Mold

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Continuing the discussion from Eternity Async Tutoring:

I’d suggest reading up on mold. A book is Break The Mold by Dr. Jill Crista. Mold hasn’t been adequately researched, so all literature should be approached with a lot of critical thinking, not treated as established truths.

Mold repairs are often done poorly. Some issues to watch out for:

  • Merely cleaning visible mold from an area.
  • Not removing and replacing enough wet building materials.
  • The repair area should be thoroughly dried before closing walls/ceilings/floors back up. This can take days with fans. If wood feels dry to the touch, that doesn’t mean it’s dry. It should be measured with a moisture meter (buy one from Amazon for like $30 if the workers don’t have one).
  • Not finding the full area that water reached, e.g. below where the mold is.
  • All sources of water intrusion should be found and fixed. There’s usually more than one.
  • Not taking enough precautions to protect the people in the building. When mold is disturbed, killed or cleaned, it can release a lot of spores and fragments. Opening windows, running air purifiers, wearing masks, dusting and vacuuming are cheap options. With lots of mold, maybe the workers should seal the contaminated area off with plastic before disturbing the mold.

Have you tried magnesium, vitamin D and B vitamins? Those are particularly common deficiencies.

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Eternity Async Tutoring
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Ok. Funnily enough I was planning to do that soon though not in any intensive manner. I just remember Elliot mentioned a book about mold at some point and I thought it would be a good time to read it. It’s in the article Mold-Finding Dog Training and Induction :

I read an account of training a dog to find hidden mold problems in buildings. (It’s in Mold Controlled by John Banta.)

I guess I’ll read both.

I feel like there was a curi.us post too but I can’t find it. Though I didn’t look too hard.

I can believe that, especially when you mentioned that its not a well researched field (though even if it was it would probably be a toss up if you get a good company anyway). I do remember years ago my dad just hired some people to fix the pipes and fix the walls (probably without addressing the mold) in my moms closet. Though my dad did just hire the cheapest he could find so I don’t know if thats necessarily representative of all companies for that kind of stuff.

Also thanks for the list. I’ll keep an eye out and let my brother and mom know. They’re better at paying attention to things when it comes to workers. Or, more accurately. they’re better at saying something. Idk. I definitely am better at noticing stuff but I get uncomfortable mentioning stuff to workers. I don’t like saying, “Hey thats not right.”

Got a bunch of fans (I think thats what those are) going all day in those areas. Actually just came back to more moldy wood being removed and more fans throughout the house.

They seem to be taking precautions, so thats nice.

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Thats her whole room sealed up. Yesterday they had just sealed up the closet. Came back from work today and now her whole room is sealed. So thats nice.

Mhm. I take this multivitamin (it has a high dose of B-vitamins), this for magnesium, and this for vitamin D.

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That last sentence shouldn’t be included in the quote.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ToxicMoldExposure/comments/1mnkdyd/homeless_for_4_months_now/

I had toxic mold throughout my apartment

I have an eye disease called Keratoconus

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Thanks for sharing that. Comments:

I have an eye disease called Keratoconus and wondered why I suffered through 24/7 eye pain while I was living there. I already had a cornea transplant for my left eye and was going to hold off on getting one for the right eye - but after living in the apartment for over a year I developed cornea edema in the right eye. It’s extremely painful and it forced me to get the cornea transplant for the right eye.

Hmm. I would have never called my issues with my eyes consistently painful. They were often irritated leading me to rub my eyes a lot growing up. I think my keratoconus issues are caused, in part, due to how much I rubbed my eyes.

I now believe the reason I had the eye disease to begin with was because of toxic mold in my parents house. We use to always have water damage from either me or siblings allowing the tub to overflow as kids upstairs.

This makes it sound kinda directly caused. ~I wonder.

In addition to eye pain, the brain fog is and other neurological symptoms are real. I was always constipated too, had nightmares, paranoia, depression, anxiety, etc. I couldn’t work or get anything done the 5 years I lived there. After Hurricane Beryl, conditions got worse to the point where mold started showing through the walls.

I can kinda relate to that. One of the first things I noticed getting my contacts around ~20 was how filthy my living situation was. I was kinda grossed out by how much mold was in our bathroom for example. The black blur never quite seemed that bad with poor vision.

I think because of that I started being more conscious of mold? One thing I noticed is that when my shower curtains would get gross looking I would feel worse taking a shower. For a while I didn’t bother cleaning them I just replaced them (now we have a newer shower with sliding glass doors), but every few months or so I would feel really sick after taking a shower.

I also noticed that some of the trips where I’ve gone away for home for an extended period of time leave me feeling much better typically. I’ve been to Japan twice and Korea once (no other extended travel) and for all those trips I felt way better at the hotels. Though that could be for other reasons too. During vacations I sleep more and I think the jet leg helps me have a nicer sleep schedule. But idk. Me and brother noticed this because the last two trips I took we took together and we noticed that when we come back home we instantly started feeling worse.

Huh. I just remembered something: I have a cough that really doesn’t go away. It comes back here and there. I don’t think I coughed that bad during my last recent month in Japan, if at all. Maybe I’m misremembering this? Idk.

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It’s common for people to feel worse while traveling. Traveling tends to take extra energy (unless it’s the take days off work and try to mostly relax away from any work and chores type of travel). Like business trips where you do a bunch of work tend to cost extra energy compared to regular work, and be a hassle because hotels are worse than your home and plane flights are worse than your commute. People commonly find lots of aspects of travel stressful and like their stuff and their routine (but still may think travel is worth it – it has lots of upsides too). So this may be a bigger concern than you realize.

This is also a big concern. And there are others. So I think you should really do some research on mold, read some books, etc. I think you planned to before but either didn’t post about it or never got around to it. It sounds like there’s a real chance that mold is having a major impact on your life.

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Yeah I did. Just around the time I planned today some large personal events occurred at the same time that made me forget.

I do think it has a major impact on my life. I’ll read on it. Hmm. Probably just use TTS.

One thing: I say I think it plays a major impact, but I think it plays a major impact in terms of like short term stuff. Idk. Like I think mold is affecting my sleep rn, energy rn, etc. but I don’t take it seriously as a long-term health issue. Kinda how I think about it: I’ve been around mold for so long and I’m alive and “fine”. How much harm can being around mold a little longer be?

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That kind of belief is controversial. You should read some literature about mold concerns and also read some literature that denies its much of a problem in homes like yours. Denying that mold could be affecting you much is the more mainstream position, partly b/c there is inadequate scientific research specifically showing the harms in cases like yours. (This is partly related to the “no evidence for X” claims I’ve critiqued sometimes – it often just refers to lack of research rather than to research that shows not-X.)

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Really? I guess its controversial in like the science/medical side of things, but I’ve gotten used to just hearing from regular(?) people that mold is bad. That made me think its fairly uncontroversial that its bad.

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Well, which types of mold are how bad and have what health effects in what amounts is debatable.

There are many many types of mold and certainly some are very bad, some are slightly bad but not really a concern, and some aren’t bad. Lots of people think “black mold” is the bad kind but don’t even know which species of mold they mean.

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Recently I just came to see how inescapable mold is after cleaning the ice machine at work.

It’s supposed to be done monthly by a third party vendor. They don’t come like ever (also they don’t do a great job when they do come), so we decided to clean it after a few months. I’ve cleaned it before in the past when it got a little gross and that was whatever, but this was bad. I thought at this point I think we should just let the mold have the ice machine. It’s theirs. Let’s go let them live a happy by themselves.

What bothered me the most is that afaik we’re probably one of the better companies at keeping it clean. I can’t imagine the state at other places (remembering my old dairy queen job, I don’t think that was ever cleaned). Mold really is inescapable. This has inspired me to read.

From Break The Mold (mentioned by @anonymous103):

I’m a naturopathic doctor, which means I’ve been trained to find
and treat the cause of “dis-ease.” Why is that important? Because usually
once the cause of “dis-ease” is removed, people get better.

This sounds similar to the stuff Lonsdale said.

The many research studies about molds and mold toxins (called
mycotoxins) are related to animals and animal feed. People in charge of
feeding livestock know about the risks. They’ve even developed mold
mitigation techniques to keep their animals healthy.

That reminds of something Elliot talked about where their are health and safety regulations for workers working in moldy environments but no similar warnings are given to individuals living at home with mold.

Lack of research is not the same as lack of efficacy. Traditional medicine
healers from all indigenous cultures successfully treated people afflicted
with mold. Sadly, little of that knowledge got passed down to modern day
doctors.

Hmm. If true, I wonder how much stuff we are missing out on by refusing to acknowledge any part of traditional medicine stuff. Like I remember hearing something about tai chi and body electricity. From Gemini:

Tai Chi acts as a, bioelectric, and energetic, modulator that enhances the body’s natural electric signals, improving balance, blood flow, and neural connectivity. Studies indicate it increases electromagnetic energy, enhances blood flow (sometimes felt as warmth/tingling), and boosts alpha, beta, and theta brainwave power. Through mindful movement, it stimulates nerve connections and generates piezoelectricity—a charge produced by stress on bones—which contributes to the “flow” of Qi, or bioenergy.

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You can cook your own food at home to avoid this. I wish more companies could be trusted to outsource more tasks to (in return for money). A lot of food processing outside of your own kitchen has hidden or non-obvious downsides.

Some of the downsides are allowed by our society and its rules. Others aren’t. Companies often do a mix of both types of downsides. Having a bunch of mold because you don’t clean stuff regularly sounds like a health code violation, a downside for customers that breaks the rules and isn’t socially acceptable.