It was 3:27am. Just 10 minutes after I looked last time.

My joints had been on fire all night. I couldn’t get comfortable. I felt both hot and cold. 

I also felt queasy and unsettled. I’d been hobbling back and forth to the bathroom almost all night.

And I was so uncomfortable from yet another vaginal yeast infection. I’d been getting them every few weeks.

And I’d recently started experiencing another mystery sensation.

I’d had lightning bolt “flashing” type pain before. And even though it kind of scared me, I’d chalked it up to yet another weird thing going wrong with my body. Just add it to the list of symptoms!

But then things got weirder. 

I’d started to feel like my body was vibrating on the inside. When this first happened, I thought we were having a low-level earthquake.

I kept asking my husband – is the room shaking? He’d look at me like I was crazy, trying to understand why I was asking him this.

It felt like everything in my body was falling apart.

This had been going on for 4 miserable, grueling years. And I still wasn’t sure how I’d ever find a way out of it.

My medical team had figured out that I had Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia. And I knew I had some gut major issues – I later learned I had both SIBO-D and Candida.

But even the most experienced doctors didn’t know why my body wasn’t responding to protocols that typically worked. No one understood what I was dealing with back then.

And they certainly didn’t know what to say when I mentioned the internal vibration I’d been feeling or the lightning bolt pains.

This was usually the point in the conversation where the doctor would say that I should see a psychiatrist.

Some doctors didn’t even have that suggestion. They just threw up their hands in helplessness.

The best doctors tried really hard to help me. Even now, looking back, I’m very appreciative they didn’t dismiss me.

But nothing was working.

I just ended up with literally hundreds of supplements I couldn’t tolerate in my supplement “graveyard.” I couldn’t bear to throw any of it away. Each failed bottle felt like throwing money down the toilet.

And I was still so sick…unable to sleep, unable to tolerate supplements, unable to fight off Lyme and coinfections.

I rolled over, sighed, and pulled a pillow over my eyes.

Back then, I thought…If I could just get rid of the Lyme and coinfections, I’d be healthy again. I kept hanging on to that glimmer of hope.

But I watched that hope flicker as protocol after protocol for the Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia failed.

Doxycycline for the Lyme made me nauseous and gave me worse diarrhea. Amoxicillin was even worse – I only made it 1 day on it. And these made my gut 10x worse.

We next turned to herbals. But wormwood and walnut made me so sick that I wanted to die.

But each time we tried to kill things off, I got more sensitive to supplements.

And on top of that, I tried so much for my gut. I tried colostrum, IgG, oregano, thyme, cinnamon, allicin, and more. But they all caused major nausea and burning in my stomach and intestines.

If you’re anything like I was, you’re probably sick and tired of feeling like you’re lost in the woods without any trail to guide you back out.

And if you are sensitive, like most of us with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, your health care practitioners aren’t sure what to do either.

I remember what it was like to be there myself. And I know how scary and alone I felt.

That’s why I share my story. I want you to know you aren’t alone. And that’s why I work so hard to share what I’ve learned with you. 

I hope to give you some next steps that get you breakthroughs instead of breakdowns.

What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I get rid of my Lyme and SIBO like other people could?

I thought I’d drilled to my deepest root causes.

But there was an even deeper root cause I didn’t know about. And it was destroying my body.

When I finally figured out what it was and how to deal with it, I started to see change.

I learned that Mold Toxicity and Mold Colonization were keeping me from getting rid of all these infections and overgrowths in my body.

Are you like I was? Have you had trouble fighting off any one of these or a combo of them?
Lyme (or co-infections)
SIBO
Candida
EBV (Epstein Barr Virus)

Have you been around and around struggling with protocols that make you feel even sicker?

If so, you might be dealing with Mold Toxicity.

I finally got rid of all these nasty infections and got my health back. I went on to build my Mast Cell 360 practice. I’ve worked with over 600 clients who have felt stuck, lost, and like they’d never get well.

What made the big difference for me and these clients? It was removing the major roadblocks: mold toxins and mold colonization.

If you want to know how to get rid of chronic, stubborn Lyme, SIBO, Candia, or EBV, you’ll first need to know how mold wreaks havoc on your immune system.

How Mold Toxins Trash Your Immune System – What to know when you have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or Histamine Intolerance

It’s important you know that this blog post is for informational and educational purposes. It’s not meant to treat any health condition or to be prescriptive for anyone. Always be sure to work with your healthcare practitioner.

To understand how mold toxicity can trash your immune balance, you’ll first want to understand a little about the immune system works.

There are two branches of your immune system that you should know about – Th1 and Th2.

These branches are kind of like two different types of weapons your body uses to fight off invaders. And your body uses a different weapon for bacteria, viruses, and mold than for parasites.

Here’s a very simplified breakdown of these 2 immune weapons in your body:

• Your Th1 system fights off infections that infect inside the cells, including bacteria, viruses, candida, and molds.
• Your Th2 system mainly fights off infections that infect outside the cells, such as parasites. Your mast cells are some of your major Th2 cells.

Now, normally these should be in balance. When they are in balance, that means your Th1 system can fight off bacteria, viruses, and molds as needed.

And that also means that your Th2 system, including your mast cells, aren’t shooting histamine and other inflammation bullets everywhere.

People with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome tend to have Th2 dominance.

And that’s where mold toxins can be a factor. Mold toxins tend to weaken Th1 and turn Th2 waaaay up.

So, people with Mold Toxicity tend to have trouble fighting off bacterial, viral, and fungal infections. 

And because mold is one of the nastiest Th2 amplifiers, Mast Cell Activation usually develops.

This means a lot more histamine release and mast cell activation. Plus, you can start to experience reactions to all kinds of things.

And what’s worse…

This type of response can actually weaken the immune system overall.

This is because an imbalance of Th1/Th2 uses up a lot of your body’s resources. That means your immune system eventually doesn’t have much left to fight off other things like Lyme, bacteria, viruses, or Candida.

I see this show up in 2 ways. Either:

• People catch everything and get sick all the time, or
• They say they never catch a cold (which means their immune systems have stopped fighting)

See, your immune system is what causes the sore throat, achiness, fever, and runny nose when you get sick.

Never catching a cold in these cases means the immune system can’t fight anymore. And the pathogens just build up in the body.

Mold toxicity hits on a lot more in the body than just the Th1 and Th2 systems though.

In addition to weakening your immune system, mold toxins:

• Mess up the nervous system, causing all kinds of sensitivities. This can make it hard to take needed supplements and medications.
• Mess up body’s ability to break things down, like the antimicrobials needed to kill infections like Lyme, coinfections, and EBV.
• Mess up the immune system in the gut — a major protector for your body from SIBO and Candida.

Mold toxicity can really wreck your immune system, your nervous system, and make you very sensitive to antimicrobials. 

So, when Mold Toxins are trashing everything…your odds of killing off Lyme, SIBO, Candida, EBV, or other chronic infections can be very low.

Lyme, SIBO, Candida, and EBV in Mold Toxicity – Why won’t they go away? What do you do to get rid of them?

Did you know many people get bitten by ticks but don’t get Lyme? In fact, thousands of people test positive for Lyme yearly but never develop Lyme Disease.

Related Post: Non Toxic Tick Prevention for Sensitive People

Many people have SIBO and get better from it.

But some people develop severe and debilitating chronic Lyme they can’t get rid of.  

Some people go through numerous rounds of antibiotics and tons of herbal supplements only for SIBO to come right back again. 

Why is this?

Let’s look at a story that recently got attention in the news.

In May of 2021, former NFL player, Ryan Sutter, talked about having horrible fatigue and being really sick. 

He already knew he had Lyme and EBV.

But the big news being reported was that he’d finally found out that mold toxins had weakened his immune system. And that was keeping his body from fighting off Lyme and EBV.

See, in these cases, mold is the bigger problem. When you have mold, your body can’t get rid of bacteria, viruses, or parasites. This includes Lyme, SIBO, Candida, and EBV.

And in my experience with over 600 clients, many people who are chronically unwell with these things and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome have Mold Toxicity as their #1 underlying Root Trigger. 

How does mold affect us so badly?

Mold can wreak havoc on your body in 2 major ways:

1. Mold toxins (these are called mycotoxins) building up in your body
2. Mold colonization (where mold grows in your body)

You can have just mold toxins. Or you can have mold colonization and mold toxins.

About 30% of people with Mold Toxicity just have the mold toxins. But about 70% have mold toxins and mold growing inside them, too.

When mold grows inside you, it keeps making more mold toxins on top of the ones from environmental mold.

And when you have mold growing in you, it acts very differently than bacteria or viruses.

When bacteria or viruses grows in us, they want to reproduce to be able to keep living. To do that, bacteria and viruses may weaken us. But they actually want to keep our bodies alive.

But mold is different, which is what makes it worse. Mold needs dead tissue to survive…

Mold survives by decaying things. It helps to break down things that have died. This is called decomposition.

Think about the last time you left some fruit sitting around too long. It likely got mold growing on it – remember how it was decaying?

When mold starts growing in us, it has to kill our tissues on a microscopic level to feed on our nutrients. That’s how it stays alive.

It makes digesting enzymes (like proteases and hydrolases) that break our tissue down… just like our digestion breaks down food.

This means it’s trying to decompose us. 

We don’t want that happening inside us!

You can imagine what this does to the immune system.

If you don’t get rid of the mold in your body, your body starts to break down and doesn’t work so well anymore.

The immune system is flattened.

And that’s why the Lyme, SIBO, Candida, EBV and all kinds of other things keep coming back.

But here’s what I want you to know.

Getting rid of mold is a major breakthrough for the vast number of people who are stuck and getting nowhere.

Let’s look at this next.

How can getting rid of mold help support your body to get rid of Lyme, SIBO, and Candida?

Lyme, SIBO, Candida, and EBV are opportunistic infections. They become chronic if your immune system can’t fight them off.

The good news is that your body is resilient. Once the mold toxins are removed, your immune system can bounce back in a big way.

This means the Th1 and Th2 immune branches go back to being balanced. And that means you can kill off thinks like colds, flus, Lyme and EBV again. 

And your mast cells can relax and quit shooting at everything.

The gut immune system gets much better too, which means Candida and SIBO can finally be knocked out for good.

With many of my clients, their immune system becomes strong enough to fight off these chronic infections.

But, even in instances where the Lyme, SIBO, or Candida don’t go away on their own, people are usually able to tolerate the protocols to get rid of these things after mold is gone.

And these killing protocols can finally work!

Detoxing the mold is a big breakthrough for people who are utterly stuck.

I’d recommend you not try to figure it out yourself though. It’s honestly too confusing.

And there are still far too few doctors who really get this.

If have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or sensitivities, detoxing mold the wrong way can make you very sick.

I know because I made so many detox mistakes over the years. They were so painful and scary.

And you can lose a lot of time if you don’t do things in the right order. And it’s important to use the supplements that are actually shown in the research to work.

It took me years and tens of thousands of dollars to get this right.

I spent years reading thousands of journal articles. I studied with some of the top people in world. And I got a doctorate in Naturopathy.

All of this led to me finally figuring it out.

And it’s been the key to success in 600 of my very sensitive clients who were stuck. 

But I know exactly how hard this can be to figure out. 

That’s why I’ve laid it all out in an easy to follow, step-by-step plan in my MC360™ Precision Mold Master Class. It takes you from A-Z and explains how to do this in simple steps.

You can learn more here:

References on Lyme, SIBO, Candida, and Mold Toxicity – for those Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or Histamine Intolerance

d’Enfert, C., et. Al. (2021). The impact of the Fungus-Host-Microbiota interplay upon Candida albicans infections: current knowledge and new perspectives. FEMS microbiology reviews, 45(3), fuaa060. https://doi.org/10.1093/femsre/fuaa060

Forsgren, S., Nathan, N., Anderson, W. (2014) Mold and Mycotoxins: Often Overlooked Factors in Chronic Lyme Disease. Townsend Letter.

Gonkowski, S., Gajęcka, M., & Makowska, K. (2020). Mycotoxins and the Enteric Nervous System. Toxins, 12(7).
https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins12070461

Johannessen, L. N., Nilsen, A. M., & Løvik, M. (2005). The mycotoxins citrinin and gliotoxin differentially affect production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines tumour necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-6, and the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10. Clinical and experimental allergy: journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 35(6), 782–789. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2222.2005.02249.x

Kritas, S. K., Gallenga, C. E., D Ovidio, C., Ronconi, G., Caraffa, A. l., Toniato, E., Lauritano, D., & Conti, P. (2018). Impact of mold on mast cell-cytokine immune response. Journal of biological regulators and homeostatic agents, 32(4), 763–768.

Liew, W.-P.-P., & Mohd-Redzwan, S. (2018). Mycotoxin: Its Impact on Gut Health and Microbiota. Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, 8, 60. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2018.00060

Mazziotta, J. (2021, May 25). Ryan Sutter Reveals He Has Lyme Disease Worsened by Mold: “My Immune System Was Weakened.” Yahoo. Accessed September 8, 2021. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ryan-sutter-reveals-lyme-disease-162740593.html

Nathan, N. (2018). Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness. Las Vegas: Victory Belt Publishing.

Richardson, J. P., & Moyes, D. L. (2015). Adaptive immune responses to Candida albicans infection. Virulence, 6(4), 327–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/21505594.2015.1004977

Rosenblum Lichtenstein, J. H., Hsu, Y.-H., Gavin, I. M., Donaghey, T. C., Molina, R. M., Thompson, K. J., Chi, C.-L., Gillis, B. S., & Brain, J. D. (2015). Environmental mold and mycotoxin exposures elicit specific cytokine and chemokine responses. PloS One, 10(5), e0126926.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126926

Sam, Q. H., Chang, M. W., & Chai, L. Y. A. (2017). The Fungal Mycobiome and Its Interaction with Gut Bacteria in the Host. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms18020330

van de Veerdonk, F. L., & Netea, M. G. (2010). T-cell Subsets and Antifungal Host Defenses. Current fungal infection reports, 4(4), 238–243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12281-010-0034-6

van Tilburg Bernardes, E., Pettersen, V. K., Gutierrez, M. W., Laforest-Lapointe, I., Jendzjowsky, N. G., Cavin, J.-B., Vicentini, F. A., Keenan, C. M., Ramay, H. R., Samara, J., MacNaughton, W. K., Wilson, R. J. A., Kelly, M. M., McCoy, K. D., Sharkey, K. A., & Arrieta, M.-C. (2020). Intestinal fungi are causally implicated in microbiome assembly and immune development in mice. Nature Communications, 11(1), 2577. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16431-1