animalcule
Member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2019
- Messages
- 361
- Lifelong low energy and fatigue.
- Mood issues. Depression and anxiety.
- Neurological issues. Memory loss. So much difficulty learning anything new that I began to despair over ever doing anything with my life, ever. Feeling like my brain had turned into a brick.
- Intense brain fog, increasingly feeling disconnected and floating through life.
- Mood swings, lack of information retention, constantly at loss for words.
- Inexplicable moments of hyper-fixation and rage.
- Hypersensitivity to noise and light.
- Hyper-reactive to everything.
- Itching eyes, at one point puffy, raw and red. Sometimes pain in my eye. Eyes seem drooping now in way they weren't before.
- Joint pain since I was 19 or so, including puffy, stiff fingers every morning.
- Fertility issues. Missing or irregular cycle. PMDD.
- Nightmares, waking up screaming. Difficulty breathing at night, but not diagnosed with sleep apnea. Waking up suddenly gasping for air. Shock-like feeling when I tried to go to sleep.
- Digestive issues, that I tried to tackle for years with dietary changes (including carnivore) but only seemed to end up more sensitive by the end. Intense bloating. Weight gain that I can't lose.
- Metallic taste in mouth
- Frequent urge to urinate (not UTI)
I grew up in a house that was renovated by my parents, as best they knew how. There was water damage and damage to the siding, and I don't know how well they remediated the internal damage, if at all. There was also a roof leak that was fixed, but water definitely got in (could see spots through ceiling), and nothing was done to address this bc "the attic seems dry now." As a child I was always tired, anxious, and had low tolerance for lights and sounds. As I got older, I went back and forth between that house, and a basement bedroom in another house, which was not well maintained and likely also had some mold. In college I lived in a run down apartment building and my childhood home. Due to many of the issues listed above, I moved back into my childhood home full time after college, as I struggled to function but couldn't figure out why. During this time I took at job in a second-hand store, sifting through musty donations, in a building that leaked every time it rained, with ceiling tiles that had water damage and visible mold, but I never considered it an issue. I knew there was something wrong with me, but I could never get an answer from doctors, and after years of struggling and trying things on my own (like extreme diets, thinking it was a food allergy), I began to give up and accept that maybe I'm just not a very capable person, and all of my other issues are psychological.
Over the pandemic, staying inside even more than before, everything worsened. This somewhat coincided with me going off of the carnivore diet, and every issue I had, I attributed to that. This is also around the time that I started getting vivid, sometimes gruesome nightmares, always terrifying nightmares. My weight ballooned. Breathing difficulties at night worsened. I felt so fatigued, every small task seemed daunting. I couldn't think at all. I began to resign myself to just being this way, chalking it up to character defects or childhood trauma or potentially autism.
But then... I got rid of this old Tempur-pedic mattress I'd been sleeping on... And I started to feel noticeably better, not 100% but noticeable. Maybe it was the memory foam causing me problems, I thought... So I got rid of the new memory foam mattress I bought to replace it, thinking that eventually maybe this one would turn toxic, too. I went to sleep on a mattress in my other bedroom - and a bunch of symptoms came crashing back, along with feeling like I'd caught a cold, and a strong metallic taste in my mouth. What was going on?
And then ... I went to clean out the bedroom closet. And I found a wall covered in mold. And I think, finally, after decades of barely living life, I've found the answer, or at least a clue.
I'm seeing my doctor soon to request a serum mycotoxin test. Hopefully she will consent. If anyone has any info regarding what other tests to ask for, or experience with mold illness, it is appreciated. I will update this post with the results of the blood draw.
- Mood issues. Depression and anxiety.
- Neurological issues. Memory loss. So much difficulty learning anything new that I began to despair over ever doing anything with my life, ever. Feeling like my brain had turned into a brick.
- Intense brain fog, increasingly feeling disconnected and floating through life.
- Mood swings, lack of information retention, constantly at loss for words.
- Inexplicable moments of hyper-fixation and rage.
- Hypersensitivity to noise and light.
- Hyper-reactive to everything.
- Itching eyes, at one point puffy, raw and red. Sometimes pain in my eye. Eyes seem drooping now in way they weren't before.
- Joint pain since I was 19 or so, including puffy, stiff fingers every morning.
- Fertility issues. Missing or irregular cycle. PMDD.
- Nightmares, waking up screaming. Difficulty breathing at night, but not diagnosed with sleep apnea. Waking up suddenly gasping for air. Shock-like feeling when I tried to go to sleep.
- Digestive issues, that I tried to tackle for years with dietary changes (including carnivore) but only seemed to end up more sensitive by the end. Intense bloating. Weight gain that I can't lose.
- Metallic taste in mouth
- Frequent urge to urinate (not UTI)
I grew up in a house that was renovated by my parents, as best they knew how. There was water damage and damage to the siding, and I don't know how well they remediated the internal damage, if at all. There was also a roof leak that was fixed, but water definitely got in (could see spots through ceiling), and nothing was done to address this bc "the attic seems dry now." As a child I was always tired, anxious, and had low tolerance for lights and sounds. As I got older, I went back and forth between that house, and a basement bedroom in another house, which was not well maintained and likely also had some mold. In college I lived in a run down apartment building and my childhood home. Due to many of the issues listed above, I moved back into my childhood home full time after college, as I struggled to function but couldn't figure out why. During this time I took at job in a second-hand store, sifting through musty donations, in a building that leaked every time it rained, with ceiling tiles that had water damage and visible mold, but I never considered it an issue. I knew there was something wrong with me, but I could never get an answer from doctors, and after years of struggling and trying things on my own (like extreme diets, thinking it was a food allergy), I began to give up and accept that maybe I'm just not a very capable person, and all of my other issues are psychological.
Over the pandemic, staying inside even more than before, everything worsened. This somewhat coincided with me going off of the carnivore diet, and every issue I had, I attributed to that. This is also around the time that I started getting vivid, sometimes gruesome nightmares, always terrifying nightmares. My weight ballooned. Breathing difficulties at night worsened. I felt so fatigued, every small task seemed daunting. I couldn't think at all. I began to resign myself to just being this way, chalking it up to character defects or childhood trauma or potentially autism.
But then... I got rid of this old Tempur-pedic mattress I'd been sleeping on... And I started to feel noticeably better, not 100% but noticeable. Maybe it was the memory foam causing me problems, I thought... So I got rid of the new memory foam mattress I bought to replace it, thinking that eventually maybe this one would turn toxic, too. I went to sleep on a mattress in my other bedroom - and a bunch of symptoms came crashing back, along with feeling like I'd caught a cold, and a strong metallic taste in my mouth. What was going on?
And then ... I went to clean out the bedroom closet. And I found a wall covered in mold. And I think, finally, after decades of barely living life, I've found the answer, or at least a clue.
I'm seeing my doctor soon to request a serum mycotoxin test. Hopefully she will consent. If anyone has any info regarding what other tests to ask for, or experience with mold illness, it is appreciated. I will update this post with the results of the blood draw.
