WalkingbyFaith said...
Wow! Thanks for that update. Glad you were able to figure stuff out. I started reading from the top and didn’t notice until I saw my previous post that this was an old thread. This time while reading your initial post, I wondered if mold was present and possibly in the kitchen or area where you usually ate. I also wondered what happened around the time where you said “Then 2 months ago I had a really bad episode and my symptoms worsened.”
So, what did you actually do about the mold exposure?
Thanks! Yeah, me too. It was ruff never knowing what was up. As far as the bad episode goes, I had garlic chicken and pasta the night before, and that morning only had pure protein. On top of that I had started drinking Combucha, and probably had strep. So I think it was mostly a die-off, and that running me down probably let strep and the other co-infections get a strong foot hold.
Mold: Clean surfaces, Pure air, Pure Water, Low Humidity
The short version: Most importantly, we installed dehumidifiers to keep humidity below 50% everywhere, we installed Air-purifiers with HEPA and Activated carbon filters, used a HEPA vacuum, put ozone free UV lights and activated carbon filters in the A/C, we cleaned all the faucet aerators, and we killed all the mold we could find, and made it inhospitable for it elsewhere. We still aren't done, but we've got 90% of it.
The long:
For the mold in the outlets, we ended up ripping the walls and insulation out of my bedroom ( I say we, but I obviously wasn't able to do any of it), which exposed massive amounts of mold behind the moisture barrier, treating it with Mold Armor and then putting in foam insulation. We put all my belonging in a trailer and ozoned them, and wiped them off with a micro fibre cloth, we also washed all my clothes with some EC3 solution things. We tore out the carpeting and padding and replaced it with natural wood that was green certified and as close to VOC free as we could find. For the A/C in my bedroom we sealed the vents and installed an air purifier and a mini split. For the A/C in the rest of the house, we had Stanley Steamers (there are a lot of scam companies out there who will just run a vacuum hose down your vents, and do not take pictures, I recommend Stanley's) come out and clean all the ducting and vents, and treat the evaporator coils (which were full of black mold). We also installed UV lights (Honeywell's that don't emit ozone) above and below the coils ourselves so no mold could grow back (Stanley's wanted $1k to do just one, and we did both for $400). I also cleaned out the aerators under all of our facets by unscrewing them and soaking them in bleach or vinegar. The aerators alone were huge, because many of them were almost plugged up with black mold, and you'd never notice if you didn't unscrew them from under the faucet. On a side note, I've actually begun to notice that a lot of places I go (Dr.s etc.) they have black mold growing on their aerators, you can tell by low water pressure, or feeling slime and seeing black gunk fall out when you plug part of it up with your finger. For the rest of the mold, I just looked in all the places I could and killed what I could find. There was some growing in the backs of the toilets, in the grout of the shower, and around the hinges of the bathroom door, also some in the drip pan under the fridge ( almost all fridges have a drip pan that catches water, and they have a fan that blows on it to evaporate it, think about
what it does to mold spores). We plan on ripping out all carpet in the house but it's a big project and is too expensive to do all in one go.