Mold and Mycotoxins: Detection, Testing, and Sensitivity

Part II of “Mold, the Ultimate Roadblock in the Healing Process”

By Dr. Paul Deglmann
Edited by Meghan Feir Walker

Have you been suffering from mysterious symptoms and don’t know the cause? Has it felt like you’ve exhausted the possibilities? One of the most pervasive problems in houses, workplaces—buildings of all varieties—is mold, and the unknown cause of your ailments could be mold exposure. 

In part I of our mold series, we went over sources of mold and mycotoxin exposure and common symptoms of mold toxicity. In Part II, we’re running through mold and mycotoxins: detection, testing, and sensitivity where we’re focusing on the best ways to detect if you are exposed to mold, how to test for mycotoxins (the toxins released by the mold spores) in the body, and why some people seem to be much more sensitive to mold and mycotoxins than others. 

Keep reading to learn how you can ensure your home and body don’t have mold problems.

How to detect if you’re exposed to mold

I know what it’s like to have mold illness and have to remediate a home from mold and mycotoxins. When my family and I discovered we’d been exposed to mold in our home, we were happy to have found answers, yet we were devastated. We knew there would be a lot of time, expense, and frustration involved. Discovering mold is an issue can be an emotional roller coaster. 

In part I, we went over the most common areas where mold grows in homes, but what’s the best way to know whether your house has a problem with mold growth? Since mycotoxins are invisible and molds aren’t always easy to see, how can you discover where the problem lies without ripping your house down to the studs?

It’s imperative to find a seasoned, professional mold inspector who uses the most up-to-date techniques, technology, testing, and approaches to mold inspection.

A few of the techniques we recommend looking for in an inspector is one who uses a combination of testing methods, like visual inspection, air testing, tape samples, swabs, infrared imaging, particle counters, moisture meters, an instascope, and more. Don’t rely on mediocre inspecting when it comes to something as serious as mold.

Can you test for mold and mycotoxins yourself? 

If you can’t afford a mold inspector or you want to test for mold yourself, there are some tests available. While these testing options aren’t as good as hiring an experienced mold inspector, these are some of the at-home tests that are commonly used:

• Air Plate or Mold Gravity Plates
  • Air plates and mold gravity plates are Petri dishes that you set up in different areas of your home. You leave them open to the air for an hour before closing the lid and allowing 5-7 days for the mold spores to grow in the dish. You can visually inspect them yourself, but it’s important to send them to the lab to know what type of mold is growing.
    
• ERMI (Environmental Relative Moldiness Index)
  • The ERMI uses a dust sample from your home (that you collect with a Swiffer-like cloth or vacuum sample) to analyze DNA traces of mold. It gives you a score on the significance of the mold that was collected.
    
• EMMA (Environmental Mold and Mycotoxin Assessment)
  • Also a dust collection test, the EMMA looks for the presence of molds and mycotoxins. Along with the dust sample and/or swab submitted, you can also send in small sections of a furnace filter. piece of suspicious drywall, etc. 

While these tests are less expensive options than hiring a professional mold inspector, you will still need to contact an experienced mold inspector if these tests are positive. You need to find the source of the mold. The mold inspector can work with a remediation company to appropriately remove and clean up the problematic areas. 

After your home has been remediated, it’s important to retest the home to ensure that the problem has been taken care of properly. 

What’s the best way to check for mycotoxins in the body?

If you were exposed to mold and mycotoxins in your home, workplace, or school, it’s crucial to test whether you have high levels of mycotoxins in your body.

While there are different opinions on the best way to test the body, these are the top three options for discovering internal mycotoxin issues.

The best tests to check for the presence of mycotoxins and reactions to mold spores or mycotoxins in the body: 

• Mycotoxins urine test
• Blood test to measure antibodies against the mold spores (IgG, IgA, IgE)
• Blood test to measure antibodies against the mold toxins/mycotoxins (IgG, IgE)

In my experience, most clinicians use the urine mycotoxins panel, but other clinicians argue that testing blood for mycotoxins is more accurate and useful.

Why are some people more sensitive to mold compared to others?

Do you or your loved one react to mold and mycotoxins much more than someone else you know? Maybe they run an antique store and you get a headache two minutes after entering the shop. Perhaps someone has lived in a moldy house for years and they seem to be okay, but your body reacts quickly upon entering. 

Whatever the scenario may be, it’s not healthy for anyone to be exposed to indoor mold and mycotoxins. However, certain people are extremely sensitive to these toxins. But why are some people so much more sensitive to mold and mycotoxins than other people seem to be?

This answer is complex. Multiple factors can contribute to someone’s level of mold and mycotoxin sensitivity. 

Some of the factors include:

• Genetics: Genetically, some people can’t optimally detoxify or remove toxins effectively, like mold and mycotoxins, from the body.
  
• Nutritional deficiencies: When someone is low in key nutrients that help the body detoxify, this can contribute to sensitivity issues.
  
• Liver congestion/sluggish bile: It’s important to understand the bile production pathway. When the liver makes bile, it adds the toxins into the bile. The bile is pushed into the small intestine so these toxins can then be removed from the body. However, if you have liver congestion and/or sluggish bile production, this process gets backed up and recirculates toxins back into the body.
  
• Stack effect: When you combine a poor diet (diets high in sugar, seed oils, dyes, and other harmful ingredients—processed food in general), lack of exercise, stress, nutritional deficiencies, genetic predisposition, lack of hydration, and other lifestyle factors, mold can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Multiple negative factors can make it too tough for your body to handle one more thing, like mold. Another way to look at it is to imagine you have a bucket. Each trigger (food sensitivities, lack of exercise, stress, etc.) adds water to the bucket. Once the bucket starts to overflow, you start experiencing noticeable issues. This is how the liver tries to handle toxins. 

What to expect in Part III of this mold series

If you have a problem with mold, how do you remove mycotoxins from your body, and how do you prevent getting mold illness again? 

In part III of this mold series, I’ll go over the steps of our mold protocol, what you need to do to get mycotoxins out of the body, and what your game plan should be if you still have mycotoxins in your body although you’re no longer exposed to high levels of mold.

I hope this information about mold and mycotoxins is helpful on your healing journey! You can feel better after exposure to mold and mycotoxins!

To view the correlating video to this article, click here or the image below: 

If you haven’t seen part I in our mold series, click here to watch.
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