Editor’s Note: Today, we’re excited to bring you a guest blog post from the medical team at BioDesign Wellness Center — a Tampa-based Functional Medicine and Integrative Healthcare practice with deep expertise in diagnosing and treating mold-related illnesses. At BioDesign, their sole emphasis is on helping patients understand and resolve the underlying cause of their health conditions (as opposed to just treating symptoms). They work to help you take control of your health and not just rely on medication and temporary fixes for what ails you. And when it comes to the treatment of mold-related illnesses, we highly recommend consulting with BioDesign Wellness before seeking the assistance of anyone else, including your primary doctor (that’s because traditional and conventional medicine doctors know little or next to nothing about the complexities associated with the treatment of toxic mold).
Below is Part 1 of a blog post on living with mold in the Greater Tampa Area. Check back next week for Part Two.
Living with Mold in Tampa: Part 1 — Recognizing the Warning Signs
By the Medical Team at BioDesign Wellness Center
Do you live in Tampa, run across mold in your home or workplace on a regular basis, and have a persistent illness that defies treatment — fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, depression, anxiety, unexplained allergies, difficulty breathing, recurring or lingering sinus infections? Do you feel as though you’ve been drugged or poisoned? If you feel miserable, and your doctor can’t figure out the cause, it could be something in your home or workplace, your food or water, or perhaps even growing inside you — toxic mold.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “Molds grow best in warm, damp, and humid conditions.” In Florida, whether we’re inside or outside, chances are good that mold is growing all around us. Chances are also good that mold is growing in us. Sadly, for us, mold and mold infection are nothing new.
However, thanks to Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker, a leading authority on mold-related illness, mold awareness and understanding are growing among people with mold illness, medical providers, and mold remediation specialists. As a result, we are beginning to develop treatments to win the battle against this persistent and sometimes deadly foe. Perhaps more importantly, we now know the underlying cause of numerous catch-all diagnoses that doctors have been giving patients when the doctors can’t identify the cause and are unable to offer any treatment other than partial and temporary symptomatic relief, at best.
Unfortunately, despite Dr. Shoemaker’s diligent and rigorous scientific work, the medical community continues to suffer from a general ignorance of the impact of environmental mold on human health.
Mold Illness: A Dangerous Chain Reaction
Like most illnesses, mold illness begins when someone with a genetic susceptibility to it is exposed to whatever type of mold they’re susceptible to, as shown in the figure below… continue reading