So it turns out the Boy Wonder is allergic to roll-on deodorant. We discovered this earlier this week because the hubs suggested he was starting to smell rather like a then-13-year-old certain older brother of mine. (I only have one brother. You do the math.) We both agreed 8 was a bit young to start having serious B.O. issues, but shrugged and decided to buy him something easy to apply and unscented.
And... he's got hives. Under his arms. Which I can tell you from my personal experience with various post-mold hives experiences can't be fun. Any time I've wound up with them in a crease (like the insides of my elbows or knees) it's been an extra layer of misery.
I can't prove, of course, that these new allergies he and I have been developing over time are related to mold. But who on earth is allergic to unscented deodorant? I mean... it's already unscented.
I've noticed myself I'm a lot more sensitive to smells than I used to be - like painting when they remodeled at work, or when we had to have some new tires put on the van and one of the workers got axle grease inside on the floor mat - my head hurts even thinking about the smell.
Is this our new life now? Or eventually, do you adjust and stop having to worry about every new chemical encounter in the universe?
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Marvin K. Fatigue, won't you please go now?
I've about had it with the fatigue.
I can function, in the sense that I can go to work and I can pick up my son from school. But I'm not functional, in the sense that really minor tasks completely exhaust me.
Case in point: Sunday, I went to church and did music team like I usually do. I came home, made a grocery list, and went to Wal-Mart, fully intending to then come home and make dinner for the Boy Wonder and the Hubs.
Grocery list? Check. Wal-Mart? Check.
And that's as far as I got. I pretty much just collapsed on the couch the second I got the groceries put away, and was useless for the rest of the evening, until finally I gave up and just dragged myself to bed.
It's better than it was, believe it or not. There were times when we lived in the moldy apartment that I couldn't have gone to church or the grocery store to begin with. And I'm not this tired *all* the time. But I yearn for a time when I'm not so easily wiped out.
I can function, in the sense that I can go to work and I can pick up my son from school. But I'm not functional, in the sense that really minor tasks completely exhaust me.
Case in point: Sunday, I went to church and did music team like I usually do. I came home, made a grocery list, and went to Wal-Mart, fully intending to then come home and make dinner for the Boy Wonder and the Hubs.
Grocery list? Check. Wal-Mart? Check.
And that's as far as I got. I pretty much just collapsed on the couch the second I got the groceries put away, and was useless for the rest of the evening, until finally I gave up and just dragged myself to bed.
It's better than it was, believe it or not. There were times when we lived in the moldy apartment that I couldn't have gone to church or the grocery store to begin with. And I'm not this tired *all* the time. But I yearn for a time when I'm not so easily wiped out.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
RSV and mold
So the Boy Wonder has been sick for what feels like for-flippin-ever - it hasn't really been that long, but definitely longer than your old-fashioned, run-of-the-mill cold. Friday, we decided it probably wasn't "just a cold" and went in to see our family doctor, who diagnosed him with Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV.
RSV is actually really common - most of us have been exposed by the time we're toddlers, and while it can be REALLY serious for infants, older children and adults get RSV and think they've just got a bad cold.
Mold, of course, makes every little illness the Boy Wonder and I get a completely different animal than it used to be. There is no normal or usual or "most people" for us anymore.
Every time either of us gets sick now, we have this hacking asthmatic cough that's tough to get rid of - and RSV tends to cause a hacking cough anyway.
So here's my dilemma as the mom of a mold-sensitive eight-year-old: how do I know the difference between "we were exposed to mold and we're just going to have a cough when we're sick" and "holy crap that's the worst cough in the universe, you need to get that kid to the ER, stat!"?
Google is a great resource, I've found, but when it comes to mold consequences, and boy are we living with them, it's been really tough for me to find stuff that applies to us. What affects one person who's been exposed doesn't necessarily define what will affect another. Google "mold and RSV," and you'll come up with a lot of advice about keeping your humidifier clean so it doesn't grow mold. Nothing about the effects of RSV on children who've been exposed to mold. Do I need to be thinking about breathing treatments for him, or can we just ride it out together on the couch? I have no idea. Right now, as with everything post-exposure, I'm just playing this by ear.
RSV is actually really common - most of us have been exposed by the time we're toddlers, and while it can be REALLY serious for infants, older children and adults get RSV and think they've just got a bad cold.
Mold, of course, makes every little illness the Boy Wonder and I get a completely different animal than it used to be. There is no normal or usual or "most people" for us anymore.
Every time either of us gets sick now, we have this hacking asthmatic cough that's tough to get rid of - and RSV tends to cause a hacking cough anyway.
So here's my dilemma as the mom of a mold-sensitive eight-year-old: how do I know the difference between "we were exposed to mold and we're just going to have a cough when we're sick" and "holy crap that's the worst cough in the universe, you need to get that kid to the ER, stat!"?
Google is a great resource, I've found, but when it comes to mold consequences, and boy are we living with them, it's been really tough for me to find stuff that applies to us. What affects one person who's been exposed doesn't necessarily define what will affect another. Google "mold and RSV," and you'll come up with a lot of advice about keeping your humidifier clean so it doesn't grow mold. Nothing about the effects of RSV on children who've been exposed to mold. Do I need to be thinking about breathing treatments for him, or can we just ride it out together on the couch? I have no idea. Right now, as with everything post-exposure, I'm just playing this by ear.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
What it's like
I've tried many times to explain to people who aren't sensitive to mold what it feels like to be so bone-tired you can't function. I think of all the symptoms I connected to our exposure, the one that really kicked my rear end was the fatigue.
So I was oddly relieved to find this woman's website, which detailed the fatigue in a way I hadn't been able to. She's got a gift for explaining it, writing, "the first clue came when I gave a seminar in Portland, Oregon, and realized that I felt better and slept better in a hotel than in my own home. I then understood that I was not ill with some chronic disease that had yet to be diagnosed; it was my house, not me. More and more, I appreciated that if I was out of the house for a few hours, I started to feel like a normal human being; however, I only had to be in the house for 10-20 minutes before I thought I needed to take a nap. Sometimes, I barely had time to put groceries into the refrigerator before the enervation overcame me. The naps were often hours long. When I got up, I was all right for a few minutes and then usually wanted to go back to bed."
I can so relate. (And reading about what happened to her pets just breaks my heart.)
I think the first inkling I had that something inside our old apartment was making us (the Boy Wonder and I, anyway) sick was a trip we took "home" to visit my dad, who lives on the other side of the country, in February 2009. We had been in the apartment since the summer before. All of us felt better while we were on vacation for that week. It's hard for me to speak for the Boy Wonder, because his only symptom he complained about was the cough, but I know for me, I was much much much worse after we got back home.
In fact, it was that visit that really prompted me to seek help. I hadn't realized how bad I felt until I felt better by leaving and then worse. I still didn't connect it to the apartment yet - that was a connection I made later, when I actually discovered the mold. I think at that point in the exposure, the brain fog was so severe, I couldn't possibly have put the pieces of the puzzle together. I just knew I was wiped out, and I didn't know why - but I was tired of being tired.
So I was oddly relieved to find this woman's website, which detailed the fatigue in a way I hadn't been able to. She's got a gift for explaining it, writing, "the first clue came when I gave a seminar in Portland, Oregon, and realized that I felt better and slept better in a hotel than in my own home. I then understood that I was not ill with some chronic disease that had yet to be diagnosed; it was my house, not me. More and more, I appreciated that if I was out of the house for a few hours, I started to feel like a normal human being; however, I only had to be in the house for 10-20 minutes before I thought I needed to take a nap. Sometimes, I barely had time to put groceries into the refrigerator before the enervation overcame me. The naps were often hours long. When I got up, I was all right for a few minutes and then usually wanted to go back to bed."
I can so relate. (And reading about what happened to her pets just breaks my heart.)
I think the first inkling I had that something inside our old apartment was making us (the Boy Wonder and I, anyway) sick was a trip we took "home" to visit my dad, who lives on the other side of the country, in February 2009. We had been in the apartment since the summer before. All of us felt better while we were on vacation for that week. It's hard for me to speak for the Boy Wonder, because his only symptom he complained about was the cough, but I know for me, I was much much much worse after we got back home.
In fact, it was that visit that really prompted me to seek help. I hadn't realized how bad I felt until I felt better by leaving and then worse. I still didn't connect it to the apartment yet - that was a connection I made later, when I actually discovered the mold. I think at that point in the exposure, the brain fog was so severe, I couldn't possibly have put the pieces of the puzzle together. I just knew I was wiped out, and I didn't know why - but I was tired of being tired.
Friday, February 4, 2011
A heart for fighting mold
Today is national Go Red for Women day, the American Heart Association's campaign to make women aware of how deadly heart disease is. One of out three women dies as a result of heart disease. My mother, Rosemary, was one of the one out of three. So was her mother, Dorothy. So were her two sisters, Betty and Margaret.
Obviously, I have a vested interested in taking care of my ticker.
I'm particularly interested in recovering my health after the exposure to mold because I don't want to make things any harder for my heart than they already are. I have a lot of things going for me - I eat better than my mom did, I don't smoke (she did) and I'm aware of my family history of heart disease at a much younger age.
But there are a lot of unknowns out there. I know the mold has caused, for me, some breathing and lung symptoms - the asthma-like cough when I have a cold that seems to linger for weeks on end, for example, and the accompanying tightness in my chest.
Unfortunately, there's just not a lot out there about heart health and mold. You'll find a few references - like this one - but they tend to lack real information beyond "mold can affect your heart health." Or they have a panic-inducing intent because they're clearly written by lawyers who are hoping you will sue someone. Neither of the two really tell me what I want to know, which is what I need to be doing in the meantime!
Obviously, I have a vested interested in taking care of my ticker.
I'm particularly interested in recovering my health after the exposure to mold because I don't want to make things any harder for my heart than they already are. I have a lot of things going for me - I eat better than my mom did, I don't smoke (she did) and I'm aware of my family history of heart disease at a much younger age.
But there are a lot of unknowns out there. I know the mold has caused, for me, some breathing and lung symptoms - the asthma-like cough when I have a cold that seems to linger for weeks on end, for example, and the accompanying tightness in my chest.
Unfortunately, there's just not a lot out there about heart health and mold. You'll find a few references - like this one - but they tend to lack real information beyond "mold can affect your heart health." Or they have a panic-inducing intent because they're clearly written by lawyers who are hoping you will sue someone. Neither of the two really tell me what I want to know, which is what I need to be doing in the meantime!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Unclean! Unclean!
I owe another blogger for my starting to write about what happened to me. Andrea's family has a story that is so far worse, so far beyond anything we've been through, it almost seems silly to complain in comparison. But more than anything else, reading about her journey made me realize my journey wasn't so completely out there. I am not alone. There are others out there who've been through variations on a theme by Mold. Hers was the first blog I found, but it wasn't the last.
In reading about her fight with mold and her family's struggles, I came across this blog describing a passage in the Old Testament about mold. I have a sudden urge to put four tassels on my cloak and send up a burnt offering, a spotless male lamb if possible.
OK, seriously, Leviticus 14 details the dangers of mold to the extent that a priest was supposed to examine a dwelling place and if necessary, order that its stones be torn out and cast away. Moses wasn't playing around with this stuff!
It made me wonder what other ancient wisdom there is about mold, if any. Did the Greeks pray to their gods on Mt. Olympus to rid them of the scourge? Did the Egyptians have to treat their mummies against mold?
Enter my good friend, Google. So I did a search on mold in history, and found an interesting theory - that the rumors of curses in the tombs of Pharaohs comes not from actual magic, but just plain old toxic mold spores. Mummies were often buried with food to feed them in the next life, and that probably did rot. I mean, it just stands to reason. No surprise then that modern archaeologists wear protective gear - masks and so on.
Maybe Howard Carter's team should've just called their priest to come inspect the tomb first. I'm thinking it would have saved a lot of trouble in the long run.
In reading about her fight with mold and her family's struggles, I came across this blog describing a passage in the Old Testament about mold. I have a sudden urge to put four tassels on my cloak and send up a burnt offering, a spotless male lamb if possible.
OK, seriously, Leviticus 14 details the dangers of mold to the extent that a priest was supposed to examine a dwelling place and if necessary, order that its stones be torn out and cast away. Moses wasn't playing around with this stuff!
It made me wonder what other ancient wisdom there is about mold, if any. Did the Greeks pray to their gods on Mt. Olympus to rid them of the scourge? Did the Egyptians have to treat their mummies against mold?
Enter my good friend, Google. So I did a search on mold in history, and found an interesting theory - that the rumors of curses in the tombs of Pharaohs comes not from actual magic, but just plain old toxic mold spores. Mummies were often buried with food to feed them in the next life, and that probably did rot. I mean, it just stands to reason. No surprise then that modern archaeologists wear protective gear - masks and so on.
Maybe Howard Carter's team should've just called their priest to come inspect the tomb first. I'm thinking it would have saved a lot of trouble in the long run.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sorting it all out
Some of you know I tried a vegetarian diet for about six months in a bid to lower my cholesterol (it worked, actually, and I was pretty happy eating vegetarian. I had less success in cooking separate meals for my family and myself, as I was the only one avoiding meat, so eventually, I decided chicken and fish are OK. It's probably a story for another blog that isn't about mold.).
What you may not know is that I also tried a mold-starvation diet in the summer after we moved into our townhouse to try to regain my equilibrium, a stricter eating plan on which I temporarily shunned pretty much all dairy and anything processed, plus some other things you probably wouldn't have thought to avoid.
The idea was to starve the mold so it couldn't thrive in my body anymore - make myself a tougher host for it. So I consulted information for people with mold allergies, and found there were specific foods they should avoid.
On the "don't eat" list - cheeses, mushrooms, dairy, hot dogs, lunch meat, bread, cereal, soy sauce, sauerkraut, pickles, vinegar and potatoes - notice the pattern of anything with yeast in it, anything pickled or fermented.
I stuck to it for a while, but eventually found I wasn't as sensitive as I had been immediately after the move and could eat some of those things again, which was around the time I started eating vegetarian.
I've been less strict about foods in the last three or four months and am now wondering if that could account for some of the more recent fatigue and itching. I'm also wondering about the humidifier I was advised to run at night to keep my sinuses moist - is it possible that's making it worse? Or, have I just turned myself into a worry-wort because I had this horrible mold reaction thing happen to me, and now I see it everywhere, even where it isn't? My fatigue, itching and cold that won't leave me alone make me think it's probably not in my head.
What you may not know is that I also tried a mold-starvation diet in the summer after we moved into our townhouse to try to regain my equilibrium, a stricter eating plan on which I temporarily shunned pretty much all dairy and anything processed, plus some other things you probably wouldn't have thought to avoid.
The idea was to starve the mold so it couldn't thrive in my body anymore - make myself a tougher host for it. So I consulted information for people with mold allergies, and found there were specific foods they should avoid.
On the "don't eat" list - cheeses, mushrooms, dairy, hot dogs, lunch meat, bread, cereal, soy sauce, sauerkraut, pickles, vinegar and potatoes - notice the pattern of anything with yeast in it, anything pickled or fermented.
I stuck to it for a while, but eventually found I wasn't as sensitive as I had been immediately after the move and could eat some of those things again, which was around the time I started eating vegetarian.
I've been less strict about foods in the last three or four months and am now wondering if that could account for some of the more recent fatigue and itching. I'm also wondering about the humidifier I was advised to run at night to keep my sinuses moist - is it possible that's making it worse? Or, have I just turned myself into a worry-wort because I had this horrible mold reaction thing happen to me, and now I see it everywhere, even where it isn't? My fatigue, itching and cold that won't leave me alone make me think it's probably not in my head.
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