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Is Mold Making You Sick? Get Answers with a FREE Sinus and Mold Sensitivity Online Evaluation

by Catherine 2:00 pm

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Do you suspect mold in your home, office, car, etc. as the underlying source of your health issues? Are certain smells irritating you? Does your body seem to react to everything—“musty” smells, perfumes, chemicals, dyes, foods, heat, fabrics—negatively, even though those things never seemed to bother you before? Is your energy sapped easily, or do you wake up after 8 hours or more of sleep feeling exhausted and unable to face the day? Do you have chronic sinus infections, headaches, confusion, or brain fog? Are you constantly missing work, school, or social gatherings due to sickness?

If you have gone down this long, but by no means exhaustive list of questions, nodding your head and saying, “Yep. That sounds like me,” you may be experiencing a mold exposure somewhere that you spend a lot of your time.

2:00 pm 2 comments

Cleaning Tips Mold Prevention Products Travel Tips

Tips and Tools for Staying Well on Vacation

by Catherine 5:23 pm

I am in Florida right now vacationing with my family, and because of the way that I travel now—with all of my mold prevention products and remedies—everyone suggested that I should write a post about it. I actually cannot believe that I haven’t done this sooner, since it has become my “new normal,” but better late than never, I suppose.

First of all, when you or your family members are mold sensitive, entering a new “home away from home,” or hotel room can be quite scary. You just don’t know if you can trust what you are walking into. The fear of getting sick again may even cause such great anxiety that you opt out of vacation altogether. I used to dread vacation. That is sad, I know, but after losing my health for so long, I wasn’t willing to chance anything, even for a vacation. These days, after much experimentation, and lots of preparation, I feel like my family and I can go just about anywhere, and am ok. There are definitely some environments that would be toxic to just about anyone, but a typical hotel room, condo or vacation rental home doesn’t worry me much anymore.

Why?

I bring an arsenal of mold-cleaning, prevention, and immune-boosting products with me. These products seem to do the job of keeping me and my family well outside of our mold-free bubble. So, instead of yammering on any longer, I am going to give you my tried and true lists of tips and tools to take with you when getting away for travel or on vacation.

5:23 pm 0 comment

Homemade Products Products

Homemade Antifungal Coconut Oil Cream

by Catherine 2:35 pm

One of the things my husband really struggled with when his body was depleted and compromised from our mold exposure was Candida. If you are not familiar with the intricacies of Candida, I’ll give you a brief, not entirely medical rundown that is based upon both what the doctors told us and my experience with it:

Candida is a systemic yeast or fungal overgrowth inside the body. It starts in the gut when yeast begins to grow and overtakes the “good” gut bacteria that fights illness and disease and aids in nutrient absorption and digestion. The only way to really conquer or get rid of Candida is to starve it out of existence and to take antifungal supplements or medications. Since yeast thrives on any and all sugar, a diet that eliminates sugars, starches and many fungi-rich foods is usually prescribed. A potent probiotic is also part of the usual regimen. If all steps are followed to the letter, the Candida will eventually die off and the healthy gut bacteria will resume their role as the major players. The “die-off” effect can be quite intense and debilitating, though. Many times, people experiencing Candida “die-off” feel like they are coming down with something or have the flu. It is not pleasant, because the yeast has taken hold of your body and doesn’t want to leave.

Other indicators of Candida overgrowth occur on the outside of the body. Some people develop skin rashes, white patches on their skin, vaginal yeast infections, a white film on the back of their tongues, and even ongoing cases of athlete’s foot or fingernail and toenail fungus. In other words, it’s not a pretty thing to have happen to you. When you’ve been exposed to mold spores in a toxic environment, like we were for a prolonged amount of time, your body becomes extremely susceptible to Candida. It’s like the mold just wants to take over your body, both inside and out. It is insidious.

My poor husband had both the gut issues of Candida and the skin issues—white patches all over his chest and back. Well, we got out of the home, eradicated the mold, cleaned up his diet and got him on a circuit of rotating antifungal supplements, but he couldn’t seem to get rid of the white patches on his skin. We went to countless dermatologists, tried 100s of natural and over-the-counter antifungal creams, but nothing seemed to work long term, or irritated his skin to the point that it wasn’t worth using. That was when I decided to start doing some experiments of my own to try to invent an all-natural antifungal cream that would work for him and give him some relief.

2:35 pm 2 comments

Cleaning Tips Healthy Home Homemade Products Mold Prevention Products

Eliminate Odors, Bacteria, and Fungus From Your Feet and Shoes: Part II and A Giveaway!!!!

by Catherine 10:41 pm

(Note: This post is Part II of a 2-part series on cleaning your feet and shoes for mold and bacteria. Today’s post features a Homemade Athletic Shoe-Cleaning Wash. To read Part I about making your own antibacterial and antifungal foot wash, click HERE. Read to the bottom of the post to find out how to enter the GIVEAWAY for 2 travel-size bottles of EC3 Laundry Additive.)

Today, I’m back with Part II of cleaning your stinky feet and shoes for mold and bacteria. This time, my post is all about shoes. Your shoes are constantly moist–either from sweat or from getting wet outside–and are constantly getting dirty and being exposed to bacteria, fungus and other microbes as well, just from normal wear and tear. And, as you probably know by now, moisture and dirt are a terrible combination when it comes to mold. The two create the perfect storm. Thus, knowing how to properly clean your shoes to address mold, especially your athletic shoes that your feet frequently sweat in, is imperative. Not only will using the right cleaning and antifungal ingredients on your shoes remove the current dirt, mold and bacteria, but it will also prevent additional contamination from being tracked into your home. (The minute dirty shoes touch your carpets, rugs or floors, everything that is currently on them, microbes, mold and all, is now right at home inside your house.)

Just as in my previous post where I gave you my special recipe for cleaning your feet, today, I will share my recipe and techniques for cleaning your athletic shoes. Many people I have already shared this recipe with claim that using this shoe wash got their athletic shoes sparkling clean, eradicated any unpleasant odors from them, and helped to prevent the spread and recurrence of athlete’s foot. I guess because this wash contends with the mold directly, it kills any fungus that would otherwise continue to fester inside the shoes and spread back to your feet again. Great! Another plus! Who wants athlete’s foot?!!!

10:41 pm 2 comments

Healthy Home Homemade Products Products

DIY Antifungal Foot Wash

by Catherine 3:56 pm

(Note: This post will be a 2 part series. Today’s post features a DIY Foot Wash.)

Recently, I went on a trip with my Mom and my kids. We had a blast road-tripping and cramming into hotel rooms along our journey. It made me feel like a kid again—good for the soul. Each day, we would plan a location-based, touristy thing to do. In the mornings, we would head out with our snacks packed, our water bottles filled, and our athletic shoes strapped on. Then, we would walk the day away, enjoying the sights and our adventures. One thing that I did not prepare for or even think about, though, was how stinky our much-used and loved athletic shoes would get. You see, not only were we traipsing all over God’s green earth, but we were also getting quite sweaty while doing so. So, as science would have it, we would sweat, our feet would sweat, the insides of our shoes would get moist, and we would wear them again the next day, before they ever got fully dried out. Then, we would wake-up, put our athletic shoes back on, sweat again…You see where this is going, right? It took us straight to stinky-shoe town. P.U.!

When we packed up to go home, I bagged all of the stinky shoes up in a plastic bag to save our nostrils in the car, and I brought them home to perform some sort of reconnaissance mission to hopefully eliminate the smell. Going into this endeavor, I knew that in order to make the shoes smell better, I would have to face the problem in two steps:

1) I needed to create something to clean our feet with that could tackle the bacteria and fungi that were making them smell bad;

2) I needed to find a way to get our shoes clean of the dirt on the outside, and their insides clean of the bacteria and mold.

(Note: Today’s post will focus on cleaning your feet. I will put up the post about cleaning your shoes soon afterwards.)

Now, before I go into how I cleaned our shoes and feet—and YES, it worked, because all our feet have never smelled better, and all three pairs of our shoes are now odorless and clean—I want to talk about why feet and shoes can smell so bad in the first place.

3:56 pm 0 comment

Interviews Products Q & A's

Increasing Mold Tolerance With Sinus Defense

by Catherine 10:11 pm

The immune system acts as the body’s first defense against infection and illness. Your immune system recognizes every cell in your body. When something unfamiliar enters your system, like a virus, a parasite or bacteria, your immune system fights to get rid of it. So, have you ever heard of cell-mediated immunity? It refers to immunity that does not involve antibodies, but rather, the activation of Thymus cells (T-cells) in response to an antigen, like mold. T-cells are the core of our body’s adaptive immunity to allergens. Cell-mediated immunity is directed primarily at microbes that infect cells. It is also the most effective in defending against mold, because once T-cells are activated against an antigen for removal, they will remember that same invader for future removal. So, the next time you encounter something like mold, your T-cells will be quick to remove it. Since mold is an antigen that exists everywhere, this type of efficient immune response would be ideal in dealing with it and lessening an onslaught of debilitating symptoms.

10:11 pm 0 comment

Cleaning Tips Healthy Home Mold Prevention Products

The Benefits of Cleaning With Steam–The Antifungal, Antimicrobial Powerhouse

by Catherine 8:08 pm

As many of you know, my family deals with allergies, chemical sensitivities, and other types of scent- and product-related reactions in my house. All of those things increased exponentially after we lived in a mold-infested house for as long as we did. Now that we are all healthy again, and not living day to day with mold-related ailments, my son and I especially still have problems with cleaning products. The chemicals and smells in most household cleaners send my sinuses into overdrive, and give me headaches, while they make my son’s throat and skin start itching. Since I cannot just decide to give up on cleaning our home, my solution, other than mostly switching to natural, unscented products, like baking soda, white vinegar, and the EC3 products, that do not emit VOC’s, has been to use steam for many cleaning endeavors. I have both a handheld steamer and a steam mop (I use the Smart Living Steam Mop and the Smart Living Steam Jr.), so I am able to conquer most tasks with one of the two.

8:08 pm 7 comments

Interviews Products

“Know the Cause” Podcast, Featuring Dr. Donald Dennis and MicroBalance Health Products

by Catherine 12:05 am

Hi!

I’ve got another podcast treat for you today! Dr. Donald Dennis, world-renowned Ear, Nose and Throat, and head and neck surgeon and creator of all of the MicroBalance Health Products that I use and write about on this blog, was recently featured (again, as a matter of fact) on a “Know the Cause” podcast. If you don’t know about “Know the Cause,” I encourage you to check it out. Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you either have or have had issues with mold and fungal-related illness. Well, “Know the Cause” was created with you in mind.

“Know the Cause,”both the nationally-syndicated television program and podcast version, is the brainchild of Doug Kaufmann. (I actually just featured an article from Oncology News that was co-written by Kaufmann in my post, Mold and Oncology: An Article Explores the Claim that Mold Mycotoxins Can Trigger Cancer.) Kaufmann was a U.S. Navy Medical Corpsman and was deployed to Vietnam in 1970. Upon his return to the States in 1971, he battled intestinal issues with an array of strange symptoms that he thought were all food-allergy related. While reading all he could to help his own health, he was exposed to a medical paper that would later change his life. The paper was written in 1980 and entitled, “Antigenically Intact Food Macromolecules Exiting the Gut Lumen.” That paper led him to question the reasons behind gut leakage, which, in turn, led him to identify fungus as the root cause of creating the holes in the intestinal lining that allow food to “leak” through. He went on to hone his focus on fungus as the prevailing cause of systemic inflammation, illness or disease. From there, Kaufmann threw himself into studying and dissecting all the many ways in which fungal elements in our diets and lives contributed to or caused most illness and disease.

12:05 am 0 comment

Homemade Products Mold Prevention Products

How to Clean Your Nose for Mold: A Gentle and Effective Natural Sinus Rinse

by Catherine 4:34 pm

It’s no secret that it is officially flu season. Every year since my family’s mold exposure, when winter hits, I get a case of the upper respiratory, sinus-centered junk that goes around like wildfire. It has gradually abated over the years and now when I get sick, it’s rather mild, but since my immune system took that major hit with the mold, I still seem to always succumb. But, rather than hibernate all winter, and avoid places like my children’s school, or the gym to minimize my viral exposure, I have continued to use a basic “sinus protocol” that I learned about when I was battling my mold-related acute sinusitis.

(Note: While everyone who is exposed to toxic mold can react differently, and display a unique array of symptoms, my body reacted with chronic nasal congestion, sinus inflammation and infections, headaches, and the general malaise that comes with it all. My poor lips were so dry and cracked from always having to breathe out of my mouth, that it hurt to smile. I went from one dose of antibiotics and steroid treatments to the next. It wasn’t until I eliminated the mold from my home and addressed the fungal aspect of my sinus issues that I finally got better. Moreover, HERE is a link to an article on the Sinusitis Wellness website about the undeniable link between sinusitis and mold.)

Now, I realize that my blog is called, “How to Clean for Mold,” and that this post doesn’t seem like I am keeping with that topic. I am, though. Stick with me here, and I’ll show you what I mean. This step (rinsing your nasal passages) is cleaning for mold. It is just targeted at the specific spores that enter through your nose and trigger an inflammatory response and thus an immune system response.

4:34 pm 10 comments

Healthy Home Mold Prevention Products

EC3 Candles—an Easy Way to Purify Your Indoor Air

by Catherine 10:21 pm

Let me start this blog post with a confession: I LOVE candles! I love how candlelight looks and makes me feel—calm and introspective. I love the way scented candles smell when burning, although, sadly for me, with my family’s chemical sensitivities, I have really had to curb my use of anything scented in our home. I even love the act of lighting a candle—just doing it sometimes calms me down. So, when MicroBalance Health Products released their EC3 Air Purification Candles, I had to try them out. Could I actually light a candle to help clean for mold? Was this too good and easy to be true?

Well, to answer those questions and since this blog is about cleaning for mold, here is the rundown on how the candles work:

When you light the wick of an EC3 candle, the heat from the flame aerosolizes the mold-killing botanicals in the soy wax around it. As the aerosol disperses from the candle, and moves around the room, it cleanses the floating mold spores from the air. The candles have been independently lab tested and have been proven to reduce the mold spore count in a room from too numerous to count to nearly zero in less than 3 hours. Pretty impressive, I think.

10:21 pm 0 comment