Mold exists almost everywhere—indoors, outdoors, and even in the food we eat. Some people struggle with mold more than others, raising the question: if we’re breathing and ingesting mold all the time, why isn’t it making everyone sick?
If you find yourself concerned you may have mold sensitivity, an integrative medicine approach offers pathways to diagnosis and management.
Symptoms that are often attributed to mold sensitivity
The health effects that bring patients to our office with concerns about mold toxicity or mold infection often resemble allergy or asthma symptoms, including:
- Sneezing
- Runny nose or congestion
- Itching in the nose, throat, and eyes
- Eye irritation
- Chest pain or tightness
- Shortness of breath
The integrative medicine approach to mold sensitivity
We are constantly exposed to, breathing, and ingesting viruses, bacteria, and mold; we have incredibly resilient bodies that protect us from getting sick. But sometimes those defense mechanisms break down and we become sensitive or vulnerable to one or several of those pathogens—i.e. mold.
When a patient comes to me with symptoms of mold sensitivity, we have to determine where there is indeed a toxic overexposure to mold, which would make anybody sick, or if the immune system is impaired in another way that is expressing itself as a mold infection, or otherwise making your body overly sensitive to environmental triggers. While the mold reaction is real in many cases, it can be secondary to a bigger problem.
Mold has existed forever, so if you’re facing problems now, it’s important to ask why.
Rule out Lyme disease or other conditions
The first step in practicing good medicine is to rule out other possibilities—a differential diagnosis—before finding a treatment plan that best serves your unique needs. Symptoms resembling mold illness could be due to other medical conditions, particularly Lyme disease, which is often overlooked. Lyme is one of the great imitators in medicine: people often believe they have a sensitivity to something, an allergy, or an autoimmune disorder, but it’s a Lyme issue. There are also other conditions which can look a lot like mold illness, such as autoimmune disorders.
Looking at your body’s lines of defense
Some people may have a heightened sensitivity to mold due to a general lack of resilience in their system. A key aspect to examine is the function of your gut, which we often refer to as the body’s “first line of defense”—it can also be where inflammation begins in the body. How well your gut is performing can affect your resilience to a variety of health issues, including mold sensitivity. So I always want to know, how is your gut functioning?
To figure this out, we ask questions like, what are you eating? The food you consume plays a vital role in gut health. Be as kind to your gut as possible by eating a diverse diet of anti-inflammatory foods, including plenty of whole, plant-based choices and cruciferous greens.
I also want to know about blood sugar when investigating mold illness. Fluctuations in blood sugar levels can alter your body’s natural response mechanisms, changing cortisol responses and your body’s ability to deal with different pathogens coming into your system and making you more susceptible to external factors like mold; this means it’s also important to look at how your diet is affecting blood sugar.
Checking for underlying mold allergies
When my initial approach isn’t yielding answers, I recommend allergy testing. Sometimes there is an allergy to mold that patients are simply unaware of. We have found that elevated cortisol levels can sometimes indicate an allergy to mold.
Handling a mold allergy diagnosis
People who have an allergy to mold have to be extra careful about the amount of mold exposure in their environment, paying particular attention to keeping their home clean. Pay attention to your pillows, dust, and clean bathroom regularly. We also talk with our patients about taking care with the food that can contain enough mold to aggravate a mold allergy.
Testing for chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS)
Some patients may suffer from Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), a condition that has been linked to mold exposure. It involves a systemic inflammation that can result from not just mold, but other pathogens that lead to the chronic inflammatory response.
The Visual Contrast Sensitivity Test is an instructive diagnostic tool in such cases; about 90% of people with CIRS show a reaction to this neurological test, which measures your ability to discern details of contrasting grays.
Do I need to test my house for mold?
Sometimes, it is necessary to have mold testing conducted in your home to check for the telltale mold spores containing mycotoxins. In the past, I have had patients who have an extreme reaction find that mold spores in the environment were the cause, i.e. a growth of black mold due to hidden moisture behind a bathroom wall.
However, there are many instances where patients seem to be experiencing a sensitivity, but numerous tests yield no indoor mold, and we find that the primary problem is something else. It is then necessary to take a step back when there seems to be a sensitivity to mold and work through the approach discussed above based on the individual’s symptoms, lifestyle, and medical history.
About Dr. Dan Monti
Dr. Dan Monti is the author of Tapestry of Health: Weaving Wellness into Your Life through the New Science of Integrative Medicine and an integrative health expert. His mission is to help patients through science-backed treatments that treat illness utilizing the full breadth of both traditional and innovative approaches. Dr. Monti is the Founder and CEO of Marcus Institute of Integrative Health and the Founding Chair of the first Department of Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at a United State medical school, both of which are housed within Thomas Jefferson University.
