What to do if you have been exposed to mold

So let's talk about the most important piece, which is somebody has these symptoms. They're doing everything right. They're eating an animal-based diet, they're sleeping, they're getting in the sun, they put the plates in their house, they do the oat test with you or somebody else, they do the urine test, and they're like, "You know what? I actually am exposed to mold." Um, and what do they do then? Like, how do they, how do they move forward with this? We can talk about changing environment. You mentioned a little bit about these whole-house dehumidifiers, and then let's get into some of the methods that you use to detoxify people. Like, it's going to be different. There's obviously going to be individual protocols that are quite different, but I want people to have tools and ideas of of what the treatment for this mold looks like.

Sure. Well, glutathione is really important, and it's not something everyone can tolerate right out of the gate because glutathione is great at mobilizing mycotoxins. So we used to, before the lab told us not to, we used to give people glutathione as a provoking agent, similar to how you would give DMSA or some sort of a chelating agent to do a heavy metal screen on people. We would provoke the body by having people do glutathione, and we saw that when we used glutathione, it would actually show more mycotoxins. We thought, "Oh, this is cool." And then the lab said, "Hey, this is like messing with other markers in the mitochondria, so don't do that." So we stopped provoking. But that was just a side change. But glutathione, you make it in your liver, it's your master detox antioxidant, it's incredibly important. There was actually a paper that came out by Dr. Horowitz, who's been treating Lyme for decades. He had a female patient who was essentially on her deathbed with COVID, and he gave her a big wallop dose, around 2 grams of glutathione, and guess what? It completely turned it around. IV or PO? I think this was just oral. Wow. I think it was just pills. But what I was doing and implementing was nebulized glutathione. There's a particular brand that has a sodium bicarbonate added to it, and we use this for chocolate cake, which is your new code word. It's my podcast. We can actually say COVID on the pi. Okay. All right. Okay. So, so we use the, the nebulized glutathione. Actually, had a woman that was debating going into the ICU, but luckily we had her and kind of, you know, stock up and be a prepper, essentially. So she had the nebulizer with the saline solution, and we did a 200-milligram capsule of acetylated, or actually no, this wasn't, this was a reduced. I'm sorry, this was just regular L-glutathione with sodium bicarbonate, and she did two sessions with the nebulizer, and her shortness of breath was gone. So we use it for mold too, because if you nebulize glutathione, you can get it across the blood-brain barrier, and that's why a lot of people have dizziness and vertigo is because we know that ochratoxin, for example, damages the cerebellum, and you get a lot of your movement and proprioception involved with the brain. And if your brain is damaged by mycotoxins, you might fall over, you might stumble, you might be clumsy. You're not clumsy because you're clumsy, you're clumsy because your brain's damaged. And so if you nebulize glutathione, you can help treat that. And then we use oral glutathione. So a lot of people talk about liposomal versions. I'm not a huge fan of the ones that have the ethanol because I personally don't do well with histamine type things, and for me, the ethanol, it kind of aggravates me. So I personally like to do acetylated glutathione, and I mix it with NAC. And NAC is a precursor, which Amazon has now deleted off of their store. Really? Yeah, NAC's gone. They wiped it out a few weeks ago. Is that because of COVID? Uh, yeah, because people are saying that it can help. So they're, NAC is completely gone. I use professional manufacturers, so we still have access to it, but I don't know what the future holds.

Let's just, let's just also pause for a moment. An ad. And that N-acetylcysteine is the treatment for Tylenol poisoning. Like, I use this so many times in residency and medical training when people would try and commit suicide with Tylenol, which is acetaminophen, which is broken down in the liver into very toxic, oxidatively stressful quinones. And the way we get rid of those quinones is by pumping up, giving the body lots of precursors to make glutathione. So glutathione is three amino acids, one of which is cysteine. You and you acetylate a cysteine at the at the nitrogen, you get N-acetylcysteine, which is NAC. And that is the bar none, gold standard treatment for Tylenol toxicity in the hospital for patients. It's crazy to think that Amazon took NAC off of their store, and it's something that saves lives in the hospital every day for Tylenol toxicity.

I know. But I mean, look what they did with Ivermectin. I mean, I started developing, we could do a whole part two on this if you want. But I mean, I started developing what I think was some post-COVID issues. I was having shortness of breath and a tight chest about seven months after I first tested positive. Luckily, I had a dose of Ivermectin, and within, I would say honestly, less than six hours, normally it's 24, but less than six hours, my shortness of breath was completely gone. And that's completely been suppressed. Where in a place like Costa Rica, you could probably get it over the counter for like a couple of bucks per pill. Whereas in America, now it's demonized. And actually, the friend who prescribed it, he had to get in a fight with the pharmacist, and the pharmacist was claiming they weren't going to fill the prescription because he was doing something that hasn't been studied and it wasn't proven. And he said, "Excuse me, your job as a pharmacist is not to debate the doctor. Give me your name and phone number in case the patient dies, they know who to go after." And then eventually, he filled the prescription. So I could do a whole hour on that, but, uh, if you want to comment, you can. But let's get back to the detox support.

That's just crazy. I mean, Ivermectin is a drug that's been used generally for parasites, if I'm thinking of the right molecule. You know, it's this anti-parasitic. And there are all sorts of drugs like this. I mean, there were zinc and quercetin and, I mean, you know, hydroxychloroquine. There was so much debate about these drugs and whether they could be used for COVID. And obviously, we have to weigh side effects, and, you know, it's not an indication. But it's just that's how the FDA works in the United States. If it's not studied, we're not going to prescribe it. And it's like, wow, maybe it could help people. Let's weigh the risks and the benefits. It's a quite controversial topic. It's interesting that it helped you. But NAC and glutathione, I mean, these are pretty safe compounds. You know, like there's no question, like NAC is not going to hurt anyone at a dose of 500 milligrams or a thousand milligrams. And for Amazon to take it off, I mean, that's just, that's very strange. Anyway, chocolate. It's nuts. But yeah, there's like 92 studies on Ivermectin. You could look up c19ivermectin.com. There's 92 studies in PubMed on this. There was a 75% reduction in death. We could have prevented 75% of the deaths in this country with Ivermectin. So I'll leave it at that. We'll do a part two. That's crazy.

All right. But on the, on the detox front, so NAC is amazing. The only thing, you mentioned it won't hurt anybody, that's true. The only thing that it would do would maybe dry your sinuses out a little bit, which for most people is probably a good thing, unless you already have dry sinuses. Maybe you get a nosebleed if you go too high, but that's rare. And so glutathione mobilizes the toxin, but now you need something to bind to it. So in the prescription world, if you're really sick, you can use cholestyramine, which is a bile acid sequestrant. Cholestyramine is used by the military to help treat bio-warfare toxin exposure, essentially. And cholestyramine is one of the only things on planet Earth to actually detox the PFAS and the PF, I forget all the acronyms, but the non-stick chemicals. If you look at the research, cholestyramine is like the only molecule to bind to these things. So if you, like me, grew up, you know, eating food cooked on Teflon, and you want to get it out, cholestyramine would do it. And that's what I did. I did a little bit of cholestyramine because I was miserable. I mean, I was exhausted. I had blood pressure spikes that, I mean, my blood pressure would change 50 points in 10 minutes. It was scary. It was not fun. So I did use cholestyramine for a short period of time. Would I do it again? Probably not, because the thing, the medical docs that treat mold don't tell you is it does affect the mitochondria and it does affect the gut. So natural binders are much, much safer. Zeolite, clays, bentonite clays, charcoal, chlorella, silica, apple pectin, humic and fulvic acids. Those all do the same thing in a different mechanism. They bind to the mycotoxin and then they pull it out through the stool. So as long as you're pooping every day, you're fine to just go right down the road and buy you some good activated charcoal. It may come from coconut shells, which is a good organic source, and you could start taking that right away and remove not only mycotoxins, but pesticides and herbicides and heavy metals. There's so many good qualities of it, and it's so safe. The only thing that happens is if you take too much, you could get a die-off reaction. It's not truly a die-off, it's just a detox reaction. Like I took eight charcoals in a row, I took eight pills all at once, and I got a little woozy, and I thought, "Oh, I moved a little bit too much." And why that happens? Cholestyramine, it can happen too, but less so because it's a stronger bond to the toxin. But charcoal is a very weak magnet. So charcoal just very gently binds onto the mycotoxin. If you were to zoom in and look at charcoal, it's kind of like a lava rock. If you ever had those in your landscaping as a kid, and the mold toxin kind of gets trapped in the little pores. So it's not a perfect bond, and when you're dragging it through the intestinal tract, especially if you have leaky gut, those mycotoxins can reabsorb into the bloodstream and cause an issue. So if you're noticing an increase in symptoms, fatigue, anxiety, or brain fog after a binder like charcoal, you're probably just doing a little too much, or you just really need to heal your gut up before you can handle more.

That's, that's super fascinating. Yeah, cholestyramine is something I've always worried about. I've used it in patients in the past, or clients in the past, with caution because if you go too long, it's also because it's a bile acid binder, it's going to deplete your ability to absorb fat-soluble vitamins. So people can run into all sorts of fat-soluble vitamin deficiencies and all sorts of problems long-term with cholestyramine. But I like the idea of more natural, quote, or maybe less toxic binders. Uh, charcoal, like you said, um, you know, the chlorella is an interesting one. Um, the one thing I'll ask you a question about zeolite, because maybe you have a good source for zeolite. We don't have to say the exact source on the podcast, we can put it in the show notes or whatever you want, you can say it if you mentioned. But I've heard of bad reactions to zeolite too, like it's such a binder. The only thing I know about zeolite is you want to make sure that you get good zeolite, you know, because it can already be binding toxic things. I had a friend who took zeolite and had a bad reaction to it. So is there, how do you vet your zeolite? Or I mean, maybe charcoal seems pretty safe to me, you know, coconut husks, pretty safe. Charcoal, cracked cell, chlorella, probably pretty safe. I just, with the binders, I think, is it true you don't want to, you just got to make sure you get a good one because you don't want that to have already bound something bad that you're putting in your body?

You're totally right. Yeah, some zeolites actually showed up contaminated, highly, with aluminum, right? And, and other heavy metals. So yeah, it is a big problem. And I just use professional sources that do purity reports, and they'll actually show you the test report on it. And if somebody's paranoid, then we could just say, "Hey, fine." And another thing with zeolite, too, it does tend to be very dehydrating. I'm on a bunch of zeolites, so I just have, I have a bunch of water that I just have to keep because it, it keeps you parched. Mold also will cause excessive thirst and excessive urination. We talked about that before we hit record. But if you're up in the middle of the night to go pee, it's not necessarily because you're getting old, like your doctor says, it's not necessarily hormones, it could be. But it could also be mold, because it affects the kidneys, and I think the mechanism is you're just having to work harder to try to filter these things out, so you're creating more urine. So when I detox myself, I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night to go pee anymore.

Now, that's a real biotics anecdote. Sorry to interrupt you. That's really interesting anecdote that I'm glad that we covered, because I just want to make sure that we emphasize that one as well, that, um, because I've worked with a couple people who had this, like frequent urination at night, and we could never figure out what it was. But if, in your experience with mold, you were getting up four or five times a night, you said, and then when you went through some of these protocols, that got much better?

Yeah, I don't get up at all to pee unless I drink a ton of water right before bed.

Yeah. So what I would do, just an experiment, get these people on a binder before bed and see what happens. Like a charcoal. Yeah, I would do a charcoal, just an activated charcoal. You could do like 250 milligrams or maybe 500 milligrams, which is about two capsules. And it may take a while. I mean, timeline-wise, to be honest with you, I think it's important to break that down because that's a common question. Well, how long is this going to take? And the answer is, it depends. If you're 40 and you've got 40 years of accumulated mycotoxins, starting from in utero, when your mother transferred her mycotoxins from her mother to you, and then down the line. So there's this, that's why it's fun to work with families because you'll see the toxic kid, the toxic mom, the toxic grandma. I've been, I've been fortunate to work with several generations, and it's crazy to see the same mycotoxins. It's like, is that just coincidence, or is that literally through the family line? And then you plot the family toxicity with the mental illness. Oh, she was depressed and anxious, so was she, so was she. And then it really starts getting crazy.

But one thing I was going to mention is probiotics. There's actually some really cool papers coming out now on probiotics as being the most broad spectrum. So charcoal is really good at certain mycotoxins, like ochratoxin. But charcoal is not very good at zearalenone, which comes from Fusarium. Fusarium is another mold that makes zearalenone. People freak out about soy. You want to talk about something crazy estrogenic? Zearalenone. They'll put it in the ears of cows. I know Dave Asprey talked about that years ago when he was promoting his moldy documentary. And they'll use it to fatten up cows by affecting their estrogen. So you can breathe zearalenone in. It's crazy. But charcoal doesn't work very well at detoxing it. A clay would work better, or possibly a probiotic. And the cool mechanism of the probiotic is it's actually converting it. I think it's probably some type of a conjugation mechanism. I don't even know if it's fully understood. I think there's a ton we don't understand yet, and I don't claim to know it all. I just know enough to help people. But I think what's happening is you're taking the probiotic, and the microbes, which have probably been exposed to these molds before, have some built-in mechanism. But because our guts are so messed up from glyphosate, we don't have those microbes there to digest and basically degrade these mycotoxins. I believe the mechanism is when you're throwing in tons of beneficial bacteria, those microbes are then somehow eating or conjugating or doing something to convert those mycotoxins into less toxic substances and then prepping them for the phase two detox system.