totally makes sense that was so there's i've got a group on facebook that has

00:52:52.920 like 30 000 people and they're all only eating meat and i'm pretty sure they all have sirs i

00:52:58.560 think that's like that's the pattern there because it's always been like why does this seem to work

00:53:02.720 like why does the diet seem to work for this random array of people and it does like great

00:53:10.520 band-aid but um doesn't solve the root problem so i met my husband and he was on the diet um

00:53:17.900 but he didn't have an autoimmune disorder it was mostly like he had massive amounts of weight gain

00:53:23.680 as a teenager and serious cognitive issues but he was kind of the sick kid in his house and he had

00:53:31.740 a whole bunch of siblings um but it turned out he was next to the bathroom and a pipe had broken in

00:53:36.820 the bathroom and leaked under his floor so under his floor had water damage and they kind of blew

00:53:43.060 it out with a fan which is what my parents did in the basement when we had massive flooding one

00:53:48.340 time as well with like this much water and then they just like dry it because that's which isn't

00:53:55.220 what you have to do if you have flooding this we could also cover this like we've been you

00:54:01.040 basically have to cut out the drywall is that what you've seen i yeah our team loves um john

00:54:08.820 Banta's approach to the space. And it's really big on removal. So cutting out and not using

00:54:15.600 biocides. We have a concern around some of the chemical treatments because it creates more

00:54:21.200 fragments and these dead species that we think are actually could be more problematic than even

00:54:27.600 the live molds. So what we've seen with patients, even post-remediations, especially if there isn't

00:54:31.740 a small particle cleaning or a thorough cleaning after, is that they could get sicker after

00:54:37.360 remediation and um you also touched on a couple of other interesting points too um under the

00:54:42.820 flooring what we've seen even with new builds is that they lay down like the lvp like the nice

00:54:47.900 vinyl flooring um and then the the concrete still wet when they do that because these contractors

00:54:53.280 are in a rush to get the work done and that could be a hidden mold issue too wet concrete yeah under

00:55:00.900 the flooring whoa that's awful yeah so there's there's just so many different um things to look

00:55:07.080 into as a homeowner or even a renter and crawl space is also very common basements very common

00:55:12.500 so just knowing the anatomy of your home and where the problematic sources could be

00:55:16.940 just to help tailor the investigation some more if you are experiencing symptoms so if you if

00:55:22.240 people find that overwhelming you've seen people have you seen people recover if they don't do

00:55:27.040 anything to their house um if they're sick and they have cirrhs the issue tends to get worse

00:55:35.480 for those patients. I've seen patients who largely do not have the HLA genetic susceptibility

00:55:43.280 get out of the home and then eventually recover. That's not really scientific. It's like very

00:55:49.260 anecdotal. It's like I meet a lot of people who have had mold exposure and they're telling me

00:55:53.060 their stories and I see that pattern. And I've also heard people who don't have one of those

00:56:00.840 genetic susceptibilities get out of the environment and they still don't feel fully themselves. Like

00:56:04.780 there there were some alterations in how they're feeling too so um i think it's a pretty large set

00:56:11.640 of of um randomness that i've i've heard but um for the most part if you're in the environment

00:56:16.680 you're sick um you're probably not going to get better if you stay in that environment and it'll

00:56:21.620 likely um get worse and deteriorate over time okay yeah i know that's like the harsh reality

00:56:26.400 but that's how you know it's not a scam too because people aren't saying hey take this supplement and

00:56:33.020 all your problems will be solved it's like no you can't live in the environment with the severe

00:56:40.300 water damage and mold growth you have to get rid of the mold growth then you have to do the

00:56:45.020 treatment especially like you said if you have this genetic susceptibility and the treatment

00:56:50.220 so you went over it it's the binder and you guys suggest colosavolam instead of cholestyramine

00:56:57.580 I took cholestyramine. It was brutal. It worked. But you're treating people with

00:57:02.840 cholestevolam instead. Yeah, there's a few reasons for that. The field has largely moved towards

00:57:08.440 cholestevolam. One, better tolerated. You tend to have less constipation or some of the side

00:57:14.280 effects, which overall tend to be mild for the far majority of the patients. Two, it's an oral

00:57:19.380 tablet versus the suspension, which it's kind of gritty and sandy, right? Cholestyramine is kind

00:57:25.400 of hard to take. There's also not a great reminder for when to take cholestymine because it's in

00:57:31.380 between meals. It's not before meals. So that's also great for colocevolam. You're like, okay,

00:57:36.200 I'm about to take a meal. Let me just take a colocevolam binder. And then the last point too

00:57:40.960 is that we notice very similar symptoms improvement within a few weeks of each other. I know there's

00:57:47.520 a lot of commentary online around a quarter of the binding sites. But one, Dr. Shoemaker and

00:57:55.480 Dr. McMahon have never stated that. And two, the binding sites don't map to symptoms improvement.

00:58:01.340 And three, we've seen that consistently with patients where it's about a few weeks to have

00:58:05.100 similar recovery. Then when you pair with all those other reasons, that makes sense why the

00:58:09.860 field's now moving towards colosevlam versus cholestyramine. I switched to colosevlam.

00:58:14.480 yeah I love as enjoyable as drinking sand is which is not at all

00:58:19.980 um I switched over and yeah it is way it's way easier so that's good to know so they

00:58:27.300 ideally you fix the mold exposure well you do the blood work to see what's going on fix mold

00:58:34.100 exposure and start treatment at the same time and it's called several m initially and then what's

00:58:39.300 the next step? So the next step, after their symptoms plateau usually, we do a Marcon's

00:58:46.520 treatment or a suspected Marcon's treatment. So what is Marcon's? Marcon's is a problematic

00:58:54.660 microbial colonization that occurs in the deeper nasal passages. What we've noticed is that

00:59:01.320 the majority of these patients, some of our data shows at least 90% of patients end up having this

00:59:08.300 colonization. And it drives down MSH is the current thesis in the field. And we've noticed

00:59:14.660 symptoms improvement and resolution in patients that then eradicate the marcons. So that's all

00:59:20.920 Dr. Shoemaker's research over the last 30 years. And what we do is we prescribe an EDTA and xylitol

00:59:28.080 based nasal spray to address that issue. We also think it's addressing other species beyond the

00:59:34.540 marcons it's cdta so it's a biofilm disruptor too so even if the marcons isn't there we do

00:59:40.520 notice um improvement and um patients love the experience too interesting for um what we think

00:59:45.560 is a biofilm issue in the nasal passages interesting well it makes sense that if you're

00:59:50.320 going to be breathing in all the time that mold could grow there like or some type of bacterial

00:59:57.020 infection could grow there it made sense i didn't really believe it for a while because i'm very

01:00:01.320 skeptical even though I'm like going off on all these wild goose chases and everything was

01:00:05.120 skeptical and I felt so much better after I moved out of the house and took clostyramine that I

01:00:11.480 tried the EDTA spray and felt awful and stopped and was like I'm fine and then I was still very

01:00:20.140 hypersensitive to buildings and that wasn't kind of going away so I started EDTA a couple months

01:00:26.180 ago and i had full-on like mold die-off symptoms again so the first week i was taking it like my

01:00:33.260 i was having my right leg go numb when i was living in miami like numbness and weakness

01:00:38.560 severely which was entertaining and then terrifying but um as soon as i started the edta spray i had

01:00:48.080 about a week of like numbness and pain and stuff and i was having nerve pain again and i was like

01:00:53.540 no way this has just been in my nose is that why you think people leave these houses and then don't

01:01:00.780 get better um there's a few reasons um when what you're describing um first for those nurses is an

01:01:10.740 intensification reaction uh to um to the nasal spray which which can happen i'd say more rare

01:01:17.300 than, um, than the mainstream, um, for the patients to, um, like my husband didn't notice

01:01:23.320 the EDTA spray. Yeah. He was just like, I think it's improving me. And I was like, I'm dead for

01:01:27.580 a week, but then it was okay. Okay. And then, um, and then I think it was, and then I think it

01:01:32.700 helped. Yeah. It wasn't that bad and I knew what was going on. So it was fine. Yeah. There's a

01:01:37.000 little bit of a hero's journey. Like you get through that intensification and things start

01:01:40.960 to feel better. Um, what we've noticed with patients that don't continue to improve is that

01:01:46.100 it could be a stubborn mark on situation. So ongoing colonization, especially if patients

01:01:52.300 don't continue the entire course of treatment or they're kind of sporadic with it. So that can

01:02:00.860 happen. And especially if you're getting re-exposed a lot, you're more susceptible to that

01:02:07.740 is our clinical observation. So yes, we think so. And also you tend to need to go through all

01:02:16.040 the steps to have the maximal amount of recovery. And what we've seen so far through Dr. Shoemaker's

01:02:24.940 work and Dr. Scott McMahon's work is that roughly 90% of the patients, so I'm not including the very

01:02:31.100 hypersensitive patients in this, that's part of the 10%, get somewhere between 70 to 90% better.

01:02:38.880 And that's also part of the opportunity and vision for what we're doing too is

01:02:43.380 what if our research can help get 100% of patients to 100%, right? Like I think 90% to the 70% to 90%

01:02:52.320 is a great starting point, a phenomenal starting point for a field that hasn't really had a lot

01:02:58.180 of answers for patients and it's not embedded in standard medical practice. But I really think we

01:03:02.880 can really go for the 100% and the 100%. Like that would be a really noble goal for us.

01:03:09.520 that that would be amazing yeah i think my family's in that 10 unfortunately especially my dad

01:03:16.820 it's just so inflammatory we had his we redid his sirs markers in the summer and

01:03:22.480 i was like they looked so bad they were worse than when i like was hardly i was having a hard

01:03:28.920 time walking upstairs um and his markers were so much worse than that and i was like

01:03:34.780 my gosh this is him he's on tour all the time so i was like

01:03:39.520 That's probably not a great idea until you solve this SERS problem.

01:03:43.700 But he's like, no.

01:03:44.880 Yeah.

01:03:45.380 Talking to the people.

01:03:46.900 But yeah, his was brutal.

01:03:49.060 And then his EBV, so Epstein-Barr, was just off the charts.

01:03:53.780 And I was like, your immune system is not even working.

01:03:57.240 Yeah.

01:03:57.540 I don't think it was the Epstein-Barr that was necessarily the problem.

01:04:00.920 But it's just like nothing to counteract any type of...

01:04:04.880 Is this possibly what happens with Lyme too?

01:04:07.180 Like you mentioned this a bit earlier, that if your immune system is just not functioning properly, that these exposures that maybe wouldn't make everybody sick, but make some people sick, your body just can't handle them.

01:04:19.260 Yeah, we think there's this accumulation effect with these different microbial exposures like fungal, bacterial, viral over time, causing innate immune system dysregulation.

01:04:29.520 So your first line of defense going haywire and then leading to a state of chronic inflammation.

01:04:33.940 so we we think that's what's happening with these patients yeah that makes sense that makes sense

01:04:41.140 why people started to get lung covid too just too much burden how much do you think um like chemicals

01:04:47.740 were exposed to and diet plays a role in this is that also an accumulation of problems that are

01:04:53.620 making people more susceptible or do you think mold is the primary one i think there's this

01:04:58.440 concept of the exposome, like your total exposure surface area. Um, I think if you have a bad diet,

01:05:06.060 bad health, um, a history of health issues. And, um, if you're also, um, if you're also just like

01:05:14.460 immunocompromised too, you're going to have worse outcomes. Um, what I've noticed with some of our

01:05:20.680 like athlete patients, they tend to recover very quickly. Um, they, they don't come in with as many

01:05:26.700 symptoms, but they do notice it more. They're very in touch with their bodies. So that's an

01:05:31.640 interesting observation. And we do notice as well that patients are responsive to the low amylose

01:05:37.240 diet too. So eliminating starches, which it makes sense why you're seeing success with the carnivore

01:05:42.520 diet, as well as avoiding gluten too, because we tend to see patients having higher antigliatin

01:05:48.520 antibodies. So they're reactive to gluten. So diet does play a role. We tend to advise on a low

01:05:54.560 amylose diet, avoiding gluten for several of the patients, and also just your total health history

01:06:01.480 and exposure history coming in. But some people are just a lot more resilient too, especially if

01:06:08.040 you don't have that genetic susceptibility that somehow gets people sick. We think it's an antigen

01:06:13.760 presentation issue, which really simply is you can see your body as a castle and you have these

01:06:20.580 security guards, right, in front of the castle. And these microbial forces that come in could be

01:06:27.880 wearing the same outfits as those security guards. And it's hard to distinguish who's friend and

01:06:32.080 who's foe, but the alarm system knows something is off. So you have your alarm system, your

01:06:37.100 inflammatory response, your cytokine storm going off continuously. So that represents the antigen

01:06:42.820 presentation issues, like who's friend, who's foe. It's not really getting recognized, but there's

01:06:46.820 this dysregulated alarm system going off so if you don't have that dynamic in your body that

01:06:54.160 genetic susceptibility to you're also in a in a better spot so i think it's the sum of all these

01:06:58.840 different things together yeah that makes sense i did some research so the hla genes are interesting

01:07:05.940 like the celiac genes and hla gene there's a gene for ankylosing spondylitis is an hla gene

01:07:12.740 and it just seems like some people and I think there's benefits I don't know what the benefit of

01:07:19.140 like the SERS genetics are but I know with celiac or I believe I read back in the day that

01:07:26.020 it's like why would people develop celiac disease which is just your body really responds negatively

01:07:32.640 to gliadin with gluten and apparently they had an easier time identifying their body had an easier

01:07:39.480 time identifying certain types of viruses so it did kind of make sense it's just now everybody

01:07:44.420 eats gluten so it's not great for people who have celiac disease but hla is interesting what

01:07:50.920 percentage of your patients ish don't have the one in four like bad genetics um we haven't mapped

01:08:00.840 that out for the current patients mainly because we do have an option for the far majority of

01:08:07.240 patients to start treatment without even doing the labs. And it's mainly driven by the symptoms

01:08:13.040 we would expect and known exposure that's validated. So we look for that and we can start

01:08:18.660 patients on treatment. And if they're unresponsive to treatment, we're, you know, we're transparent

01:08:23.720 with our patients. We're like, we would expect to see this by this stage. We have to have a

01:08:27.680 discussion to understand, do we continue or do we churn and recommend referring out that patient too?

01:08:33.160 So we don't have that data set. We do have that, though, out of the R&D side of what we're doing.

01:08:41.380 I don't have that number offhand, but Dr. Scott estimates roughly 5% to 7% of patients end up getting SIRS that don't have one of these genetic susceptibilities.

01:08:53.520 Okay. So not super high, but you shouldn't be in a moldy place anyway, even if you don't have the genes.

01:08:59.140 yeah it's it's like single digit percentages from what they've seen in clinical practice but

01:09:04.060 wow yeah I didn't realize so is that closely related to the genetic thing it's pretty yeah

01:09:10.520 it's pretty high signal it seems so if you have in order to get SIRS do you have to have I can't I

01:09:16.400 can't remember two genes that are HLA like problematic ones to be considered SIRS or is

01:09:24.760 one good enough? To get a SERS diagnosis, we typically like to see five abnormal markers and

01:09:30.260 that could include the HLA haplotype. It can also include some of these other markers too,

01:09:35.800 like the MMP9, the MSH, the TGF-beta-1, C4A, VEGF. So that's all included in the mixed bag of what

01:09:42.240 are your five dysregulated markers. That's one piece. HLA helps because it's so high signal.

01:09:49.060 So that tends to be a really common one in the field. We also look for the symptom clusters.

01:09:53.300 we like to see eight of those boxes selected. If you're an adult, it's different for pediatric

01:09:59.820 care, and then also some sort of known exposure too. And as you know, SIRS is pretty umbrellaed

01:10:06.260 and includes a lot of different biotoxin illnesses. So that exposure could be Fisteria,

01:10:11.520 it could be Ciguatera, it could be cyanobacteria. It doesn't have to be mold necessarily. In fact,

01:10:19.320 we're getting more and more excited about is it potentially the endotoxins and actinobacteria too

01:10:26.400 that's a major driver as well but but that's like does that appear in a house like mold

01:10:31.900 right now with inspectors um so yes when when you have water damage you can expect to see

01:10:39.320 like a whole microbial stew uh happening it's not really tested for by inspectors it's really just

01:10:45.940 this nascent data set we're accumulating through dust testing, which does account for way more

01:10:52.660 microbial species. I think that's an area the field needs to do a lot more research in is really

01:10:56.900 mapping out similar to what we saw with the ERMI and HERSME2 where we have, it was roughly a thousand

01:11:03.460 data points across different homes mapping the dust test results to health outcomes. Like we

01:11:08.140 really need to do that and better understand what percentage of patients are sick due to some

01:11:14.720 of these other microbial species but some of our really early data set which i'm challenging

01:11:20.600 internally um there's this concept of uh there's specific genes you can look at that are likely

01:11:26.680 tied to these endotoxins or an actinobacteria so some of these like bacterial sources um

01:11:33.160 so genes like these turn genes on yeah associated yeah so through our rna-seq data um but that's

01:11:41.240 not really a direct way to measure that. So I'm hoping to have a more 360 degree analysis of

01:11:48.780 what's going on with these patients. Right now, it's in the very early innings, like it's more

01:11:53.380 of a theory getting developed by some of these clinical researchers and Dr. Shoemaker.

01:11:59.200 Have you had patients that have SIRS severely enough that it's presenting as neurodegenerative

01:12:06.260 disorders recover? So I've heard of these case studies through Dr. Scott and Dr. Shoemaker,

01:12:14.680 yes. They've seen patients present with what was diagnosed or looks like MS, for example,

01:12:20.940 and that was able to reverse a lot of these Alzheimer's, Parkinson's type

01:12:26.520 diagnoses as well. So those patients tend to recover. But for our patient cohort,

01:12:33.500 it's it's too early to say right now yeah yeah that's fair enough that would be crazy well i

01:12:42.400 think this is revolutionary in a really terrifying way but like people you know it's better to know

01:12:51.920 than to not know right better than living in a country where like why is everyone get sick and

01:12:56.960 die here compared to other places what's going on do you think that there's any association with

01:13:02.160 like the change in building materials breeding some type of worse mold here like is that possible

01:13:07.840 or do you think it's just like why does america seem badly impacted when there are other countries

01:13:15.120 that have high humidity where you're not seeing the rate of chronic disease skyrocket that's

01:13:20.960 interesting we're not entirely sure why that is um we're not entirely sure why that is um i've

01:13:29.760 been asking that same question and there are other countries that do seem to be impacted um especially

01:13:36.080 the uk and some of these european countries like we've had a number of patients reach out to us

01:13:41.700 wanting to travel from europe to to get our care here in the states um but it it's not entirely

01:13:48.340 clear um there's just some there's some theories uh from the community on on why that is but i don't

01:13:55.280 feel confident in knowing that yeah yeah I feel like it could be I don't know what I read when

01:14:02.020 and I've been on like reddit and going through blogs and things so who knows how and it's all

01:14:06.560 speculative it's very super speculative but like I feel like it has to be well we know that houses

01:14:16.460 are sealed up and the more modern houses don't have as much airflow so in other countries that

01:14:20.940 they have higher humidity maybe their houses aren't as good but they have more indoor outdoor

01:14:25.880 air exchange um so maybe it's that or maybe we introduced something in like the 80s in houses

01:14:35.060 that bred some sort of super bacteria or mold or something like an antifungal because they had

01:14:42.220 mold resistant paints that they put everywhere and then it was like is this doing the same thing as

01:14:47.360 antibiotic resistance and we're just like breeding super molds it's like i don't know if that played

01:14:52.040 a role i don't know that's one of the theories that yeah that's one of the theories for sure

01:14:57.480 it gets we have no idea yeah it's like did we have like directed evolution and create these

01:15:02.180 like super mold species in the home like that's definitely one that's uh yeah nervous laugh yeah

01:15:09.440 how long did it take you to so what did you do you got sick in miami then you did a bunch of

01:15:14.860 research how did you figure out it was mold did you figure out it was mold had you heard of mold

01:15:18.940 illness already zero clue i i had no idea mold could do this to my health i was like very blissfully

01:15:27.060 unaware um i've always had good health um it was very weird that these things were happening to me

01:15:32.060 it was actually a friend that worked at a functional health clinic that tipped me off

01:15:35.900 where she's like you know your symptoms and what you're talking about sounds a lot like mold we see

01:15:40.260 a lot of these patients at the clinic. And I'm like, no way can we'll cause these health issues.

01:15:45.600 And I was like, you know what, now that you mentioned that there is a weird smell in my home

01:15:49.160 that I've noticed the first week. And I've been reporting that to my landlord. I'm like, there's

01:15:53.780 a really weird smell. I thought it was like a cigarette smell, but not. It was just like this,

01:15:57.400 like, it was a little off center from a cigarette smell. It wasn't a smell I've smelled before.

01:16:03.120 So that was really weird. And then the initial inspector that came in deemed there wasn't a

01:16:08.800 problem that was through the landlord um i was very yeah very skeptical um i'm like okay i know

01:16:15.920 the miami landlord reputation i'm just gonna hire my own inspector online and find someone credible

01:16:20.940 and then there was um high levels found uh in in the air sport trap sample uh that was in the hvac

01:16:28.240 system and we even found black mold under the sink um knowing what i know now i also suspect there

01:16:34.100 could have been mold behind the walls too there's some staining and water damage in one of the

01:16:38.480 closets. Um, we didn't look back there, but I think there was just a more pervasive mold issue

01:16:42.880 that I just wasn't aware of. And then did you move out and like, did you immediately start

01:16:48.580 SERS treatment or did you try some other things first? And then how long did it take you to

01:16:53.220 start feeling better? Yeah. Um, luckily I found a shoemaker certified, um, physician early on in

01:17:00.280 the process. But before that I was, um, ping ponged, uh, to different referrals I went to

01:17:05.320 or specialist. I was referred to an immunologist, allergist, pulmonologist, neurologist. I did a

01:17:11.360 battery of lab tests, which I was phobic of needles. So I also got a therapist to help me

01:17:16.780 work over my needle phobia. Like there's, it was just this whole journey. I'm not in victimhood

01:17:22.940 about it. I'm like hindsight, really grateful it happened. I think it gave me a lot of purpose,

01:17:27.160 but also went down the functional health clinic route. I had low ferritin, but I wasn't anemic.

01:17:33.840 So I was like, let me try iron pills. I'm like, OK, I feel a little better, but I still feel pretty sick. And then I finally got to a shoemaker physician. I started treatment like end of December 2022 or early January 2023 and then started noticing a pretty significant difference on the binders within two weeks for me.

01:17:53.560 every patient's different but I had a moment where I like this is a little dramatic but

01:17:59.240 I felt to the floor just crying because I felt like I got my brain back like it's something I

01:18:04.720 thought I lost I get it yeah yeah it's very emotional yeah um I thought I lost that and

01:18:12.620 I was just like doom lining my future like okay what can I realistically do like what

01:18:19.060 what value do i have um it wasn't clear to me because i felt like i i can't think i can't

01:18:25.240 process information i'm not able to learn i'm not able to like have the energy to really build

01:18:30.360 anything like i just felt really defeated um so that was a turning point and i was like okay

01:18:36.080 i actually feel like i feel kind of good now yeah yeah feel better yeah no i i totally get that i

01:18:43.260 had that kind of with diet when I turned my health around with diet where I hit I hit a point where I

01:18:50.020 was so sick and I was on so many medications that I was like oh I'm gonna die like I'm not getting

01:18:56.620 better this isn't getting better unless something changes and the medical system was not helping

01:19:01.540 because I'd been in it for 15 years I was like if I keep doing this and the trajectory keeps going

01:19:07.820 downhill i am screwed and then say like thank god i managed to get my symptoms under control

01:19:15.440 with diet until i got sick in my i got sick in nashville actually everyone knows that too

01:19:19.820 i moved to nashville my unit flooded and i didn't this didn't occur to me at the time i i was like

01:19:25.200 visiting london and my unit flooded and they like moved us to a different unit then they

01:19:29.220 cleaned it and moved all our stuff back in and i was like i thought i was having severe tree

01:19:36.280 allergies like what is happening and i have this podcast that's i might have taken it down but it

01:19:41.660 might still be up where my face is really like just a puff and people are like what's wrong with

01:19:47.140 you i was like i don't know i don't i have no internal dialogue i can't even think and my face

01:19:50.780 is puffy what's going on thought it was tree allergies moved to miami moved into another

01:19:54.740 moldy house then another one it was like the third one where i was like oh mold but it is it's

01:20:01.180 terrifying it's scary yeah well i'm glad you're doing what you're doing thank you and um i think

01:20:09.040 people should be aware of this mold co um you can get blood work done i think anyone who's

01:20:16.420 experiencing health problems even food sensitivities i would say uh because that's a big sign of mold

01:20:23.140 exposure right heightened food sensitivities yeah especially gluten um especially if you notice the

01:20:28.980 IBS type symptoms, that tends to be one of the earlier symptoms that present. Definitely suspect

01:20:36.540 mold, especially if it's not just gastrointestinal, but you're also noticing some of the other

01:20:41.700 symptoms too, like this multi-system response, perhaps with the brain fog and the fatigue and

01:20:47.100 frequent urination. We commonly see hair loss and hormonal issues too. So if all of that's going on,

01:20:55.660 perhaps look into mold yeah good idea and then for kids so scarlet got quite sick and she's got

01:21:02.540 the genetics um and she was having so in nashville she was having nightmares and she hadn't had

01:21:10.380 nightmares before and i was like that's weird so that was that was a big one um and then when she

01:21:16.920 went to miami she was having accidents at kind of an older age where i was like what's going on

01:21:23.800 And it turns out one of the main symptoms of mild illness in children, and correct me

01:21:28.440 if I'm wrong, but is having accidents as a kid, like urgency.

01:21:34.940 What have you seen in kids?

01:21:37.480 Like, how would a parent be like, maybe that's what's wrong with my kid?

01:21:40.500 She had bronchitis all the time.

01:21:42.460 She had bronchitis and pneumonia.

01:21:43.800 And I was like, that's what I was like as a kid.

01:21:45.700 What's going on?

01:21:46.380 She didn't used to have bronchitis and pneumonia.

01:21:48.840 And we moved to Nashville and it was like sick all winter.

01:21:53.800 And then Miami, which is like all sunny and beautiful, sick all winter.

01:21:58.160 And I was like, something's going on.

01:22:00.600 And it was mold.

01:22:01.280 We moved here.

01:22:02.540 No, she hasn't had bronchitis once.

01:22:05.160 So what have you seen with kids?

01:22:07.220 Yeah, we currently treat adults.

01:22:09.800 But Dr. Scott, our medical director, also has a pediatric background.

01:22:13.440 We've noticed increased cases of PANS-PANDAS, for example, some of these like neuropsychiatric issues in children.

01:22:21.940 we're looking more deeply at the autism connection as well if it's not if it's yeah yeah so we think

01:22:31.680 there could be a tie or at least a correlation there we are seeing some early data to support

01:22:37.460 that so we're actually organizing a memo now and pulling our biobank data and getting some more

01:22:42.320 samples too to just suss that out a bit further but similar to the adult symptoms so that symptom

01:22:49.220 clusters what we see in kids is that instead of the eight symptom clusters we see six of those

01:22:54.300 boxes so six of the symptom clusters in children is the cutoff there as well as the lab tests too

01:22:59.820 that tend to be dysregulated same with uh the adults it's the same with kids interesting and

01:23:05.180 then my experience so you're not treating kids or not treating kids yet we'll see what the future

01:23:09.840 brings for now no um scarlet got better really fast like she's got genes that don't look great

01:23:17.100 they kind of look like mine um and we moved out and I swear moving out made her feel better

01:23:24.160 compared to adults like Jordan and I and I was like flattened if I hadn't had the binder I don't

01:23:30.400 know how long it would have taken me to recover like it was it was crazy I literally went from

01:23:36.060 not being able to walk upstairs without like taking a breather and not being able to answer

01:23:42.340 emails to starting colostyrum and feeling like garbage with intensification yeah and it was

01:23:48.140 about two weeks when I was like I think I'm starting to feel better and then a month later

01:23:53.000 I was like not winded I could walk upstairs without like lactic acid burn walking upstairs

01:24:00.060 I was like I'm not gaining muscle this lactic acid burn is a lie what's going on but um Scarlett

01:24:06.000 got better really quick that's that's what we noticed with the kids too um they the bounce back

01:24:11.680 is is incredible a lot faster than adults so that that tracks yeah okay that's good because they can

01:24:18.800 get pretty sick and then bounce back which is really promising for any parents worried about

01:24:23.200 it is it's not as scary as like 60 year old having this yeah i agree okay so where can i direct people

01:24:30.560 to find out more yeah absolutely so we have moldco.com um we have a number of resources on

01:24:36.820 their free online education we have a free guide we have our lab tests our starter panel we're

01:24:42.440 offering that at cost so it's just a really great way yeah so that's amazing yeah so that's just a

01:24:48.540 way to help patients get answers right away that includes mmp9 msh tgf beta 1 so our highest signal

01:24:56.140 markers in the starter panel so i love that panel um it's it's great we also have the dust test

01:25:01.520 online too which is the fraction of the cost of getting an inspector and it's a great way to just

01:25:07.220 quickly see like could there be a mold issue or not in the home we offer care that's currently

01:25:13.040 just in eight states but we're expanding that to all 50 states and if you're having any questions

01:25:19.220 or you just want to send comments we have a support email I'm actually included on that

01:25:25.000 support email I read almost every single email oh my gosh yeah so that's support at moldco.com

01:25:30.340 I'm sorry. I just love understanding the questions getting asked. And we've actually incorporated a

01:25:34.900 lot of the patient feedback to date. So it's been an incredible experience, almost co-creating

01:25:41.420 with our patients to build something that drives the most value.

01:25:44.980 Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming on. I'm really excited to see this

01:25:49.120 blow up. I think it's going to be huge. I don't know how long it's going to take,

01:25:53.320 but you're definitely pushing ahead hard but I think in I don't know five years maybe that's on

01:26:01.660 the like hopeful side but in 10 years everybody is going to know about this and hopefully it can

01:26:06.640 be sooner than that I hope so thank you so much for having me yeah thanks for coming on

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - February 12, 2026

How to Identify and Treat Mold Illness (CIRS) ｜ Ariana Thacker EP 228

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