Dr. Dempsey on Mold/Mycotoxin Illness: Mast Cell Matters

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Jill Brook: Hello, Mast Cell Patients and beautiful people who care about Mast Cell Patients. I'm Jill Brook, and this is Mast Cell Matters, where we go deep on all things related to Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or MCAS with the help of our brilliant guest host, Dr. Tania Dempsey, a world leader in MCAS and the comorbid conditions that often go with it.

Today, she is so kind to return for a fourth edition of Listener Q& A. Dr. Dempsey, thank you so much.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Oh, thanks. Thanks for being here and doing this again. This is exciting.

Jill Brook: Well, people love just how much information you have to share. So if it's okay, I'll dive right in. So last time we spoke about chronic infections as a trigger for MCAS, which patients may have as an underlying factor, we talked about when is it appropriate to test for it, what are some testing options, things like that, and we have received all the exact same questions about mold.

So, for [00:01:00] starters, when do you suspect mold as an underlying trigger for someone's MCAS?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Yeah, that's, that's an important question. And I think that, you know, when someone is dealing with a lot of, you know, what we call the multi system symptoms, and, you know, even if they don't suspect MCAS outright, but they know that there's something going on in multiple parts of their body, and they're, you know, trying to figure it out.

You have to, you have to think about what the triggers are, right? So that's always, like, step one. And actually, whether you're treating MCAS or anything else, the first step is always to think about what could be triggers to that set of symptoms? Are these triggers external in your environment, or are the triggers internal within yourself?

And as we start to sort of, at least, at least when I'm working with my patients, [00:02:00] I, I, I sort of use this analogy of an onion, and I'm, I'm pulling layers of the onion away, and we're trying to figure out, again, is it, is it something outside or inside that's affecting them? When we talked about infection last time, right, we're talking about things that are within the body, right?

The infections are within. Mold is without, actually with, with some caveats, which I'll, which I'll get to. But in general, it's the exposure from the mold from the outside that then affects what's going on on the inside. So what I would say is that mold should be fairly high up on the list of things to consider.

It should be either the first thing or one of the first few things that people should think about when they think about, again, what could be causing the set of multisystem inflammatory reactions they're having. And the reason I think it's so important to think about mold is that it is quite [00:03:00] pervasive.

It is unfortunately becoming more and more common given the type of building materials that, that many of us have homes that are built with. Okay, so, you know, I think that so there's, there's the building material stuff. There's the fact that yeah, it's very, it's very easy for mold to grow.

Okay in certain parts of the, of the country here in the United States and in other countries all over the world, there are mold spores, you know, outside in the, in the, in the environment. You just walk outside and during certain season here in New York, for instance, we have certain seasons where we have high levels of mold, particularly in the fall when the, when the leaves have fallen and they're, it's wet, and then we get like aspergillus and there are all these other mold species.

They're outside. But you can imagine how easy it is for them to get inside with a little bit of water damage. And again, a [00:04:00] lot of the materials that are built in the house, are used to build the house, are, are unfortunately great like petri dishes for growing, for growing mold, for growing bacteria actually too.

It's not just the mold, it's a lot of things that can be growing in the, from the, from a water damaged building. And when we say water damaged building, there are lots of things of that can cause water damage. It could be, it could be a little leak, could be a slow leak that you're not aware of behind a wall.

Unfortunately, I had that happen in my house. Slow leak, probably for months behind a wall until it started to come out through the wall. It could be a very obvious event, like a flood, you know, something, you know, there's, there's rain and then it gets inside because there's some weakness in the house structure that is allowing water to come in.

And mold can grow within 24 to 48 hours. The spores [00:05:00] can basically, you know, sort of explode and start to, start to grow. So, you have a variety of events that can occur, and I, I just, I just gave you some examples. There are many more. I know people listening are going to say, well, I didn't have that, but, but, you know, you can have bathrooms are notorious for being very humid,

which, which promotes mold growth. And those bathrooms, you know, sometimes have like little, you can see sometimes little black spots on the grout. Pink mold can grow in bathrooms. We sometimes see the pink mold in the, in the toilet. Sometimes you can see it on the ledge of a shower. So very easy, there's water from the shower, you know, from, from being in the bathroom.

And then, you, the little mold spores just kind of hang up, you know, hang on to the, to the water and they explode and start to, start to live. So, so these are things that are, again, they're, it's always in our environment and and, [00:06:00] and it's a little bit, it's quite pervasive is what I would say, mold.

Now, there are, we're sort of always exposed to mold, but I think it's about the load, right? So, like I said, like there are times when there's mold outside, you know, most people are fine. Some people are allergic to mold. That's one problem. And some people have mold illness that comes comes up from the mold itself and the toxins that mold

releases. We call these toxins mycotoxins. Various molds have different mycotoxins. Some mycotoxins are, are the same from different molds. Some molds are very specific to having specific types of mycotoxins. Many of these mycotoxins are they're minuscule, they're really microscopic. So they get into the body very, very easily, breathing it in through the skin, through the, through the GI tract, through the respiratory tract.

Very easy to get in [00:07:00] and they can have really widespread effects on different parts of the body. We know certain mycotoxins are neurotoxic, so they affect the nervous system directly. Some of them are immune suppressing. You know, in general, they're, they're bad. They're bad. They're bad for everybody.

I, there are some people, it's really kind of quite shocking, but there are definitely people who are not sensitive to mycotoxins or mold for whatever reason. And there are some people who, it could be genetics, it could be the load, It could be that they also have other things that are triggering the mast cells and so then the mold just is like the final straw to their immune system.

But for whatever reason, you know, some people are definitely more affected than others. And that's, I think, the puzzle that's like very, I think it's puzzling for some people especially when they live in a house that, looks okay on the outside until the mold [00:08:00] inspector comes in and sees that all the issues, right, there may be subtle things that have happened that people take for granted, but it could be one person in the house and three other people who are fine.

It could be the majority of the people in the house who are affected. There's so many factors that that that are at play here, but if someone has symptoms. Again, going back to what I started, how I started this, this sort of long answer. You have symptoms that are multisystemic and inflammatory. You have to, you look for the triggers and you have to look at where you're living, where you're working,

where you spend the majority of your time. And and, and it can be quite involved to try to figure out that piece. But so, so my answer is this, that, that I think that you have to look at all these things if you're sick. If you're not, if something is wrong, you've got to look at the mold piece of this, you've got to look at the potential for infection.

What I see quite often is that the reason the [00:09:00] mold becomes such a big issue for people is because they have underlying immune dysfunction, possibly from infections, like vector borne infections like we talked about the last time or, or, or other things that have just increased the load on the immune system and the mast cells.

And so it's just that, that final straw that you just, the body can't take. And in those cases what happens is you remove the mold piece of this, right, which is involved and we'll talk about what that involves. But let's say you've removed the mold piece. There's a subset of patients who are truly going to improve, you know, and they're going to see the, the shift in their symptoms and they're going to be, you know, for all intents and purposes cured.

But there's going to be a subset of patients who you're going to fix, you're going to kind of get rid of the mold. They may or may not feel better. And that's the frustrating piece. We know that the mold in the environment is not good. They have to remediate. They have to do a lot of things, but [00:10:00] they they might not actually notice anything, right?

And that is a clue that you have to really find what's going on underneath. And what I have found is that there are patients who probably had underlying Lyme or Bartonella or something. Then they get exposed to the mold and then it almost reactivates. It's only, it's like exposure to anything.

You can be exposed to COVID you could be exposed to some, some major trigger that then reactivates things underneath. So even though they've dealt with the mold now they've gotta deal with other things. So I don't mean to make it complicated, but I just think it's important. What I see a lot is that patients sort of hang on to that one big trigger or that one big thing that they've found.

And it's great when that works and then that's the thing that's going to make them better, but I always just want people to just be a little more aware of the fact that sometimes it's multiple things, and, and if one, one area doesn't seem to [00:11:00] make a big difference, like, like treating the mold doesn't really move the needle.

Okay, that's okay. So go back and now, now figure out what else could be missing, right? Now, I want to, I want to address one more thing. I mean, this may be even in some of the questions that, that, that people are asking, but I, I want to make a point about this. I talked about mold in the environment, and I talked about how mold can get, sort of, get in you, the mycotoxins can get in you, but what I see

quite a bit, actually, even maybe more than mold, external mold, is, I would call it a mold, a fungal infection. That sort of has a root inside the body. We'll call it candida because it could be, it could be candida yeast. It could be aspergillus. It could be, there are other molds that can grow in the body.

And sometimes it is because of the environment. So I've seen, we have patients, well, we'll do nasal swabs and we'll find fungus in their nose. I have to imagine that they're getting it because they're [00:12:00] breathing in, you know, mold. But in some cases because of genetics, because of other risk factors, antibiotic use, diet high in carbohydrates there are lots and lots of reasons.

They just get, you know, so it's not the environment, it's really what's happening in their body. Because we all have a little yeast in us, we all have certain things, but when things get out of balance, they can grow. And so there are patients who look like they have a mold illness from their environment, but in fact have a mold factory inside themselves, so it's an internal mold problem.

You can get mycotoxins released from the mold yeast inside you.

Jill Brook: Oh, that sounds like a nightmare.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Yeah, well, it could be, but we have treatment. You know, this, this can be addressed, but I, but I also, I want to bring this up because I want to make sure that this, this is a piece that's not missed either, because everyone thinks about the outside, but we're also going [00:13:00] to think about, we have to think about what we could be carrying ourselves that could be making us sick.

Jill Brook: Wow, okay, so it's everywhere, and, and so yeah, I guess it makes sense though, so everybody needs to consider it as a factor. Now, we had one question come in from from Vivian who was saying, at age 60, if she hasn't had mold illness yet, can she assume that she's just not susceptible to it and doesn't have to worry about that now?

And I guess along with that question, another question that came in that is sort of similar to that is, would you feel the symptoms immediately? Or would it take a while for them to show up upon a mold exposure?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: So, yeah, those are good questions. So, addressing the first part well, you know, I guess, I guess it's certainly possible that if by age 60, you've never had a mold problem, you've been exposed to mold, you, you [00:14:00] know, you've been exposed to mold and you've never had a problem. Sure, I mean, I guess it's more likely than not that you're not going to have a mold problem.

But I guess my question is if they're listening to this podcast, they, they, I'm assuming that they have some kind of immune problem, possibly Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. And so then my question is, if their Mast Cell Activation Syndrome isn't controlled, do they know for a fact that it's not mold that's actually making them sick?

Jill Brook: Would, would you expect to have symptoms pretty soon after an exposure or does it take a while to build up?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Depends. Yeah, it really depends. It really depends on prior exposures. So I'll give you an example. I have patients who grew up at a young age, you know, like their childhood home with mold. They didn't realize until afterwards. So they probably had chronic exposure for a long time and and so were maybe more susceptible.

And then, then they're [00:15:00] living in a house, you know, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years later, and they now have a problem, let's say with their, with their home or maybe it's their office. And, and in some cases it can be almost acute, their reaction, again, depending, depending on the patient, depending on the mast cells and the immune system, there's so many factors.

It could be, you know, they walk into a, a moldy place and immediately have a reaction or it could be the chronic exposure is enough to sort of over time escalate things and cause things to go awry. So, yeah, so, you know, I answer it depends a lot. It really does depend. Yeah.

Jill Brook: And we had a question about is this one of the reasons why sometimes like on this podcast previously Dr. Andrew Maxwell had talked about the location sabbaticals? Is that partially to see if you react differently to mold? Different amounts of mold in different places.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Yeah, [00:16:00] well, that's, that's one part of it. And beyond the mold, just other toxic things in the environment that we either can't always measure or we don't, we don't know how to measure. So I think it's everything, right, that, that you can accomplish by a location sabbatical. It's, it's, you know, the, something in the environment.

I have had patients where we're pretty sure it's not mold, but it's something else that they are reacting to. It could be, it could be something in the air outside. It could be a pollen, an allergen of some kind. It could be it could be pesticides that are being sprayed on, on some land nearby. It could be some other chemicals, maybe a nearby factory that you don't even realize that you're reacting to.

And then you, you move. Right, now you don't have those exposures and and then you, you know, your mast cells have some [00:17:00] time to recover and feel better. And sometimes, the reaction, the positive reaction to leaving that location is pretty, you know, is pretty amazing. Yeah.

Jill Brook: Yeah. Okay. So if you do suspect mold is an issue for somebody, what then? Do you bother testing or are there tests or do you just go straight to trying to get rid of it or what, what comes next?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: So there, there are several parts to this, right? The first part is to figure out the environment. If it's your house, you know, often you could, you could do, there are some tests you can do on your own for the house. You might need an inspector to come and take a look. So you really need to understand that part because if you're trying to deal with mold within your body, you know, or the damage that's been doing on your, in your body, and you don't fix your environment, you're just going to continue to be sick and you're going to be spinning your wheels essentially, right?

So [00:18:00] we want to be able to like understand the environment and understand do you need to leave that home and get remediation done? Can things be done while you're in the house? So first off is just making sure that you're in a in a quote unquote safe place, right, for your body, your immune system. So there are various ways to figure that out.

And then once you know, okay, once you know, and you've done the work to, to, let's say, remediate or move or whatever it's going to take, then we can start to do the work we need on the, on the body. So, we will do testing, so just like you're testing your house, we can test, we can do mycotoxin testing in the urine.

The lab that, that I prefer, I'll, I'll say it is Real Time lab. There are, there are lots of other labs out there, and I'm, I'm sure this is going to become like a debate. We'll have to do another another episode about it, but the validation studies, and there's, there's lots of research really in support of the the Real [00:19:00] Time mycotoxin test as opposed to blood tests for mycotoxins and opposed to other labs that measure mycotoxins.

I just don't feel comfortable with any of them in terms of the information that I got. But again, I'm sure that people are going to have lots of different opinions on it, right? This is just my scientific assessment at this moment in time. I can change my mind, but right now this is what I believe and have believed for some time.

So, we can do, we do a mycotoxin test. Sometimes we pick up things, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we have to do things to try to pick up the mycotoxins. Sometimes we have to help, like with detoxification to pick up the, the toxins. But sometimes, yeah, sometimes it doesn't give us the answers that we, that we suspect or, or need, and

if the house has mold and your mycotoxin test is negative, it doesn't mean it's not a mold problem. It just means that you're not, you're either not releasing it or the mycotoxins are not the problem themselves. There are also lots of mycotoxins and we can only measure [00:20:00] really like five. So, or maybe more, depending on which lab you're using.

But it's possible you just didn't pick it up. It's possible you don't detox, you don't release the mycotoxins into the urine, so we're not finding it. So I would not use that to rule in or out. I use it as a helpful tool to understand things better. If I suspect that there's an internal mold or yeast problem, I'll do some stool testing.

To see if there's yeast in the GI tract that often will be a good marker for for, for at least an internal mold problem, possibly external, but you can't always make that leap. And then I will often do a nasal swab through a lab called Microbiology DX, which will look at certain types of bacteria that we think is more prone to grow in people who are exposed to mold.

It will also look for yeast and fungus and things like that, so that can also be helpful. Like every other test we do, right, we have to, [00:21:00] we have to interpreted with a grain of salt, right? You have to always look at the patient and you need to understand the patient in the setting of those tests.

But these are all sort of helpful things. And then once we really understand, then we can figure out, does a patient need binders? And there are various binders that we use depending on lots of things, depending on how sensitive the patient is, depending on which mycotoxin we find. So there are various binders.

And then sometimes people just need antifungal medication because really the problem is really the the load in their body as opposed to just their environment. And so there are various antifungal medications or, or herbs or supplements and things like that. So, we're working on trying to it all, all goes back to lowering the load

of whatever is in the body that's causing the mast cells to misbehave.[00:22:00]

Jill Brook: So that's hopeful. So you don't have to get anything perfect or you don't have to get rid of it. It might just be that if you lower it by 10%, maybe that's enough.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Could, it could be, it could be. The most important though is, is really making sure your environment is as clean as possible. Now I think, I think one thing it might be helpful to, to emphasize is that mold is everywhere essentially. You, it's almost impossible to get rid of every spore of mold in your environment.

But, if you can get rid of, a lot of it, you know, let's say 90%, you know, you do a good remediation and you clean up as much as you can. And you, you can make that space safe and, you know, you lower the load of mycotoxins and yeast and mold, fungus, whatever in your body, then yes, you have a chance. And some people will have a pretty remarkable response, with just getting [00:23:00] rid of a little bit.

And some people really do need to get rid of the majority of it, just because of how sensitive their immune system is.

Jill Brook: So we had one question about, is there anything you can do to just get rid of it faster? Like eat anything specific or sweat more or anything like that?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: So let's make an assumption with that question that the environment is fine. It's been remediated. It's safe. You're not being continuously exposed. Then, then you think about, okay, what can you do? Yes. Any detoxification, so sweating, exercise sauna all those things are going to be potentially helpful in detoxing.

Of course, some mast cell patients are sensitive to various things, right? So it's all individualized. But most people maybe not most, many people who have mold illness will need some sort of [00:24:00] treatment to help with that detoxification process. And again, there are detoxification herbs and supplements.

Then there are binders, there are medications, there are other herbs to, to, to kill. But I would say that if you can maintain a a good diet that is relatively low in carbohydrates and, and relatively high in, in protein, you know, my favorite carnivore diet, that is helpful. That's helpful in reducing The growth of yeast inside of you and you, you sweat and you have enough detox support either through the food or through your supplements.

Yeah, I think that could, for some people, be enough. I've certainly had patients who have not needed a full protocol for the mold. They move, or they get [00:25:00] remediation, and they're like miraculously better, and they just, you know, they do some of these things that I mentioned, you know, they watch their diet, blah blah blah, and then they're fine.

And and so, so I don't want to imply that everyone is going to need treatment, right? It can be some simple tools, but if that's not working, right, then you have to kind of go to the next level. And everyone is different in how they, you know, how their liver detoxifies, how their kidney detoxifies how their how sensitive their mast cells are to those, the trigger.

And and then really just their immune system as a whole, not just the mast cells, but how their how their T cells, B cells, natural killer cells, how they deal with fungi in general in the body also will have an effect.

Jill Brook: Okay, great. Okay, so we had a question. Somebody was asking, is mold the kind of thing where you could use like [00:26:00] DNRS or the Gupta program to teach your body to tolerate it, or do you really need to get rid of the mold?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: I love this question, actually, because it's so, yeah, it's smart. It's really a smart question. So let's, let's take an example. I think it's easier if I, if we, we sort of set the stage. Let's say your house has been determined to be fairly good. You've not had any obvious water leaks.

There may be some mold spores, but there's nothing, there's nothing major, but you are, let's say, but you are reacting to whatever is there. If you do some limbic retraining and you're really diligent with it, I mean, you really have to be, this is not like I'm going to do DNRS, you know, a few times a week, you, you, or Gupta, you've got to commit.

And this is, this is the challenge a lot of, a lot of patients have. You commit and you really do it. I think it's possible to reset the mast cells so that they are [00:27:00] less reactive. It could be one way to reset the mast cells. And so I have patients who were really sick with mold and, and did a variety of things to, to help their mast cells.

Let's say they've gotten rid of the mold in their home, And, but they used to be, let's say, when that was happening, anywhere they went, they'd go into a hotel, they'd go into a friend's house, oh my god, and they would be sick, like, automatically, right, because whatever mold spores were there were enough to set them off.

Now we do the work that needs to be done, whatever that is, and it may include DNRS or Gupta. Then they can go into, what's amazing is that they can go into a hotel, they can go into their friend's house, and now they're not reacting the same way. The same level of mold is there, but they're just not, they're just, their immune system is not as as not misbehaving as much.

Okay, so I think that DNRS is a way to do that. But, right, if, if there's a [00:28:00] significant mold burden, whether externally or internally, that's not taken care of, you can do DNRS till you're blue in the face, and it's just not, it's not going to be enough. Right? So, but I think that there, there will be a subset of patients,

and, and I would argue that the same is true for Lyme and the vector borne infections that I talked about. I have patients who have, they test positive for all the infections, we know it's there but we work on their immune system and their mast cells, and we get them out of the moldy place, and they, and we do all this other stuff, right?

We don't even, we haven't even treated the infection, but we do enough, including DNRS or Gupta, maybe vagal stimulation, maybe something else, and then, all of a sudden, they're, you know, they're better. They still have Lyme. It's still there, but it's probably suppressed, and their immune system now can handle it.

So, so I would [00:29:00] say the same is true for mold. I think you could probably with, with the right tools, get your immune system into a better place so that you're not as sensitive. But if you've got, you know, profound mold, you know, you have black mold all, you know, in, in your, in your room and you're sitting here and there's black mold there, that's, nothing's gonna fix that until you fix the mold, you know?

Jill Brook: Yeah, and it seems like mold prevention should be maybe every mast cell patient's priority. I had an interesting experience just yesterday where my husband and I were building two little sheds outside, one to be an office for him and one to be a gym for me. And they were about 90 percent finished and we went in there to check them out, see what kind of, you know, wall paneling we'd want.

And we noticed that there was black surface mold on the lumber. So we texted the contractor and we said, Hey, what's up with this? And he said, Oh yeah, that's just surface mold. It's [00:30:00] fine. It's harmless. If you don't like the look of it, you can take some soap and water on it. So of course, then I went online and if you look online, at least I did not find any like good central authority of knowledge on this, but I found tons of opinions in both directions.

I called a couple local mold remediation places, and I would say they're not good for your limbic system because they will probably, at least the two that I called to give me the worst case scenario to probably make me want to pay for the services that they offered, which were two different services, which again is funny because you can't find any data about this online, but one wanted to use a mold bomb, and one wanted to do a dry fog process where they put chemicals in there.

So then of course you're off on this goose chase to go, look, what are these chemicals? And I guess I found myself feeling so terrible. Like, luckily for me, this is just a little shed. I [00:31:00] don't have to use it. But if it's your home and where you live, I can see where, oh my goodness, where do you turn for good information on what remediation would be like, and who do you trust to do it?

What is safe enough? Boy, it could get expensive, and I just have to laugh 'cause I do know a couple people who gave up on even trying to live in homes and now they just live in tents. They were so mold sensitive that they just went on the road. They live outside full-time now and I can completely understand it. Do you have any thoughts about like a good source of information or more or less trustworthy resources?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: So, well, no, this is a, this is a huge challenge and I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this. This is really, yeah, talk about activating, right? What you found with the total like misinformation or lots of information out there is, is part of the problem in the mold [00:32:00] space. This is really like a really

unfortunate thing in the remediation space and even in the mold treatment space.

It's just, it's just a, like a wild west. So there is a new foundation that just was created called Change the Air Foundation. They're a 501C3, and and it was started by a a gentleman who is a who's, who's actually his life's work was in remediation and who then went on and sort of wanted to to start his own foundation to help more people and along with a woman whose family was affected by mold.

And so what they're doing right now is putting together resources. I'm, I'm actually going to be serving as a medical advisor for the, for the organization. But they're really trying to compile information about all these particular circumstances and, and, and try to back it up by science. I mean, that's really the, the, the thing.

You need science to back up what people are saying, right? The [00:33:00] CDC, by the way, recommends using a bleach solution to the lumber stuff, okay? And bleach is the worst thing you can use on mold. First of all, bleach is not good to be exposed to anyway, but, but it doesn't really kill the mold and it causes some other issues, so but, that's the CDC telling us this, so who are you going to believe, right?

So, we do need, there's no question that we need more more

Information, science, and uh, and organization that can, can, can, you know, give legitimate information. We don't have that. So, at the end of the day, you sort of have to, on your own, kind of figure out what you feel best doing. Lumber mold is a huge problem.

It is probably why people wind up with very, this is sort of what I alluded to early on when I said, the building materials that people are using, right? It has to do with the drywall we are using, it has to do with insulation we're using, it has to do with the wood we're using, and where that [00:34:00] wood is being stored and being contaminated with.

So you can demand that better, you know, lumbers used, that they get wood from, you know, from that's, that's been either pre treated or has, you know, doesn't have any, anything visible on them. You have to, you have to fight probably for that. You can treat that mold in different, I mean, yeah, treat the mold and the wood in different ways.

But the concern that I have is that wood is very porous, right? So you start to put solutions on there, including bleach, which you shouldn't be using anywhere, by the way. Nobody use bleach to clean mold. I just want to put that out there, okay? Bleach does not help mold. All right. There are other, there are other products on the market that you can use.

Benefect is a thyme oil. There's another, there's a new company, I want to say, EC3 is the name of it. They [00:35:00] have a number of products that are sprays and solutions and things you can use to help with the remediation process. I, I certainly am not an expert in, in mold. So, I mean, well, expert in mold

in mold in building materials, right? That's, I'm not a remediator, right? But I am an expert in mold. So, but there are, but I think, you know, I think you can either try to treat it yourself or you have to call, like, maybe a, you need to call a legitimate inspector who can give you some guidance on what to do, but it's hard to find.

So, I don't have a great answer for you.

Jill Brook: No, it is a great answer and I feel grateful that I learned on a little shed. So I'd say to anybody out there who's thinking of building anything, it would be so trivial

to just, demand clean lumber because there's, plenty of perfect. And I'm sure if someone just spent a little more time at the lumber yard, they could get all clean wood and not worry about it.

Well, this is such a fascinating topic. Is there anything else to say about [00:36:00] mold?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: There's always things to say. Well, you know, I had this question today on CIRS, or Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. And, and CIRS is a a syndrome that a lot of people have sort of researched, think they have related to mold illness. And and Richie Shoemaker sort of came up with this term CIRS again, Chronic inflammatory response Syndrome? And the real idea was sort of to to explain what I see as the differences with MCAS. And really at the end of the day, I really think that they're the same, right?

Because CIRS is an inflammatory response to mold. And what is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome? An inflammatory response to a trigger. So in my opinion, they're the same. But somebody asked, well, are they really the same? Because and I'll, and I'll read the sort of parts of this question. You know, CIRS is thought to be a genetic defect in the innate immune [00:37:00] system based on a HLA mutation. And and, and the question is, is MCAS caused by this genetic defect? And is that how they're related? And so what I would say is that there was, there was some belief, based on some of Shoemaker's work, that there are these genetic markers that people susceptible to mold illness and mycotoxin illness. And there's been some research actually suggesting that those markers that he thinks are really important are probably not. But you really have to be careful with what you base your treatment on. I love, I love genetics, but genetics certainly doesn't dictate everything, right, the environment plays a role and there's a lot of research that needs to be done on these particular genetic things that he talks about, okay.

I don't, I don't buy that that's the cause of CIRS. I think it, it confers susceptibility. But I don't think [00:38:00] it confers the illness itself. It doesn't cause the illness. You need a number of factors for the illness to develop. So, so that's just trying to kind of, help people understand that. So some people will do the Shoemaker protocol for mold which does include some of the things I talked about, does include binders as a treatment, but then also there are other hormones and things that he uses to get through the protocol.

He uses a variety of different treatments for the nasal stuff that I mentioned, the bacteria, the fungus, there are nasal washes. It's a very involved protocol, which I certainly do parts of, but I have found that I really have the Dempsey Protocol, which you know, I will eventually publish in my book, which is really about, you know, is using the things that I think are, that work, that have some science backed information that I see in my practice makes sense with my [00:39:00] mast cell patients in the setting of other things that they have.

And so, I think that for some people, if they're getting better using a certain protocol, right, they think it's because that protocol is doing one set of things. But for all we know, that protocol may also be helping mast cells and may also be helping other things. So we just have to be careful with what we attribute what to.

I don't know if that makes sense, but that's, that's one thing that I thought I would address since, since it just came up.

Jill Brook: Yeah, because it sounds like everything's so multifactorial.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. My issue is this, that everyone is trying to find, put a name to the set of symptoms that they have. The other example, this is different, but the same at the same time, is Breast Implant Illness. Right, we've done a couple of episodes on, on breast implants and MCAS with Dr. Eva Nagy right, who's amazing, love, [00:40:00] love her.

But there's, there's a, a subset of practitioners, medical practitioners who believe that the problem is BII, Breast Implant Illness. And they're taking all the symptoms, you know, and this is all caused by the breast implant. And the breast implant is likely causing a problem, but, but it's through what it's doing to the immune system, and it's doing that through activating mast cells, and Dr.

Nagy is publishing on that, right? So, but, you know, there are, there were people who are, you know, wanting to put a name to that set of symptoms, because it does help, right? It helps to sort of validate patients, but, but, and I'm fine with that, you use whatever names you want, but I like to really understand the root cause.

And I like to really understand the why behind these different syndromes. And so CIRS, or Breast Implant Illness, or I don't know, I [00:41:00] can't think of any other, but there are a bunch of other syndromes, I'm sure. They're really, they're syndromes. They're not, they're not diseases, right? Because they're, they're syndromes are just, here's a group of, of, of symptoms and signs that go together.

But if you look at CIRS, and you look at Breast Implant Illness, and you look at Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, and you look at Lyme Disease, right, they all have the same symptoms that overlap. So I don't think they're all different conditions. I think that they are manifestations of a, of a, of a root cause problem.

So that's, that's

how I like to look at it.

Jill Brook: Yeah, and for sure, and especially if we split it into all of these little micro areas, then for one thing, we

won't

get the big brains and the big funding on the thing that really matters. If we know it's all the same thing, it can be a lot more efficient. Okay, well, boy, okay, well, I know you need to go, but you mentioned

one thing I just have to ask about, and

we can save [00:42:00] any for last time, but you're writing a book?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Yes, I am. I was, I wasn't, I was

going to keep it a secret, but I'm...

Jill Brook: Okay, well, we can be...

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Excited. As obviously there'll be more information to come, but but it's, I'm just really passionate about putting all the information into a resource. You know, for, for people, suffering with but, but also really to reach a broader audience. I really think that there are so many people who are struggling with their health and I and I want to help provide a path and, and also not just get them through the the hard parts, but also how can we live a fuller life.

How can we be as healthy as possible for as long as possible? Right. You know, some people would call that longevity. I just, I just think about it like there's, there's so much that we can do and I want to share,

uh, my knowledge with, with [00:43:00] everyone.

Jill Brook: Oh my gosh, well, we are so excited, and I don't know where you're finding the time, but yay.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: That's the problem. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. I gotta, I have to balance a

little bit, but I really want to get this book out. Okay.

Jill Brook: Well, okay, well, being mindful of time, we'll let you go, but thanks a million for all this amazing information, and boy, just

knowing not to use bleach alone, taking that nugget away, that

was worth the whole thing, I mean, everything else is so great too, but wow. Um, mind blowing as always. We just cannot all of your wisdom and experience and knowledge.

And, uh, man, thanks a million. And we still have so many more questions, so maybe we can do this...

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Let's do it again. Yeah, let's keep doing

it. This is fun. I love, I love,

I

love doing this.

Jill Brook: And to all the listeners who have written in questions and we didn't get to them yet, we, we will and thank you and thanks for listening and you keep sending in amazing questions and we're excited to get to those too. So that's all for now. [00:44:00] We'll be back again next week with a normal episode of the POTScast and we'll be back again soon with another episode of Mast Cell Matters with Dr.

Tania Dempsey as our special host. So thank you for listening, may your health be good to you, and please join us again soon.