A Hit By Any Other Name

[Guest guest]

I'm posting this as a general response to many posts I've seen on the board over

the past few months. I'm not using is as talking points for a debate, but rather

as an explanation. People post suggestions and experiences here that often run

afoul of what we know about mold so far. I think it's only a matter of

misunderstanding. Granted, what we still DON'T know is vast. But we do know a

little.

What I know comes in part from reading, talking to the pros, and sharing info

with other victims here - and spending the last 10 or 11 years sick from this

poison. I lived and worked 24/7 in contaminated environments beginning in 1990.

By 1996, I was extremely ill. By 1998, we had worked out a cocktail of

psychotropics and painkillers that put me more or less back in commission for a

while. In 2003, I was again working in a contaminated environment, and by early

2004 I was down for the count and no amount of drugs was really helping. That

was when I made the mold connection and finally understood what had been making

me so ill for all those years. It took many months, but I finally tracked down

, which lead to Ritchie Shoemaker's name, and it took another 6

months to get in to see him. That was months ago now, and I am still actively in

treatment.

So. About mold hits. It's true that a mold hit is no fun. And it's also true

that it can take a little time to get one's attention focused on what a mold hit

is and how that affects each of us personally, because we all experience it in

slightly different ways. That's an important skill to acquire! How else can you

practice avoidance, if you can't recognize the presence of the thing you're

supposed to be avoiding? But it's not a difficult skill to build - not for

someone sensitized to mold and carrying a load of mycotoxins! Even a small child

could learn to recognize a mold hit. It usually has a smell, and it always has a

feel. Interestingly, some of the more common symptoms are allergy-like sinus

problems. I get them, too. But I test as NOT being allergic to mold - because it

isn't an allergy. It's true that some people may be allergic to mold, but that

is not why it makes most of us sick. I think the biggest factor here is the

sensitization itself. If you aren't sensitized, you're

still in pretty good shape - and you might not recognize hits easily, which is

fine, because you probably aren't in critical shape anyway. If you ARE

sensitized, you aren't going to need much of an explanation. You'll just know.

Catching a hit is nothing more than using a heightened awareness of these

physical symptoms to get better at removing ourselves from danger. And I'm

defining a hit as a sudden fungal exposure you can notice. Long-term, low-level

exposure is a whole different animal. That's not a hit. That's a continuous

assault. You might notice the hit as you enter the premises, but it's the

long-term exposure that's doing the serious damage. You can get as complex about

this as you want, but the basics are dead easy. In fire prevention, they say

" Stop, drop, and roll " . For mold avoidance, I say, " Scratch and Sniff. " If

you're itchy and smell the mustiness (or smell nothing at all because your

sinuses have just locked up like crazy) - then leave the area. If your nose is

running, your feet should probably do the same. If you're too weak to run,

double that advice and get somebody to carry you out if necessary. Do you need

to panic? Probably not, although, if you are very ill already, time's

awastin'. When I was a good deal more ill than I am now, panic was just part of

the sensation of a hit - and rightly so! At that point, I would crumple and feel

as if I would die if I couldn't escape right away. It wasn't something I didn't

notice, big time! I just didn't know what it meant, is all. Like everyone else,

I questioned my own sanity. The effect is much more moderate now. But more on

that in a sec.

Being able to spot a hit is like knowing when you're hungry. Even little babies

know when they're hungry. They don't know what to call it, and they don't know

what to do to fix it. But they know they don't like it, and they cry and make an

awful lot of noise to let you KNOW they don't like it. The hungrier they are,

the more they don't like it, the louder they get. (In comparison, starving

babies are like people experiencing long-term exposure. Starving bablies only

moan and rock. Slowly poisoned people wilt and sigh a lot - quite literally. You

know 'em both when you see 'em.) So. You know approximately how hungry the baby

is by its reaction. That's an ordinary survival instinct on the baby's part. No

gauges, no metaphysics, no psychologists required. They know what they know,

they know it's important information, and if they were quiet about it, we might

forget to feed them altogether. Mold hits are just exactly like that. However

it feels to you, you won't like it, it'll bug you

like crazy, and it'll make you cry, and that's your survival instincts at work

again.

You learned to eat when you're hungry, you'll learn to leave the area when

you're hit. Dead simple, and you don't need any scientific equipment to figure

it out. The biggest challenge is learning to listen to ourselves. Babies don't

tune themselves out. We do. Babies seldom do as they are told. We usually do.

Babies don't care what you want. They don't look at the clock before they eat or

pee. We, on the other hand, put our own immediate senses on hold to care for

that baby, attend a meeting, pay a bill, watch Jeopardy. We've trained ourselves

to listen to others and not listen to ourselves. So really, it's not even a case

of learning. It's a case of unlearning - and forming the habit of observing our

own reactions to our surroundings and acting accordingly. But that's easy. And

quick. And rather annoying, because you'll automatically stop filtering the

noise of your own head screaming at you to get out of there. That's " fungdar " -

like radar, only noisier. And more useful.

So. The avoidance thing. Why the big deal, if you aren't even allergic? It's the

toxins from the mold. You don't have to be allergic to anything at all to get

poisoned. The problem happens either because 1) you are genetically incapable of

clearing the toxins from your system naturally (my own lot in life), or because

2) you got hit so hard for so long that your system just couldn't keep up with

the assault. The people in the second group may be mighty sick, and they may

need help, but they only got sick due to an extraordinary circumstance.

Avoidance is not a lifetime issue for them. It's the people in the first group

who have to adopt avoidance measures. For them, the toxin levels just continue

to climb. Without medical intervention, they continue to " load " mycotoxins. When

the load hits critical mass, they're toast - and will be forever, until relieved

of the load. Continue to load up the toxins by failing to recognize and avoid

hits, and life continues to spiral downhill until

it's not worth living (been there, done that, didn't have the strength to buy a

tee-shirt, couldn't have read it anyway).

The current literature goes on and on about how people get well when you remove

them from the source of the mold contamination. And some people WILL get well.

Because these are not the people who cannot physically unload the toxins on

their own. In my own experience, there was one woman who was removed from the

contaminated building for 2 weeks. When she didn't get well, " They " decided she

couldn't possibly be sick from the mold! The same logic was applied to me. What

They failed (and still fail) to grasp, is that the toxins load up and continue

to keep some of us ill. The reverse doesn't quite work out the same way. If you

take a person who is only sensitized and re-expose them, they will get sick

again. If you re-expose a person who carries a toxin load, they will simply get

sicker than they were before - but they won't get well merely through avoidance.

So that's the drill. The hit knocks you down. It's the load that keeps you

there. Let me repeat that. The hit knocks you down. The load keeps you there.

That single concept is why I'm writing this. Because what a mold hit can do to

you depends on a number of things - what kind of mold did you get hit with? Was

it producing toxins at the time? How big a load are you already carrying? We

don't know the answers to the first two questions. You can't drag out a petri

dish every time you encounter mold. And worse yet, they all smell pretty much

the same. You don't know if it's stachybotrys or aspergillus or just ordinary

mildew forming on your shower curtain. (Sort of. I can tell mildew, myself. But

I'm not sure I could tell if it was masking other mold smells, so that's fairly

worthless information most of the time.) And the poison doesn't even have a

detectable smell that we know of. So, merely smelling mold or catching a hit

doesn't mean you're in major trouble. But the likelihood,

especially indoors, is that you are in danger - because of the load factor. And

if you're already sick from indoor mytoxins - that's a major big deal indeed.

There is some unknown amount of additional toxins that will be the straw that

broke the camel's back. You don't want to go there. And if you've already been,

you KNOW you don't want to go back!

And this is where things get interesting. Because people will post that they got

a hit but felt fine immediately after getting away from the source of the mold.

Or they will post that they feel fine because they stay away from mold almost

constantly. And in either case, those of us carrying a load of toxins will

likely roll our eyes, because merely getting away from the stuff has zero effect

beyond not adding more toxins to the load. And because we know we're gonna stay

sick even if we leave right this instant. And, as any of us carrying that load

can tell you, the stuff CIRCULATES! And while it's circulating, it's hitting

every body system here and there along the way, interacting with normal

substances in the body that rise and fall in a cycle of their own. (And of

course, if you're an adult female, the cyclical mess just gets better. And you

get an extra layer of fat Sharon mentioned recently, which is right where the

toxins like to hang out. So. Yay.) With all that going on, it's

no wonder that symptoms get better and worser and different by the hour. That

experience is, in itself, a hallmark of this illness. (I'm having a pretty good

hour right now, which is why I'm writing this.)

So what does all that mean in terms of mold hits? Well, it means that the hit

you take today, may very well still be with you in the form of circulating

toxins years from now, if nothing is done to change that. And it also means

that feeling bad or feeling worse for an hour or a day or a month does NOT mean

you haven't been practicing good avoidance techniques lately. It just means you

didn't do very well at it in the past. And THAT confuses a lot of people! I've

had well-meaning friends suggesting to me for months now that perhaps I should

arrange to leave my home - despite the fact that I wasn't poisoned here at home.

They meant well. And we've probably learned a thing or two from the experience

and some of our offline discussions. I've even had a couple of alarmists suggest

to me that it was my own fault I am still ill - either because I don't practice

good enough avoidance measures, or because I have a bad attitude about getting

well or some freakish defect of character that

causes me to enjoy victimhood. I do not suffer fools gladly, and this was no

exception. But I have been feeling really lousy, so I double-checked everything.

According to my bloodwork, I'm not suffering any acute exposure now and the

toxin load is slowly going down. And I had the place checked for water intrusion

by 4 (count 'em) plumbers just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. And, I

trust my fungdar, which is not setting off any internal alarms except in

specific places away from here.

So there we have the real source of the confusion - the hit versus the load. How

are they related, and how can you tell the difference? This is something even

the most hit-savvy amongst us hasn't really been able to address adequately. I

think I have some idea about that now, though there's always more to learn. The

main thing is, a hit is an immediate reaction. You know it by its sudden onset

and the immediate relief you get by escaping the source of the hit. The load is

a whole other thing, and I now firmly believe the effect of any given hit is

heavily moderated by the shape we're in when we get the hit. We don't get that

toxin load instantly, nor do we get rid of it instantly. As long as we carry

that load, we remain ill. That's not a theory, not merely my opinion. We now

have objective proof through Dr. Shoemaker's work that this is indeed how it

works. And if the damage is long term and severe, then even reducing the

mycotoxin load to nothing may not allow our bodies to fully

repair themselves. So, the illness is not an immediate thing, like a hit is.

It's not a short-term thing, like an allergic reaction would be. It's not

something you fix in a week, and you can " decontaminate " your belongings until

you die of chlorine poisoning, but you'll still be sick.

However - if you're observant, you can watch the subtle changes that occur in

the way you experience a hit as the toxin load itself changes. I noticed, as I

was becoming more ill, that the moldy smell at my office building was less and

less tolerable. I didn't know I was being poisoned at that time. I just hurried

away from the irritating smell and sinus effects. As I became more and more ill,

even a slight hit was enough to literally floor me. At that point, my fungdar

was absolutely raging! And, suffering adrenal exhaustion, the natural reaction

was a panic attack - my body telling my brain I was in mortal danger! I had

neither any natural defenses for the poison, nor the energy I required to fight

it off or outrun it. Panic was a perfectly reasonable reaction to my situation.

If a person so much as looked at cross-wise, I was entirely ready to off on them

- because I quite literally couldn't take one more thing. Now, being in

treatment and with the total toxin load beginning to

subside, a hit is again a more subtle affair. It smells bad and I don't like

it, but I can walk away. How do I tell the usual host of roving symptoms from a

new hit? Mmmm. That's the part I've learned to do more by feel. Usually, I can

smell it immediately! But if not, and my symptoms change very abruptly, I look

around myself. Have I just changed locations? What materials are near me? Have I

just changed my clothes? Have I just eaten or used any cleaning or hygienic

products? Is there an air vent nearby? Are there water stains on the walls or

ceiling? Any water leaks? Has someone just come near me who was not there

before? I nothing has changed external to me, then I'm safe in assuming

something has changed internally, and this is not a hit.

So the rundown is this:

A mold hit will knock you down.

The toxin load will keep you there.

The way a hit feels is relative to the load you carry.

The effects of the hit are immediate.

The effects of the hit + the existing load are long-lasting - days, weeks,

months, or even years.

The load is forever, unless you do something to change it.

Non-sensitized people don't experience hits because they don't need to.

Sensitized people experience hits because they DO need to.

Noticing a hit is just as instinctive as noticing you are hungry.

You aren't crazy and they aren't crazy. They merely lack fungdar.

Avoidance alone won't get you well if you carry a heavy toxin load,

but non-avoidance will eventually make you sicker.

Remaining ill or feeling worse doesn't necessarily mean you are exposed again.

Not all sensitized people carry a toxin load.

But all people carrying a mycotoxin load are sensitized.

People may lie to you, you may lie to yourself - but you can always trust your

fungdar.

Serena

www.freeboards.net/index.php?mforum=sickgovernmentb

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Very well put. Thank you.

Sharon

> I'm posting this as a general response to many posts I've seen on

the board over the past few months. I'm not using is as talking

points for a debate, but rather as an explanation. People post

suggestions and experiences here that often run afoul of what we

know about mold so far. I think it's only a matter of

misunderstanding. Granted, what we still DON'T know is vast. But we

do know a little.

>

> What I know comes in part from reading, talking to the pros, and

sharing info with other victims here - and spending the last 10 or

11 years sick from this poison. I lived and worked 24/7 in

contaminated environments beginning in 1990. By 1996, I was

extremely ill. By 1998, we had worked out a cocktail of

psychotropics and painkillers that put me more or less back in

commission for a while. In 2003, I was again working in a

contaminated environment, and by early 2004 I was down for the count

and no amount of drugs was really helping. That was when I made the

mold connection and finally understood what had been making me so

ill for all those years. It took many months, but I finally tracked

down , which lead to Ritchie Shoemaker's name, and it

took another 6 months to get in to see him. That was months ago now,

and I am still actively in treatment.

>

> So. About mold hits. It's true that a mold hit is no fun. And it's

also true that it can take a little time to get one's attention

focused on what a mold hit is and how that affects each of us

personally, because we all experience it in slightly different ways.

That's an important skill to acquire! How else can you practice

avoidance, if you can't recognize the presence of the thing you're

supposed to be avoiding? But it's not a difficult skill to build -

not for someone sensitized to mold and carrying a load of

mycotoxins! Even a small child could learn to recognize a mold hit.

It usually has a smell, and it always has a feel. Interestingly,

some of the more common symptoms are allergy-like sinus problems. I

get them, too. But I test as NOT being allergic to mold - because it

isn't an allergy. It's true that some people may be allergic to

mold, but that is not why it makes most of us sick. I think the

biggest factor here is the sensitization itself. If you aren't

sensitized, you're

> still in pretty good shape - and you might not recognize hits

easily, which is fine, because you probably aren't in critical shape

anyway. If you ARE sensitized, you aren't going to need much of an

explanation. You'll just know.

>

> Catching a hit is nothing more than using a heightened awareness

of these physical symptoms to get better at removing ourselves from

danger. And I'm defining a hit as a sudden fungal exposure you can

notice. Long-term, low-level exposure is a whole different animal.

That's not a hit. That's a continuous assault. You might notice the

hit as you enter the premises, but it's the long-term exposure

that's doing the serious damage. You can get as complex about this

as you want, but the basics are dead easy. In fire prevention, they

say " Stop, drop, and roll " . For mold avoidance, I say, " Scratch and

Sniff. " If you're itchy and smell the mustiness (or smell nothing at

all because your sinuses have just locked up like crazy) - then

leave the area. If your nose is running, your feet should probably

do the same. If you're too weak to run, double that advice and get

somebody to carry you out if necessary. Do you need to panic?

Probably not, although, if you are very ill already, time's

> awastin'. When I was a good deal more ill than I am now, panic

was just part of the sensation of a hit - and rightly so! At that

point, I would crumple and feel as if I would die if I couldn't

escape right away. It wasn't something I didn't notice, big time! I

just didn't know what it meant, is all. Like everyone else, I

questioned my own sanity. The effect is much more moderate now. But

more on that in a sec.

>

> Being able to spot a hit is like knowing when you're hungry. Even

little babies know when they're hungry. They don't know what to call

it, and they don't know what to do to fix it. But they know they

don't like it, and they cry and make an awful lot of noise to let

you KNOW they don't like it. The hungrier they are, the more they

don't like it, the louder they get. (In comparison, starving babies

are like people experiencing long-term exposure. Starving bablies

only moan and rock. Slowly poisoned people wilt and sigh a lot -

quite literally. You know 'em both when you see 'em.) So. You know

approximately how hungry the baby is by its reaction. That's an

ordinary survival instinct on the baby's part. No gauges, no

metaphysics, no psychologists required. They know what they know,

they know it's important information, and if they were quiet about

it, we might forget to feed them altogether. Mold hits are just

exactly like that. However it feels to you, you won't like it, it'll

bug you

> like crazy, and it'll make you cry, and that's your survival

instincts at work again.

>

> You learned to eat when you're hungry, you'll learn to leave the

area when you're hit. Dead simple, and you don't need any scientific

equipment to figure it out. The biggest challenge is learning to

listen to ourselves. Babies don't tune themselves out. We do. Babies

seldom do as they are told. We usually do. Babies don't care what

you want. They don't look at the clock before they eat or pee. We,

on the other hand, put our own immediate senses on hold to care for

that baby, attend a meeting, pay a bill, watch Jeopardy. We've

trained ourselves to listen to others and not listen to ourselves.

So really, it's not even a case of learning. It's a case of

unlearning - and forming the habit of observing our own reactions to

our surroundings and acting accordingly. But that's easy. And quick.

And rather annoying, because you'll automatically stop filtering the

noise of your own head screaming at you to get out of there.

That's " fungdar " - like radar, only noisier. And more useful.

>

>

> So. The avoidance thing. Why the big deal, if you aren't even

allergic? It's the toxins from the mold. You don't have to be

allergic to anything at all to get poisoned. The problem happens

either because 1) you are genetically incapable of clearing the

toxins from your system naturally (my own lot in life), or because

2) you got hit so hard for so long that your system just couldn't

keep up with the assault. The people in the second group may be

mighty sick, and they may need help, but they only got sick due to

an extraordinary circumstance. Avoidance is not a lifetime issue for

them. It's the people in the first group who have to adopt

avoidance measures. For them, the toxin levels just continue to

climb. Without medical intervention, they continue to " load "

mycotoxins. When the load hits critical mass, they're toast - and

will be forever, until relieved of the load. Continue to load up the

toxins by failing to recognize and avoid hits, and life continues to

spiral downhill until

> it's not worth living (been there, done that, didn't have the

strength to buy a tee-shirt, couldn't have read it anyway).

>

> The current literature goes on and on about how people get well

when you remove them from the source of the mold contamination. And

some people WILL get well. Because these are not the people who

cannot physically unload the toxins on their own. In my own

experience, there was one woman who was removed from the

contaminated building for 2 weeks. When she didn't get well, " They "

decided she couldn't possibly be sick from the mold! The same logic

was applied to me. What They failed (and still fail) to grasp, is

that the toxins load up and continue to keep some of us ill. The

reverse doesn't quite work out the same way. If you take a person

who is only sensitized and re-expose them, they will get sick again.

If you re-expose a person who carries a toxin load, they will simply

get sicker than they were before - but they won't get well merely

through avoidance.

>

> So that's the drill. The hit knocks you down. It's the load that

keeps you there. Let me repeat that. The hit knocks you down. The

load keeps you there. That single concept is why I'm writing this.

Because what a mold hit can do to you depends on a number of things -

what kind of mold did you get hit with? Was it producing toxins at

the time? How big a load are you already carrying? We don't know the

answers to the first two questions. You can't drag out a petri dish

every time you encounter mold. And worse yet, they all smell pretty

much the same. You don't know if it's stachybotrys or aspergillus or

just ordinary mildew forming on your shower curtain. (Sort of. I can

tell mildew, myself. But I'm not sure I could tell if it was masking

other mold smells, so that's fairly worthless information most of

the time.) And the poison doesn't even have a detectable smell that

we know of. So, merely smelling mold or catching a hit doesn't mean

you're in major trouble. But the likelihood,

> especially indoors, is that you are in danger - because of the

load factor. And if you're already sick from indoor mytoxins -

that's a major big deal indeed. There is some unknown amount of

additional toxins that will be the straw that broke the camel's

back. You don't want to go there. And if you've already been, you

KNOW you don't want to go back!

>

> And this is where things get interesting. Because people will post

that they got a hit but felt fine immediately after getting away

from the source of the mold. Or they will post that they feel fine

because they stay away from mold almost constantly. And in either

case, those of us carrying a load of toxins will likely roll our

eyes, because merely getting away from the stuff has zero effect

beyond not adding more toxins to the load. And because we know we're

gonna stay sick even if we leave right this instant. And, as any of

us carrying that load can tell you, the stuff CIRCULATES! And while

it's circulating, it's hitting every body system here and there

along the way, interacting with normal substances in the body that

rise and fall in a cycle of their own. (And of course, if you're an

adult female, the cyclical mess just gets better. And you get an

extra layer of fat Sharon mentioned recently, which is right where

the toxins like to hang out. So. Yay.) With all that going on, it's

> no wonder that symptoms get better and worser and different by

the hour. That experience is, in itself, a hallmark of this illness.

(I'm having a pretty good hour right now, which is why I'm writing

this.)

>

> So what does all that mean in terms of mold hits? Well, it means

that the hit you take today, may very well still be with you in the

form of circulating toxins years from now, if nothing is done to

change that. And it also means that feeling bad or feeling worse

for an hour or a day or a month does NOT mean you haven't been

practicing good avoidance techniques lately. It just means you

didn't do very well at it in the past. And THAT confuses a lot of

people! I've had well-meaning friends suggesting to me for months

now that perhaps I should arrange to leave my home - despite the

fact that I wasn't poisoned here at home. They meant well. And

we've probably learned a thing or two from the experience and some

of our offline discussions. I've even had a couple of alarmists

suggest to me that it was my own fault I am still ill - either

because I don't practice good enough avoidance measures, or because

I have a bad attitude about getting well or some freakish defect of

character that

> causes me to enjoy victimhood. I do not suffer fools gladly, and

this was no exception. But I have been feeling really lousy, so I

double-checked everything. According to my bloodwork, I'm not

suffering any acute exposure now and the toxin load is slowly going

down. And I had the place checked for water intrusion by 4

(count 'em) plumbers just to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

And, I trust my fungdar, which is not setting off any internal

alarms except in specific places away from here.

>

> So there we have the real source of the confusion - the hit versus

the load. How are they related, and how can you tell the difference?

This is something even the most hit-savvy amongst us hasn't really

been able to address adequately. I think I have some idea about that

now, though there's always more to learn. The main thing is, a hit

is an immediate reaction. You know it by its sudden onset and the

immediate relief you get by escaping the source of the hit. The load

is a whole other thing, and I now firmly believe the effect of any

given hit is heavily moderated by the shape we're in when we get the

hit. We don't get that toxin load instantly, nor do we get rid of it

instantly. As long as we carry that load, we remain ill. That's not

a theory, not merely my opinion. We now have objective proof through

Dr. Shoemaker's work that this is indeed how it works. And if the

damage is long term and severe, then even reducing the mycotoxin

load to nothing may not allow our bodies to fully

> repair themselves. So, the illness is not an immediate thing,

like a hit is. It's not a short-term thing, like an allergic

reaction would be. It's not something you fix in a week, and you

can " decontaminate " your belongings until you die of chlorine

poisoning, but you'll still be sick.

>

> However - if you're observant, you can watch the subtle changes

that occur in the way you experience a hit as the toxin load itself

changes. I noticed, as I was becoming more ill, that the moldy smell

at my office building was less and less tolerable. I didn't know I

was being poisoned at that time. I just hurried away from the

irritating smell and sinus effects. As I became more and more ill,

even a slight hit was enough to literally floor me. At that point,

my fungdar was absolutely raging! And, suffering adrenal exhaustion,

the natural reaction was a panic attack - my body telling my brain I

was in mortal danger! I had neither any natural defenses for the

poison, nor the energy I required to fight it off or outrun it.

Panic was a perfectly reasonable reaction to my situation. If a

person so much as looked at cross-wise, I was entirely ready to off

on them - because I quite literally couldn't take one more thing.

Now, being in treatment and with the total toxin load beginning to

> subside, a hit is again a more subtle affair. It smells bad and I

don't like it, but I can walk away. How do I tell the usual host of

roving symptoms from a new hit? Mmmm. That's the part I've learned

to do more by feel. Usually, I can smell it immediately! But if not,

and my symptoms change very abruptly, I look around myself. Have I

just changed locations? What materials are near me? Have I just

changed my clothes? Have I just eaten or used any cleaning or

hygienic products? Is there an air vent nearby? Are there water

stains on the walls or ceiling? Any water leaks? Has someone just

come near me who was not there before? I nothing has changed

external to me, then I'm safe in assuming something has changed

internally, and this is not a hit.

>

> So the rundown is this:

>

> A mold hit will knock you down.

> The toxin load will keep you there.

> The way a hit feels is relative to the load you carry.

>

> The effects of the hit are immediate.

> The effects of the hit + the existing load are long-lasting -

days, weeks, months, or even years.

> The load is forever, unless you do something to change it.

>

> Non-sensitized people don't experience hits because they don't

need to.

> Sensitized people experience hits because they DO need to.

> Noticing a hit is just as instinctive as noticing you are hungry.

>

> You aren't crazy and they aren't crazy. They merely lack fungdar.

>

>

> Avoidance alone won't get you well if you carry a heavy toxin

load,

> but non-avoidance will eventually make you sicker.

> Remaining ill or feeling worse doesn't necessarily mean you are

exposed again.

>

> Not all sensitized people carry a toxin load.

> But all people carrying a mycotoxin load are sensitized.

>

> People may lie to you, you may lie to yourself - but you can

always trust your fungdar.

>

>

>

> Serena

> www.freeboards.net/index.php?mforum=sickgovernmentb

>

> __________________________________________________

>

[Guest guest]

SERENA EDWARDS <pushcrash@...> wrote:

, but I finally tracked down , which lead to Ritchie Shoemaker's

name, and it took another 6 months to get in to see him. That was months ago

now, and I am still actively in treatment.

bob: I am wondering if I were to go to land, if seeing Dr Shoemaker could

help me out of this crisis I am in or should I wait until I think I can make it

there? I have had CFS for 30 years and I am not sure of the mold connection. I

moved into this trailer my mother left me in 2000 and I am sure the mold was

growing underneath my inside a/c and blowing mold out but it took me several

years of living here before I started feeling ill. since CFS can be flu-like

symptoms, I thought at first that it was CFS but then I happen to notice that

after a winter in Mexico where I felt okay, I started becoming ill after

returning here. I bought an ozone machine because I really do not know where to

turn. Like you said, I felt like I was dying but I didn't have the energy or

brainpower to know what to do. It has been over 100 degrees everyday since I

really became ill last Saturday. I cannot afford $80 a night hotel anymore. I

have packed my car so if I crash again, I guess I will take off for

Big Bend area of Texas where it is cool enough to stay in a tent. I wouldn't

have lasted a day in New Orleans. I get depressed if I watch the coverage.

I recently asked if he had the money could he create a " safe " place for

moldies and he said he could. I would go there in a minute but his plan of

avoidance is just beyond my energy level right now. Maybe if I get my brain

back, I can figure out how to do it. too bad we all cannot create a commune for

moldies.

Bob

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

> So there we have the real source of the confusion - the hit versus

the load. How are they related, and how can you tell the difference?

This is something even the most hit-savvy amongst us hasn't really

been able to address adequately. <

That's why I tell people to go to a pristine place like the desert

and establish a baseline for 'as good as it gets'.

How sick you remain is " the load " .

The relative shift in symptoms from a hit is what differentiates

the degree of exacerbation by exposures from those symptoms caused

by the recirculating burden of toxins.

And while the smuts and yeasts from moldy places often give you

warning by having a smell, I find that odor is a very unreliable

indicator for the most toxic places.

Trichothecenes have no smell.

As far a never feeling better until medical intervention, one

reason Dr Shoemaker was interested in my story is that I took

avoidance to an unprecedented level - and he found it notable that

damping down the inflammatory response plus deliberately inducing an

EPO release on a consistent basis appears to " uncouple "

the " electron glue " binding the neurotoxins to the receptors.

He tested the concept himself by " going to the Erythropoietin

heights " and established a concurrency in his own response.

Dr Shoemaker wasn't around yet to help me out of this mess when I

proposed this concept to Dr .

I would have been glad for any medical help, but I couldn't get it

at the time.

-

[Guest guest]

> I recently asked if he had the money could he create a " safe "

place for moldies and he said he could. I would go there in a minute

but his plan of avoidance is just beyond my energy level right now.

Maybe if I get my brain back, I can figure out how to do it. too bad

we all cannot create a commune for moldies.

>

> Bob

Bob, like Serena says, it's pretty instinctive.

The greatest obstacle is that people have spent their lives training

themselves to mentally overpower these symptoms instead of treating

them as relevant information regarding immunological status.

I guess my concerted efforts started in a tent. After years of

being kicked around I made the connection that I wasn't being kicked

nearly as hard as usual - while out camping.

So I really do recommend going " extreme " for at least a while so a

moldie can feel the difference and get an idea of what they are

shooting for.

-

(Please don't get us started on ozone again. We have to go through

this all over again every time a newbie comes on board. Bad stuff.)

[Guest guest]

Hi Bob -

There actually is a group creating a community for people with CFS in South

Carolina. But it's expensive, and they don't know a thing about mold, though

they are aware of MCS to some degree. I was in touch with the developers, but

dropped contact when I realized this wasn't going to be the sort of place I had

in mind. They acted rather surprised when asked detailed questions about

building materials and ventilation systems. I think they had in mind a socially

supportive community, and I was thinking more about the physical facility

itself.

I understand what you mean about New Orleans. I wouldn't make there, either. I

know the area well, and would not want to be there, even without the flooding.

I'm just hoping the cousins and the family boneyard got through ok. Several

generations of us are (or were) lying there. It's all in one of the hardest hit

areas. But I kid you not - that place is a mold haven, even when it's dry - and

it's NEVER dry. I was looking at a picture of a place I know well, and had a

very clear memory of it, even down to the smell. And I always noticed that smell

- though no one else seemed to care about it. But now I know what that smell is,

and it sure ain't gumbo, y'all! For all I can tell at this point, I may actually

have started acquiring this mycotoxin load as a child. I know I had fungdar even

back then, anyway. Like I said - I just didn't know what it was or what it

meant.

You're gonna have to trust your instincts here, Bob. If you know it was your

place that made you sick, and you know it's not " clean " and you can't fix it,

then you gotta do what you gotta do and go elsewhere.

I know you're not stupid - but brain fog is brain fog, so forgive if I'm too

basic and direct here:

I know it's not always possible to just jump in the car and go anywhere - let

alone land. But if you can possibly pull it off, then go. If you can't pass

the VCS test and questionnaire online, you have enough suspicion to warrant

going at the first possible moment. And if you can't get all the way to

land, there's also Schaller in FL (sometimes PA - I don't know where

he is right now) or Kolb in Atlanta. Late summer airfares are often good,

and you only need to be in town for a day. Shoemaker is really far from an

airport - but Kolb is very near public transportation that runs straight from

the airport itself. (I don't know about Schaller's logistics.)

If you can't do that, then just get to the closest, safest space you can

recogonize until you feel a bit stronger. This thing has its cycles and waves.

You can make a break for it when you hit a " good " run of hours or days.

And if you can't do that, call in the mounties, because you're too sick to do

anything else (Salvation Army, Lutheran Social Services, whoever is in your

area).

If you're too sick to do that much, just dial 911 and go to the emergency room.

They probably won't " get it " , but it is entirely possible to be too sick and

brain fogged to take care of your basic needs - and they can at least put you to

bed and feed you. Sadly, we don't have anyplace else for people who are that

sick but not quite dying. (And public hospitals have social workers who can hook

you up with basic care for a while.)

And get a copy of " Mold Warriors " and begin educating yourself. If you're a

Moldie, you're going be living with this the rest of life. You need to know as

much about it as you can stand.

Good luck to you!

Serena

www.freeboards.net/index.php?mforum=sickgovernmentb

__________________________________________________