Mold-related illness is prevalent throughout the US. Because the symptoms are complex and varied, diagnosing mold toxicity can be difficult. Most doctors probably have had patients in their medical practice who suffered from the toxic effects of mold, but neither the patients nor the doctors realized it. Typically, those patients with an undiagnosed mold-related illness are given medications for each of their symptoms and referred to psychiatrists and psychologists for psyche medication and counseling for their “imagined” illness.

The longer the mold-injured patients go without finding the cause of their illness, the sicker they get. The sickness can lead to disability, loss of income, alienation of loved ones who feel the illness is “all in the head,” deep depression, and even suicide.

In the US, it’s been estimated that 45 million people live and work in moldy buildings that have sustained water damage due to flooding, leaks in the pipes, leaks in the roof, and excess indoor humidity. Whether a person develops a debilitating illness from the mold depends on their genetic predisposition and the amount and duration of their exposure to mold.

What are some of the symptoms of mold toxicity? 

The symptoms are manifold and can include cognitive disorders, like dementia, “brain fog,” confusion, short and long-term memory loss and inability to concentrate. Children can experience drops in IQ.

Mold-related neuropsychiatric symptoms include mood swings, irritability, chronic anxiety, panic attacks, suicidal depression, bipolar and obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Mold-injured people sometimes experience weight loss, but many have rapid unexplained weight gain that doesn’t stop until they receive proper treatment.

Chronic fatigue is one of the most common complaints in people who have been sickened by mold exposure. What all chronic fatigue sufferers have in common are mitochondria that have been poisoned.

Mitochondria are organelles found in every cell of the body. Their job is to produce adequate energy for all the bodily functions necessary to maintain good health. The various toxins that have the potential to poison the mitochondria include chronic infections like Lyme disease, poor nutrition, heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and mycotoxins.

Case history 

Shortly after I completed my training in environmental medicine in the early 1990s, a fourteen-year-old teenager named Phillip arrived with his family from Texas to consult with me about possible causes of his mental illness. The parents had heard about me through word of mouth.

Phillip’s mother related that her son had been a normal, healthy child until the prior year when his behavior became disturbingly bizarre. She said that Phillip cried frequently, had rage attacks, refused to go to school because he was too tired, and had big swings in mood from mania to depression. He complained of headaches, joint pains, frequent urination, chronic diarrhea, rashes, inability to concentrate in school, episodes of confusion and trouble with his memory. His parents said that Phillip would ask them the same questions over and over because he couldn’t remember what the answers were.

When Phillip began talking about suicide, the parents took him to a psychiatrist who gave him an antidepressant and medication for ADD. The medications calmed him down somewhat but the symptoms continued to get worse. By the time the family came to see me, they had already consulted with a half dozen doctors and had one visit to the emergency room. All the tests the doctors ordered, including a brain scan, came back normal. The doctors concluded that Phillip was depressed and needed ongoing counseling and medication, along with training in anger management.

I asked the parents if anything unusual had occurred to explain the change in behavior—like change in diet, use of recreational drugs or alcohol, bullying at school, or a traumatic head injury that could have damaged his brain function. The parents could not identify anything specific that had changed. The mother said, “The only thing different is that Phillip decided he wanted more freedom in his life and set up a bedroom for himself in the basement.”

The big clue for me was the word “basement.” I knew that basements could be damp and moldy. I asked if there had ever been water damage in the basement. The father said that a few years before Phillip moved into the basement, it had flooded after an exceptionally big rainstorm. Their handyman suctioned out the water and then placed heaters around the basement to dry out the moisture.

I examined Phillip from head to toe and found rashes on his skin, a runny nose, swollen lymph nodes in his neck, tender and congested sinuses, dark circles under his eyes, flushed cheeks, low blood pressure and a rapid heart rate with a bounding pulse, and diffuse tenderness throughout his abdomen. When I asked him to solve some simple math problems to check his cognitive function, he became frustrated and angry with himself when he made mistakes.

With his fists clenched, he blurted out, “I hate myself.” I put my arm around Phillip and assured him that his family and I would do everything we possibly could to help him get his brain back. He looked skeptical.

I wrote out a plan for the family, including what company to contact for finding a person specially trained in mold detection to do a thorough inspection of the basement, using the best equipment that was available in those days.

With the plan in hand, the family left and drove back to Texas. All subsequent consultations took place on the phone.

The mold inspector found several species of toxic mold behind the walls, including Stachybotrys, known to produce deadly poisons.

I asked the family to hire a company that had been certified in mold remediation and that would take all the necessary measures to keep from contaminating the rest of the house with spores as they removed the water damaged areas in the basement.

Phillip moved upstairs to his old bedroom while the remediation took place. I suggested that he avoid the basement completely—even after it had been successfully remediated.

When a person has been injured by mold, they often become sensitized to even miniscule amounts of mold. The family had to get rid of all the items contaminated by the mold in the basement, including books, papers, clothing, bedding, carpets and furniture, in order to avoid contaminating the rest of the house with mold spores.

Once the home was free of detectable mold, Phillip embarked on the long journey back to wellness. He and his family were unwavering in their commitment to following all the suggestions that I discussed with them, including a radical change in diet, extremely low in carbohydrates, with moderate protein and healthy fats—now known as a ketogenic diet—to starve the fungus in his body.

I asked Phillip to avoid all foods that risked being contaminated with mold, such as peanuts, corn and other grains, cheese and alcohol. I made sure to mention alcohol because he was at an age when kids start experimenting with drinking. I explained that brewer’s yeast is a fungus and the “poison” it produces is alcohol.

While on the subject of foods, I warned Phillip to avoid using antibiotics that were in the penicillin family. Penicillin is a mycotoxin produced by a species of mold called Penicillium. When my patients have an adverse reaction to antibiotics in the penicillin family, I know that they are probably sensitive to molds and need to take every precaution to avoid prolonged contact with them.

In addition to specific supplements for Phillip to take daily to support his recovery, I also recommended anti-fungal nasal sprays for his chronic sinusitis, antifungal medication orally for his systemic yeast overgrowth, and a resin called cholestyramine to bind the toxins in his gut. I also recommended that the family purchase a sauna for sweating out the toxins three times a week.

Once Phillip’s energy began to return, he exercised every day, mostly outdoors, and tried to spend a few minutes every day in the sun without sunscreen.

The mold exposure had left Phillip with a hypersensitivity to synthetic chemicals. The family tried hard to avoid using toxic chemicals in their home and on their bodies and in their clothes.

At my urging, Phillip began meditating every day to quell his lingering anxiety. He also expressed an interest in getting spiritual counseling from his church to help him cope with the many challenges he faced.

After several months, Phillip’s efforts began to bear fruit. He no longer had symptoms of mental illness. Early on in the treatment, Phillip stopped taking his psyche medications and relied exclusively on lifestyle changes to maintain wellness. His teachers said that he excelled in school and got along well with his classmates.

Phillip made an amazingly insightful observation. He noticed that whenever he had dark and suicidal thoughts that seemed to appear out of nowhere and for no apparent reason, he knew that he was in the presence of mold. He noted that he would get these thoughts in one of the local movie theaters and in the homes of a few of his friends. Once he recognized this pattern, he no longer was afraid of those scary thoughts. He knew they would disappear after he left the moldy buildings. He wisely reminded himself, “I have a toxic brain. This too shall pass.”

By now, Phillip had become very knowledgeable about his condition. He knew that mold could cause inflammation of the brain. The inflammation, in turn, creates abnormal responses, including suicidal thoughts and other manifestations of mental illness.

When Phillip went on camping trips with his friends, he realized how exceptionally well he felt. He would lose that sense of wellbeing immediately upon returning home. Phillip knew that he was most likely reacting to small amounts of mold in his home. The family eventually decided to sell their house and move elsewhere.

Twenty years ago was the last time I heard from Phillip’s parents. They called me to let me know that Phillip was thriving. He had been awarded a full scholarship and was about to head off to college.

How do we get exposed to molds? 

Molds are part of life. Wherever there is moisture there will be mold. I have overheard people say that the Southwest doesn’t have a mold problem because it’s such a dry part of the country.

In reality, the risk for mold exposure in buildings in dry climates is just as great as in damp climates. In fact, the species of molds growing in arid regions can be more tenacious and deadly because they have to compete for limited food and water.

In Santa Fe, the picturesque buildings with the flat roofs are ticking time bombs for leaks and subsequent mold problems in homes and offices. After a leak, if the area stays moist for more than 24-48 hours, mold colonies begin forming and start producing their poisonous mycotoxins.

Unlike the older homes in Europe that are built out of stone and brick, homes built in the US since the 1970s have commonly been built with wood and drywall, a potential feast for molds that thrives on organic matter and moisture. Even a small leak from a toilet or a small drip from a leaky pipe can offer enough moisture for the mold to grow and spread, especially in warm, dark places, like attics, crawl spaces, and air ducts.

What are mycotoxins 

Most people understand the problems caused by mold spores, which include allergies, asthma, sinusitis, and bronchitis. What most people don’t know about—including most doctors—is the role that mycotoxins play in causing disease, including mental illness.

Mycotoxins are poisonous chemicals present on mold spores that are released into the air. In susceptible people, these highly toxic chemicals can cause inflammation throughout the body, leading to neurodegenerative diseases of the brain, mental illness, hormone disruption, rashes, digestive disorders, and profound fatigue.

Given that mycotoxins are one tenth of a micron in width, they can pass right through drywall into the adjacent room where they can make the occupant sick. Mold spores, on the other hand, are between 1 and 20 microns. For comparison, human hair is about 100 microns thick.

Even if there are no visible signs of mold on the walls and ceiling, a water-damaged building can harbor mold spores behind the walls. Although it might appear that the mold is safely entombed behind the wall, the mycotoxins pass easily through the drywall.

A common assumption is that when mold dies from lack of moisture, then the risk from the mold is gone. But when the mold colonies die, their cell walls dry up and break apart into fragments. The fragments carry the mycotoxins into the air. When they are inhaled, the mycotoxins are absorbed into the body. To avoid this problem, all water-damaged areas in a building need to be completely cut out and removed under hermetically sealed containment.

Why are some people affected by mold and others not? 

Mold has the potential to affect everyone regardless of their overall health and fitness level. Based on genetic testing, it has been estimated that more than 80 million Americans—about 25% of the population—are susceptible to having severe reactions to mold.

In my medical practice, I have patients who were severely injured by mold exposure yet the rest of their family was only mildly affected. Some of their friends—and their doctors—mistakenly believe that if mold was truly the problem, then the whole family would be sick.

In reality, the ability to clear toxic substances through the detoxification pathway in the liver varies from person to person. Each of us has our own unique genetic and biochemical make up that influences our body’s responses.

How to test and treat for mold

If you think that you might be suffering from a mold-related illness, the place to start the search for answers is a home and/or office inspection with the appropriate testing by a qualified mold inspector.

The Institute for Building Biology and Ecology can give you a list of people in your area who have been well trained in “healthy home” inspections. http://hbelc.org/find-an-expert/environmental-consultants

If your house tests positive for mold, the next step is contacting a company certified in mold remediation.

Whether you find mold in your home or workplace or not, if you have a strong suspicion that you are suffering from the toxic effects of mold exposure, then it’s time to contact a “mold literate” doctor who can guide you on your road to recovery. Most primary care practitioners and psychiatrists are not trained in the recognition and treatment of mold poisoning.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine can help you locate a physician in your area who is trained in recognizing and treating mold-related illness. https://www.aaemonline.org

Resources

Ritchie Shoemaker, MD, author of “Mold Warrior” and “Surviving Mold,” offers a wealth of information regarding mold and other biotoxins, including protocols to follow for recovering from mold-related illness. www.survivingmold.com

The documentary film “Moldy” looks at the subject of mold toxicity though the stories of people who have struggled with mold illness and come out the other side. The film includes interviews with experts in the field. Here is a link to watch for free this very moving short film. https://moldymovie.com/screening_watchnow

Conclusion

Is it mental illness or could it be mold toxicity? That is the question we need to ask ourselves.

Mold-related illness is rampant in the US. Mold can cause inflammation in the brain that can lead to a large constellation of symptoms, including mental illness.

Too many people who have mold-related symptoms of mental illness have been misdiagnosed and given treatments that are not helpful and that do nothing to stop the progression of illness. These same people are often judged harshly by friends, family, and doctors who lack awareness about the neurotoxic effects of mold.

I am hopeful that there will be a rapidly growing number of psychiatrists, psychologists, primary care physicians and other healthcare providers who will learn how to diagnose and treat mold-related illness and its many manifestations.

To summarize, if you are suffering from a mold-related illness, there is hope for you. The first step is to get your home or workplace inspected for mold with the proper equipment and, if mold is present, to have it removed and the house remediated by qualified people. The next step is searching for a mold literate doctor and/or psychiatrist. From there, you will learn the steps you need to take to repair the damage and restore your health. These steps have the potential to take you to a level of health that you have never experienced before.

In Part V, I will be discussing the role of common chemicals in our everyday lives that can cause symptoms of mental illness. Stay tuned!