The following is Part 2 of Dr. Lisa Nagy’s article entitled “Household Mold and Marital Discord.” (Part 1 can be found here.)
In this section, she discusses ways we can lighten our toxic load.
Stay Well in this Toxic World
Even if you don’t have mold in your home, do these things first to maintain or increase health:
– No perfume (read labels on body care products since many contain fragrance).
– Eliminate pesticide use at home and buy organic as much as possible.
– Change your detergent to one that is non-toxic and fragrance-free.
– Three mainstays of living a non-toxic life:
>> Clean Air
>> Clean Food
>> Eat organic when possible
– Rotate foods every four days to prevent or reduce food allergies and addictions.
– Remove foods from your diet that trigger symptoms.
– Clean water.
– Choose water filtered through coconut charcoal in stainless steel bottles or drink water delivered in glass bottles.
– Avoid water in plastic bottles since it increases our toxic load.
Self-Test for Sensitivities
Like LSD (an ergot alkaloid) or hallucinogenic mushrooms, many molds produce mind-altering chemicals that can permeate the entire home, including clothing and furniture. Assess whether or not the clothing, fabric or furniture is toxic by spending five days in another location in fresh clothes before returning home to your habitual clothes and furniture. If you are intolerant to the items, this will determine their toxicity and your possible environmental illness.
Chemical sensitivity is synonymous with food allergies. Self-test foods for allergy symptoms by removing suspect food from your diet completely for five days. On the sixth day, eat a lot of that food alone for lunch and observe how you feel in the following minutes, hours and days. For example, I get a massive headache to peanuts the morning after I eat them. Take the offending food out of the diet for two to three months, then reintroduce it once a week as tolerated. Observe cause and effect in your home.
Say No to Mold
Homeopath and board-certified environmental, medical specialist Dr. Doris Rapp asks people to evaluate what they recently ate, touched or smelled when an individual or family member is feeling bad or misbehaving. These are the clues to figuring out your sensitivities and those of your family. Keep humidity low, below fifty percent, to prevent mold growth, and always address water leaks the first day they occur.
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The only time we experienced a mold problem in our home was when we were using the humidifier nearly 24/7 in the kids’ room. My three children share one room and each of them were dealing with respiratory illness after respiratory illness that particular winter. So, as the pediatrician suggested, we used the humidifier at night and during naptimes, and sometimes extra times just to keep the humidity in their room up. For who knows how long, I did not realize that when the humidifier got bumped (perhaps when putting the tank on and off each night to refill the water), it was spilling a bit of water onto the carpet beneath it. I did notice a musty smell in the room after awhile. Then one day I moved the humidifier to vacuum and found black-colored mold on the carpet underneath it and a big damp spot. After researching the horrors of black mold online, I called in professionals the following day. They pulled back the carpet and explained how they would clean it. My husband decided we could do it ourselves for much cheaper, so we did. I also found mold around the windowsill and used a bleach solution to clean it thoroughly and we aired the room out a lot. I commiserated with the mold professionals about how they say the humidity should be kept below such-and-such to keep mold from growing, but that that amount was too low from what pediatricians suggest when my kids get colds and other respiratory infections. So, what to do? Do you have suggestions? Thankfully, we have had comparatively few colds this winter and so I’ve only had to use the humidifier two or three nights (and it now sits on a pan to ensure no water spills on the carpet!), but I worry about next winter when I’ll have a baby again and thus will be more worried about breathing problems if baby develops a cold. Our house gets extremely dry in the winter, which is good when it comes to inhibiting mold-growth (I know!), but bad for little ones fighting congestion in their noses and lungs.
Also, speaking of little ones, I’m trying to make little, tiny steps to decrease at least some of the toxic load on my children and I’d like to stop using plastic sippy cups. Do you have suggestions for small glass water bottles that work well for little ones? Mine always get thirsty at night, so we leave sippy cups next to or in their beds for them to help themselves to throughout the night and I hate to think that the water is sitting inside a plastic cup with chemicals leaching into it all night. In fact, I’ve noticed that before we add fresh water each evening, you can actually taste a plastic/chemical taste from the previous night’s water! Ick.
I like this site for plastic alternatives:
http://www.theglassbabybottle.com/bpa-free/sippycups.shtml
It’s hard with the mold issue. Humidity is fuel for mold so I would err on the dry side. Vaporizers can be used short term. Bleach is not the best option. I would consider grapefruit seed extract – diluted…white vinegar, borax, and/or tea tree oil. Bleach kills some things but not others when it comes to these specific pathogens. Here is an article that you may find helpful.
http://www.momsaware.org/mold-remediation/57-mold-remediation-advice.html