What Mold Did to My Family

When we moved into our dream house, a nice little farm house out in the country, our son developed Asthma almost immediately. We did not know why, we just thought it was an age thing and a phase he was going through. Other members of both our families suffered Asthma and knowing what we know now, we wonder if it wasn’t really because of mold exposure and it just wasn’t known about so long ago.

As time went on, things got worse. We started having the flu more frequently, especially in the winter time when the house was closed up, and in the summer time we got summer colds when the house was closed and the air conditioner was running. After living there for 5 years, that last winter we all got very sick. Running fevers of 103, and aspirin or advils made very little impact on the fever. Whooping cough, flu like symptoms, lethargy, we couldn’t think straight and couldn’t even write a coherent email. We began feeling like we were dead or living in a dream, and our daughter had an ear infection that would not go away even with the strongest antibiotic. It was the weirdest ear infection we had ever seen, it almost looked like she had white muchrooms growing inside her ear canal. This went on for 2 months with no relief. being so sick, the whole family huddled in Mom & Dad’s bedroom and layed around together trying to comfort each other, but little did we know that the biggest assault to our health and bodies was growing in the south wall of that very bedroom we were living in trying to rest and get well.

By the end of the two months, Carmella, (my wife), suddenly began having severe pains in her legs, it was like her bones were on fire. She layed in bed screaming and crying and couldn’t do anything to make the pain go away. I believed her, but it was difficult not being able to see anything, yet I knew she wouldn’t just lay and cry for no reason. Then she started growing bumps from her shin bones, they looked like hard boiled eggs cut in half and stuck under the skin. They were painful, if I touched one even lightly it would make her scream. Her skin started turing red and a rash developed and it burned. I frantically began searching the internet for Bone cancers and all kinds of things, trying to find out what was wrong with her. In a foggy delerium I looked at my family sprawled out on one bed holding each other and looking like they were dying, I envisioned a Revelation like scenario... My family was being poisoned and I was losing my family, I thought we were going to die, I was losing my world and everything that gave me a reason to keep living.

As any animal begins to die, there is a point of giving in to the destiny of it all, but the will to survive will make you muster up enough energy to make that one last attempt to breathe and preserve your life. Even through the fog of not being able to think straight we got up and said, something is wrong, we made everyone get out of the room, we moved the bed and found a dark spot on the carpet under the bed and a little black mold growing on the wall behind the bed. We called the health department and asked if there could be something wrong here that was making us sick, so they sent a man out with a meter to check the moisture in the walls, and the moisture was too high. He said it was probably growing mold in the walls and there were probably cracks in the mortar in the brick siding outside which allowed wind blown rain to penetrate the walls. Sure enough we all went outside, and not only were there cracks in the mortar, there were large area’s the length of bricks where there wasn’t even any mortar left. The window frame had rotted, and with a flash light you could see a virtual world of microbes in there territorial patches like a battle ground of biochemical weapons trying to defeat each other and hold to their own piece of real estate inside the walls, and we were caught in the crossfire.

We finally got out of that house after unsuccesfully trying to make it livable, and the house was left deserted to be torn down by developers. This was not an old farm house, it was only 30 years old, having been built in the 1970’s and gypsumboard, AKA sheetrock, AKA Drywall, was the technique used. It is the paper lined drywall taht feeds the toxic molds we lived with and the hollow wall construction that gave them a medium to survive in. The real irony here is that molds like Stachybotris, considered one of the most deadly and one of the most toxic is really a wimp. It grows in dark area’s where many other molds and bacterias cannot inhabit. If they could, they would kill off the Stachy. In otherwords, our construction techniques have created a habitat for the growth and development of a Biotoxic warfare lab.

A year and a half later, having been so sensitized to the mold, everything in the Midwest made us sick, businesses even with mild cases of mold, undetected by most people, would make us sick. Everything was making us sick, farmers chemicals sprayed on the crops, pollens in the air, mold spores in the air, even mushroom season would impact us even though we lived in town now and mushroom spores were blowing in from the country side around us. We had no choice, we had to move, with little to no money and a van with 200,000 miles on it, we left our belingings behind and headed out to find an environmentally friendly land where we could live somewhat guarded from the toxins. For 5 weeks we travelled the country with a tent, living in the open air and a tent that got plenty of air flow through it. It got cold sometimes at night, especially windy nights, but I have to say 4 of those 5 weeks was spent in the Southwest in New Mexico and Colorado. During those 5 weeks time my family began healing, we were getting some of our health back. Sleeping on the ground often put carmella or my back out, since we both have bad backs to begin with, but we were able to breathe again and not gasping for air.

While we were on the road, our daughter wanted to go to our old house and gather some things up and there were some things that we wanted that we had left behind, like my knife collection. We figured she hadn’t been sensetized so as long as she didn’t spend much time in there she would probably be OK. We told her don’t spend a lot of time in there, go in, grab something, and take it outside to look through. No, she went digging through our room, and guess what. She developed the same symptoms we had suffered, right down to the red burning skin. We told her to stay out and let the bulldozer take whatever was left. She did manage to get a few things she wanted and my knife collection and a couple other things we wanted that could be cleaned off. Everything plush was lost, my wifes stuffed animal collection that was a culmination of every valentines day, birthdays, and other times when I would get her one, ... all gone. Things you don’t think of cannot be kept because they carry the spores and mycotoxins you have now become severely allergic to.

Although we have healed to a degree, the damage that was done may never repair itself. You never fully recover from all of it. I guess the best analogy I can give it is like someone who has an accident and breaks their neck or back and becomes paralyzed. For some, in time the pain will lessen and maybe even go away, but you don’t get the use of your limbs back. The fogginess of our minds has cleared up, to the point we now make a living writing and advertising for companies in the internet, 2 years ago we couldn’t write a, sentence that made any sense.

A lot of the pain remains, Carmella has little bumps now, some on her legs and on the knuckles of her fingers, it pretty much looks like arthritis, and it may be. Maybe it is the unknown factors of mold that has caused mold in people for so many years and people just didn’t know about it. They do know that a bacterial infection can lead to arthritis, maybe a fungal infection can too. Anyway, the hard boiled egg bumps on her shins are gone, our headaches went away while we were travelling the Southwest. Our son’s asthma hasn’t flaired up again, and in fact he hasn’t used his inhaler since we left the Miswest, neither have I for my breathing problems.

The bottom line here is, most of the medical community and the CDC don’t really have a clue what molds can do. They quote typical exposure symptoms as being all their is, but they have no scientific evidence of what mycotoxins do as they interact with your organs and bloodstream, they do not quote scientific proofs that are anything greater than laughable. Mold has one purpose for living, that is to break down organic matter, and that means you. They do so with the use of powerful caustic and poisonous chemicals, some of which are now beginning to be realized and research IS being done on some of these. Mold protects it’s little babies, (Spores or seeds), by coating them with poisons also. Your body is designed to handle a certain amount in Parts per million of mold spores, but when you live or work in a moldy environment, this count level increases in rediculous proportions. Mold spore counts in the air can be elevated 100 times, 1000 times, 10,000 times, and in some drastic cases where it can gather like in carpeting and furniture, then disturbed, even as high as 100,000 times the normal level. In dealing with biotoxins and what your body is designed to handle, your immune system cannot keep up with it so it penetrates into your system and starts doing damage to other organs and functions of your body, even your immune system can be effected disabling your system from being able to fight it.

Our case and many others in this country are drastic cases, more severe than most people experience, but it can and does happen to many people who are all but ignored. You can ignore the facts too, but you can also become a victim without even knowing it. We highly recommend you reading Sharons Story found at:

Sharon Carstens Story

Her story is another wonderful case of how the ignorance of the medical society and the workplace can jeapordize you and your loved one’s.

Please remember these stories, our world in America is build on hollow wall sheet rock construction, and it isn’t just in the midwest. We have found places, especially in New Mexico that suffer from lots of mold growth within their buildings, because of their adobe hut look and flat roof construction with the typical hollow wall construction on the inside. Flat roofs are at much higher risk to leaking than angled roofs are, and once water gets the interior walls, carpeting, and wood wet, mold growth begins.

The best defense against mold is, don't feed it.  Do not bring gourds into your hosue, if your home suffers water intrusion, fix the problem immediately and remove any wet drywall and replace it.