Opened up moldy boxes from storage and now my heart rate is sky high

well my heart rate has not come down at all, it is still in the 90s while lying down and over 100 while sitting.

I took activated charcoal yesterday, Burbur Pinella, then took 2 Bendaryl, magnesium and lavender pills to try and sleep and still only slept 4 hours.

when I stand and walk around my heart is int he 130-140 range. for reference my resting heart rate is usually 55.

I now have burning down my chest, chills, nausea, I also had some night sweats - this just sucks.

I left my dr. a message and haven't heard back yet.

I don't think I can continue to stay in this house, I might go to a hotel for a few days.

I don't know what to do, other than throw myself off a bridge at this point, life feels hopeless.

will activated charcoal help at all? is there anything else I can take that I might have?
I already take glutathione spray

will iodine help at all? colloidal silver? the only other things I have are basic Buhner herbs.

who knows what kind of toxic mold I inhaled. I am not coughing or sneezing at all. of course my boyfriend is completely fine.

hi WalkingbyFaith, thanks for responding.

no, we did not do an ERMI. it's a rental house and in the lease there is a specific comment saying there is no mold in the house. I do have concerns about that though.

We arrived at the house Sunday 1/3 to wait for the movers, they moved all our stuff in that night. So we did not stay in the house at all without the boxes. I had visited the house twice before and felt ok in it. I opened up the moldy boxes on 1/4 and started taking stuff out before I realized it was covered in mold. I know I spread spores everywhere and breathed a ton in, I'm sure. Would I be coughing at all? My nose doesn't even seem to be running.

The first night in the house on 1/3 I was ok, before I opened those specific boxes. The high heart rate started yesterday.

Before the stuff was in storage, yes some of it came from our contaminated apt from 2.5 years ago, but I had been living with the stuff the entire time in a clean apt and was getting much better. I had cleaned most of it and it didn't seem to be bothering me. I know this was a stupid move, but I took the risk.

I guess if it's the house that's moldy I will have to leave and throw all my stuff out no matter what.
If it's just from the boxes and books and crap is there any way to get better now? Can I use a fogger or something?

Should I have ERMI testing done on the house or is that pointless now? Any idea what that costs?

I am so lost, I don't know what to do.

WalkingbyFaith said...
Can you get all the stuff out of the house now and clean the house? Use a HEPA vacuum and wipe down walls and floors and surfaces with 1 part rubbing alcohol to 7 parts water. Do you have an air purifier that you can bring in after everything is cleaned?

Then clean items that are cleanable before bringing them back into the house.

I would not bring in any paper items like books, album covers, photo albums, etc that had been moldy or contaminated.

1. well, no, I am physically unable to move anything out of the house and clean the entire house right now. it's a 3bd/2.5 bath house and I'm exhausted. I did the dishes and my heart rate shot up into the 170s.
I do have air purifiers running and I opened the windows for a while.

2. my boyfriend is currently wiping down his CDs with peroxide, he refuses to throw them away. we had a huge screaming argument about it. he also refuses to throw away any books, he has a whole bookcase full. this is not a fight I am going to win. he is paying the rent on the house, so I might just end up leaving, but I am basically screwed as I am unemployed. worst case scenario I can go back to our empty Chicago apartment that we are still paying rent on, but I guess I can't bring anything there?

3. I have a telehealth appt with my Lyme dr. this afternoon, will see what she says, maybe she can prescribe some Cholestyramine? will that help any better than charcoal?

4. I called a mold inspection company and they are coming today to take air samples and do a visual inspection of the house, so maybe that will tell me some things

5. the moving company claims their warehouse storage is temperature controlled. but I'm not sure how long our boxes sat on the truck or anything.

6. I guess I can get the Great Plains mycotoxins urine test done for me? is that the best one? then at least I'll know what I'm dealing with in my body and how bad it is?

what I don't understand is that I've lived in sooooo many moldy, water damaged apartments over the years, really old Boston apartments, and those never bothered me (that I know of).

I am so stressed out now.

I was typing that last response while you were typing yours.

I've experienced the unrelenting tachycardia and exaggerated POTS as well, and it's exhausting and unsettling. I'm so sorry you are dealing with it amid so much other garbage! You have gotten good advice from WBF about the mold, but I wanted to add that for the heart rate specifically, you might try a couple of things:

- Balancing electrolytes and hydration. The right amount of water (not too much!!) plus lots of salt might be able to settle your heart down. Sometimes people get out of whack by not drinking enough water or by drinking too much. I messed myself up once terribly by taking too many Alka-Seltzer Golds (too much potassium).
- Holding your breath and bearing down, like the valsalva maneuver people use to pop their ears, sometimes can normalize a heart rate temporarily.

Also, I do understand that most people are simply ignorant about the realities of mycotoxin illness, but it sounds borderline abusive to me that your partner is denying your medical reality and refusing to take actions that could help you with a disabling illness. It would be trivial to place his CDs and books in plastic bins in a dry basement while this stuff gets figured out for you. Music is available in plenty of mold-free formats these days, and chances are he's not reading more than one of those books at a time. He has no excuse for this incredibly inconsiderate behavior.

orbitingaround said...
well my heart rate has not come down at all, it is still in the 90s while lying down and over 100 while sitting.

I took activated charcoal yesterday, Burbur Pinella, then took 2 Bendaryl, magnesium and lavender pills to try and sleep and still only slept 4 hours.

when I stand and walk around my heart is int he 130-140 range. for reference my resting heart rate is usually 55.

I now have burning down my chest, chills, nausea, I also had some night sweats - this just sucks.

I left my dr. a message and haven't heard back yet.

I don't think I can continue to stay in this house, I might go to a hotel for a few days.

I don't know what to do, other than throw myself off a bridge at this point, life feels hopeless.

will activated charcoal help at all? is there anything else I can take that I might have?
I already take glutathione spray

will iodine help at all? colloidal silver? the only other things I have are basic Buhner herbs.

who knows what kind of toxic mold I inhaled. I am not coughing or sneezing at all. of course my boyfriend is completely fine.

That definitely sounds like POTS (postural orthotic tachycardia)

hey thanks for checking. I am doing better. My heart rate came down yesterday afternoon and was back to normal by last night. I've been staying in a hotel the past 2 nights. This morning though I woke up with really bad puffiness above both eyes, swollen fingers, a red rash, diarrhea, and I'm coughing. I've been taking activated charcoal every day. Last night my armpits were sweating a ton so my body seems to be detoxing. I do think my elevated heart rate and other symptoms are an MCAS reaction, the more I read about it the more it makes sense. I also seem to be herxing a bit from Bart, so it's hard to separate out my symptoms.

The mold inspection report came back with elevated levels of Penicillium/Aspergillus, which I bet is what is making me sick -- they found 1300 spores in the dining room alone, which is where all the books and CDs are. Our old apt (which made me sick in 2018) had water damage and we took some of the stuff with us, so I'm betting that's where the Aspergillus came from...though I'd been living with all that stuff for 2.5 years since then and was fine.

The rental home itself has no water damage that will have to be fixed, and no toxic black mold, so I don't need to tell the landlord I'm doing this. There are other molds that are in the acceptable range of 100 particles -- I don't know if those would affect me. The Aspergillus was the highest.

The cardboard boxes from the movers tested positive for low levels of Cladosporium, which the mold guy thinks came from outside or while the boxes were on the truck, but who knows. The outdoor air sample from outside the house did also contain Cladosporium. They also found elevated levels of Cladosporium in the dining room though -- 840 spores.

Because of the moldy boxes the movers shockingly wound up refunding us half the cost of the move, $2400 -- which will more than cover remediation. Remediation is going to cost $1900, which is lower than I expected.

I am using a company called "Green Home Solutions" and they say it only takes 1 day, they use non-toxic plant enzymes and spray everything in the home, in addition to other treatments, HEPA vacuuming, and sucking all the air out of the house. Hopefully this works. They also re-test the air after remediation.

My boyfriend even conceded that he will throw out more of his books, because he has realized how old and gross some of them are.

My dr. ordered the Vibrant Wellness Mycotoxins urine test so I'll know exactly what mold is in my body. She says this is the one she prefers to use. I've lived in so many moldy buildings, so I probably should have had this done a year ago. I wish she would have pushed me to do it then. That test is $285.

I am trying to see this disaster as a positive development -- I never really took the mold from our old apartment seriously, and I wonder if this is the final missing piece that will need to fall into place for me.

The remediation is being done on Monday, and I'm not sure if I will go back to the house before then. I'm taking Claritin and Pepcid every day for the MCAS reaction. I realized I spent the last 2 weeks over Christmas eating a ton of bad foods which also could have led to this -- I went off my diet while staying with relatives and ate chocolate, sugar, wheat, dairy, preservatives -- combine that with the stress of moving and the mold and boom, my body went haywire. I didn't know anything about MCAS before this, I thought only certain people got it, but the Lyme bacteria specifically causes it.

Orbitingaround,

Hi! Just wanted to check in with you and see how you’re doing.