89 | 3 Mistakes I Made in My Mold Illness Journey That Cost Me Years. Are You Doing One?

Aubree Felderhoff: until we know what's behind the symptoms or the diagnosis, or even that feeling of I just don't feel right, we can continue doing gut protocols and heavy metal cleanses and medications and natural supplements, all we want. But if we're not tackling the root, We're just putting a band-aid over the symptoms. So if you really want your life back, if you want your time back, if you want your money back, so you're not just spending money continuously on all of these doctors and naturopaths and homeopathic medicine or whichever route you go, you've got to figure out what the root causes of these diagnoses, of these symptoms. And that's what today's episode is all about. Welcome to Mold Free Mom, where we cut the confusion and break down what it really takes to heal from mold illness. Whether you're dealing with unexplained symptoms and no real answers, or you know mold is your problem, you've done everything right, and yet you're still not better. This podcast is for you. I'm Aubree, and I spent 12 years struggling with mold toxicity. before finally learning why nothing was working. Mold wasn't my only problem. Not knowing how to heal from it was. This is where guessing ends and real healing begins. Let's get started. Welcome back to Mold Free Mom. If you're new here, welcome. My name is Aubrey. I'm the host and a three time survivor of mold. After a long 12-year battle, I finally found the keys to healing and getting my life back. And now it has become my passion to help those suffering, like myself and my family, to reclaim their life much faster than I did. So let's talk about today's topic. How do you know? If mold is actually the problem, the thing causing you to have these mystery symptoms, these weird head scratching type diagnoses that really don't make sense. And this is a question that I have really gotten a lot of recently in discovery calls and even lab consultations that I'm doing. And so I want to help you guys today to really dig down. And discover exactly how to know if mold's the problem. Because until we know what's behind the symptoms or the diagnosis, or even that feeling of I just don't feel right, until we figure out what's behind that, we can continue doing gut protocols and heavy metal cleanses and medications and natural supplements, all we want. But if we're not tackling the root, I think you know as well as I do. We're just putting a band-aid over the symptoms. Or we're improving in one area until something else happens, until something else gets out of regulation, or we get a new diagnosis. So if you really want your life back, if you want your time back, if you want your money back, so you're not just spending money continuously on all of these doctors and naturopaths and homeopathic medicine or whichever route you go, you've got to figure out what the root causes of these diagnoses, of these symptoms. And that's what today's episode is all about. Now, I want to start off with telling you my own personal experience in this realm. I lived there for seven very long years. I had three very small young boys at the time, and I bounced between doctor after doctor after specialist after specialist, and nobody could really peg what was going on. The thing that was really confusing for me, and I'm sure for a lot of you, is that a lot of my diagnoses seem to have overlap between other diagnoses or other symptoms. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's hypothyroidism. Well, of course, within that diagnosis so many of my symptoms could be explained. It causes fatigue, it causes hair loss, it causes depression, it causes brain fog, it causes weight gain and bloating. And gut dysregulation and hormonal dysregulation, it can cause so many different things. And so as I kept going to different doctors and specialists, I was told, well, this is just part of Hashimoto's or this is part of hormonal dysregulation. And once we get your thyroid on check, this stuff will go away. Yet what I noticed throughout the journey was that my thyroid never really seemed to come online. I was doing all the right things. The things that every doctor and every specialist and every internet search out there that I had looked at, and I know you know what I'm talking about, two, three in the morning, desperately searching. I was doing all of it. And I was so frustrated because none of it was working. And not only was it not working, my thyroid was definitely not improving. But on top of that, I was having more and more issues, which at first could again be explained by my thyroid being led astray. But then it started moving into areas that really couldn't be explained by the thyroid. My heart became enlarged, and I had to start seeing a cardiologist. I started having some lab work come back that indicated I quite likely had a tumor on my pituitary gland inside my brain. And I had to go for a brain scan to check for possibly a cancerous tumor. I had cysts and fibroids, and all of a sudden was diagnosed with endometriosis and had a really horrific cyst. on one of my fallopian tubes that was going to require a probable full hysterectomy because it was causing quite a bit of issues. I had gut imbalances and parasite issues and kept testing super high for heavy metal despite doing all of these cleanses and having the perfect diet, which let me say nobody has the perfect diet, but you guys, I was at probably about as close as you could get. I mean, I was not enjoying life. We'll put it like that. we had a neighborhood bunko group and at our bunko group meetings, everyone else was enjoying the dinner that the host was cooking, where I was bringing my raw carrot sticks and celery to munch on. I had tremendous issues with cortisol dysregulation and adrenal gland issues and got testing for that. I was tested for ADHD and skin allergies and environmental allergies, which by the way is not the same as mold testing. But all of that to say, because I was looking at all of the symptoms, and it wasn't my fault. That's what we're taught to do is when something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck, right? My hormones, they were out of whack. I did have skin problems and I did have environmental and food allergies. I did have parasites and SIBO and all of the things that I was looking at and trying to treat. But what no doctor really looked at is why did a previously healthy at the time in my mid-20s, all the way through my 30s, why did this healthy girl all of a sudden basically fall off a cliff? And started experiencing a widespread range of dysfunction symptoms, inflammation across her body when nothing really changed. It wasn't that I all of a sudden decided I was never gonna work out again. I was only gonna eat Twinkies and bonbons from my couch. You know, there was nothing really in my in my life that had changed except that I had moved. But nobody looked at that. And so for the better part of almost a decade, seven to eight years, I went from doctor to doctor, looking at all of these different diagnoses and symptoms and draining our income, draining my emotional capability to handle all of these labels, which is a whole different subject, and doing all of the quote unquote right things and not getting well. And with every time that I didn't get well, there was a new level of fear that I was the incurable case. With every new doctor that I walked into, and I sat at the table. And I pulled out my long, long running list of symptoms and history timeline that I now had a binder for to keep everything, all of my results and all of my symptoms and all of the timelines. With every doctor that I went to, where I brought this binder in. And I sat down across from the table and I talked to them about this long-term list of problems. I grew more and more fearful inside. that they were right, that I wasn't gonna heal. Because I could see the look of concern in their eyes. I could see the confusion. And with some of them, I could see the Judgmental stairs of the problem that this girl is dealing with is in her mind. And some even told me, you're not really sick. You've been told you're sick. And as soon as you can get out of this victim mentality, you'll do yourself a favor, and a lot of this will go away. And I know. Those of you that are listening, I know that I'm not the only one with a story. I know that that's your story too. Maybe not all of it. Maybe you have different chapters in this long book of chronic illness. But I know I'm not alone in that feeling of thinking underneath it all that there was something deeply wrong with me that nobody was going to be able to help me with. Nobody could figure me out. I was that case, and I was convinced of it. Friend, if that is you today, I wanna stop you right there. Because I was that case and I'm here to tell you it's false. I'm better and I was complex and I had every symptom. I had every diagnosis. Nobody could figure me out. And yet I'm better. So let's talk about the elephant in the room, shall we? When you've been to doctor after doctor, you've done the research, you've tried the protocols, and it's failed. You start to believe that you can't heal, that you are too far gone, that you're too complex of a case, that you have so many different things playing a role in why you're sick, that there's no test that you could possibly take that could tell you the simple fact that you've got one thing to do, and then you'll get well. And I think that is what is underneath so many of these discovery calls that I've been doing and even consult calls that I've been doing, where they beg me to tell them how to get well. And I give them the exact answer of what to start with. And they immediately tell me that won't work for me. And so let's start there. What do you do when you're like I was, or when you're like one of these poor people that I've been talking with that have every symptom, every diagnosis, a full chapter book of a health history? I mean, it goes, it can span for years and years and years for many of us from childhood. How do you untangle this web of all of these different things at play in your health and in your timeline and pinpoint it to one thing? Well, you start with testing and you start with the right testing. And there's a lot of different tests out there, especially if you've gotten multiple diagnoses and you have multiple symptoms. But if you're listening to this podcast, I believe it's because you have a suspicion or a confirmation that you have been exposed to mold at some point in your life or right now, and you may be ill from it. And if I peg that right, and that's you, and you're listening to learn. There comes a point when it's time to take the education that you've been given and all of the research. And I was a research a holic too. That's what we do to survive when we're in this mode of desperately seeking answers. We just consume and we listen to all these podcasts and all these audios and we watch these videos and we go to these trainings and we read because we're desperate to get well. But at some point, you've gotta you've got to take what you've been given and what you're learning. And you've got to apply it. And so if that's you and you've done all of these different things, and you've yet to test your body for mycotoxins using that blood serum testing, I've talked about it a lot in my previous episodes. That is your next step. Because until you know what's actually going on in the body and if it is due to mold, You're gonna continue to spin these circles and go around in these loops and well, what if it's this or what if it's my iron is causing this or my Hashimoto's or my Graves disease or My mass cell activation, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All of those, all of those things. I mean, there's a list of hundreds of different diagnoses and symptoms that are linked to mold. And so, yes, can all of those affect you? 100%. Can you have those diagnoses and they be real? Yes. But where do they come from? You weren't born with them. I mean, very few people are born with these, right? There was something that caused. This to start. And we've got to consider that. there's a trigger that starts this. And what if it was your environment? You won't know until you test. And that's why whenever I work with clients in the complete mold recovery program, we always start with testing. So that's step one, friends. If you're listening, you're confused, you're frustrated, start with giving yourself the answer. Give yourself the answer to move forward because you can continue tackling all of these other symptoms and diagnoses. But you know as well as I do, we've got to get to the root of the problem if we ever want to resolve it. So that is the very first mistake that I see so many people make in this space. Not testing for mold in the body and continuing to guess based on symptoms or other diagnoses. Now, the second thing that I see a lot of people doing wrong is maybe they test, but they don't use the correct testing. Now there's a lot of tests. Out on the market. There's a lot of different ways of testing, and I don't believe there's ever just one way to test. I don't believe that there is one test and everything else in the world is useless. However, I do feel that there are superior methods and inferior methods, and that some of the testing gives us a piece of the puzzle, but it's not going to give us as much information. I know that from personal experience because for me, I took the urine mycotoxin test multiple times. And every single time I was negative, I showed that I did not excrete any mycotoxins. And many times the doctors that I was I was seeing would tell me that that could mean that I am not sick from mold. In fact, some did tell me that, or it could mean that I am so sick. That my body can't even detox the mold. And so nothing is showing up on my urine test because I can't detox it. Either way, that doesn't give me an answer. And I found it incredibly frustrating and confusing as a patient to really not have a concrete idea of, okay, do I have mold? Do I not? Okay, now I don't eat grapes before this, or I take this supplement, glutathione, to provoke my urine. It was so confusing. And the same went for when I went down the shoemaker protocol and the thousands of dollars worth of testing that we did multiple times on my body to look at my genes, my genetic makeup, to look at different levels of inflammation in the body. I specifically remember having this conversation with the practitioner that was over me at the time. I walked away after years of doing the shoemaker protocol and all of the binders and even the VIP spray and not feeling better and asking this doctor, okay, we got my labs back. And honestly, they don't look good. In fact, I remember crying because they actually looked worse than when I originally had the labs drawn and it was years later and of course thousands and thousands of dollars later into the treatment. And so I asked the doctor, okay, well, at what level, at what level are we needing all of these? I don't remember how many labs you do on the Shoemaker protocol. I want to say it was 15 to 20 different labs that we were looking at. What levels do I need to even tell me that I am healed? He couldn't tell me. He didn't have an answer. He just said they need to be better. And I said, Well, if they were one point better, does that mean I'm healed? Two points. If there were one hundred, some of these levels were in the thousands, or if they're a thousand better, there was no answer. It was so confusing. It was so fuzzy. There was no indication. Of any level of mold, because they didn't test for that, any level of mold in my body, I just knew I was inflamed, which of course I was. Mold illness is first and foremost an inflammatory illness. It causes systemic inflammation throughout your body. So of course I'm testing high on inflammation. But I had no idea aside from that what was going on, other than the fact that my genes at the time, they said I had what was called the devil-dreaded canary gene, Which my shoemaker doctor told me at the time meant that my body was just missing the ability to detox mold and mycotoxins and biotoxins. that I got it from both sides of my parents and I was extremely unlucky. And that 25% of the entire world had this gene, which never made sense in my mind because I grew up around mold. I grew up going to my grandparents' house close to the beach and staying, sometimes for weeks, where there was black mold all over the ceiling, and it smelt of immense must, which at the time I just thought was called grandma and grandpa's house smell. I never got sick. I had the same genes then, and I grew up with it. My dad was in the construction business, and we were constantly at jobs with my parents, where they were getting very old houses and I'm sure tons of mold and mycotoxin and exposing them everywhere. And I would be at that work site for hours and hours and hours. I never got sick. My parents' house had mold in it. I never got sick. It was the same genes. It didn't make sense to me. I clearly wasn't able to detox these biotoxins at that point in my life. And I was around a known amount at all times. I'm quite certain my elementary school, which has now been completely knocked down and made into a parking lot, I'm quite certain it was full of mold as well. So I'm gonna jump off my soapbox here. But my main goal is to make sure that you are educated in knowing that there are multiple avenues of testing your body. And some are definitely superior to others. And I highly, highly, highly recommend that you do the blood serum antibody test for mycotoxins, where you're able to look at are you in current exposure based on your antibody testing? And are you colonized? What is the total toxin load on your body for possibly a long period of time or maybe your current environment and you're just dealing with these mycotoxins that are inside your body? We need to know that. And we don't get that information from most of the mold test out on the market. So that would be the second mistake is just relying solely on wrong testing information. And then the third mistake that I see a lot of people making in this area is testing their environment and not their body first. Number one, friends, a lot of times when you go after the environment testing first, it's more expensive. But oftentimes, if you don't know what you're doing and you don't know who you're dealing with, you will get an environmental tester in there. That is not doing an appropriate testing. Maybe they're just relying on air samples only. And remember that air samples, when we're taking an air sample of a room, we're taking a snapshot, basically a picture of what that room is giving us in that area at that moment. So if I am in, the front entrance of my house, I'm in the middle of this, and my son opens the front door and walks in, do you think it's gonna be the same air sample as if the door is closed? Of course not. There's mold spores outside everywhere. They're naturally occurring. As soon as he opens the door and then walks in, he carries with him outdoor air that's going to change that air sample. So it literally is just a snapshot of that area at that time. It is not a reliable way to test for mold in your home as a sole way of testing. And I've had so many clients recently that have come to me and they have said, I'm sick, I don't feel good. We look at their history and their timelines, and they've got a long list, like what I shared with you at the beginning. And they say, but I don't think it's mold because I've had two different inspectors come in and they both say it's fine. And as I start asking the digging questions, I found out that these inspectors either took Air samples only, or maybe just in ERMI, where you're just testing the dust and not actually looking, doing an investigative approach and and using actual tools to investigate where that mold is coming from. Or, and I'm shocked that I've had this so often recently, I will have people tell me that they did have an IAEP or an inspector come in and they did find mold, but they told them it wasn't very much and not enough to worry about. Ugh, guys. If you have microbial growth, if you have mold showing in your home, don't ever for a moment listen to someone that tells you it's not enough to worry about. How much mold do you want in your home? None. And if you're sick, if you've got symptoms, hello, red flag. Get rid of that person as soon as possible. Go get yourself tested then find someone. That knows how to get you well, link arms with them and get yourself better. That's a huge red flag when you have someone tell you, Yeah, there's a little mold, but it's not a big deal. All right, so what do all of these things that we've talked about today? What do all of these things tell you? If you're not feeling well, friend, if you've got symptoms, if you're confused, if you've been told it's in your head, and by the way, mold illness does cause quite a bit in the head. So maybe it is in your head, but where did it come from? That was that was a huge thing for me. I was anxious. I had swinging anxiety, followed by depression attacks out of nowhere. And then they would just leave. And then I would have cognitive decline and word recall issues. And there were so many things that were quote unquote in my head. They absolutely were. But it wasn't because they were just in my head. They started because of mold. And once the mold illness was taken care of and I healed, the things that were in my head went away. I didn't have to mindset them away. They went away on their own because the root cause was gone. But I digress. What are the takeaways for today? Well, first, if you've listened to this episode and you're thinking more and more, okay, maybe it's mold. I'm not really sure where to go from here. I don't really want to spend money on testing because I need a little more proof. I want to invite you to take my free mold symptom assessment. It's on my website. I'll also link it in the show notes below. It's 87 questions long and it looks at your health history, your home history. A very Intricate look at all of your systems across the board and different systems of your body, and then ranks you on a scoring scale of how probable it is that you may have an underlying root condition of mold that is responsible for your chronic illness. And from there, it will give you personalized next steps based on your answers and your specific set of symptoms and history. So I invite you to take that. It's free, it takes about Five, six minutes, and then you'll get it emailed to you. The second thing, if you've done the mold symptom assessment, the free mold symptom assessment, or if you're quite certain that mold is behind it and you don't know where to go, I want to invite you to do my mold testing bundle. And in that mold testing bundle, I will order the blood serum testing for you so that we can check your current exposure and your total body toxin load to see if you're colonized and carrying mold around with you. So that test will be ordered. And then with that, you'll get a 55-minute consult with me once your results come in, where we'll discuss in depth what mycotoxins showed up. if you're in current exposure and what that looks like and what the next steps are for you on your healing journey. So I will link that for you at the bottom of this episode as well in the show notes. And I hope that this episode gave you a little bit of clarity as to what next steps you should be taking. I know how paralyzing it can be when you're stuck in the middle of survival and you've been told so many different things and been drawn to so many different directions, trying to figure out. What the heck is wrong with you? It's frustrating. It's overwhelming. And we eventually become led to believe that the next thing in front of us we can't trust. It's not going to work for us because somehow we're special. We're different. We have this condition or this symptom that nobody else in the world has. And maybe that's true. Maybe that's true. But how will you know if you don't take the next step forward to actually test and get a definitive answer, yes or no? You won't. You won't. And you'll end up staying sick much longer than you have to. And you'll lose more time off your life. And yeah, maybe you take the test and it says you it's not mold. I personally would rather get that time back in my life of checking that off and moving on to the next thing than sitting here twiddling my thumbs, researching Dr. Google all night long for. Let's be honest, friends, months, sometimes years. Some of us have been down this road looking for the right answer. that lost time, it isn't worth it. So I hope that this gives you some concrete answers on what next steps to take. Go get your testing. Go order the testing bundle. If you're sitting there not knowing what to do, go order that testing bundle. All right, friends. Happy healing. I'll see you next time on Mold Free Mom. Thanks for listening to Mold Free Mom. If this episode has helped you make sense of some of your symptoms, diagnoses, or why nothing has worked in the past, please make sure to follow the show and leave a quick review so others who are struggling can find it quicker. If this episode brought someone struggling with unexplained sickness or mold to mind, please share it so they don't have to waste years of their life chasing the wrong answers like I did. Remember, you're not broken. You can get your life back. You just need to be shown how.