Hey all - just moved here recently and looking for a hair stylist. I have super long hair, looking for just an all over color and a cut / someone who is decent with layers and curtain bangs. Who do you recommend? Thanks so much! <3
im writing here in hopes of hearing shared experience because i feel really sad and almost humiliated because of this.
I developed MCAS due to chronic exposure to toxic mold and mycotoxins. I'm being treated for both right now and just began a medical detox with a doctor, but the doc warned me to go super slow, and clearly I did not heed that warning hard enough because today things got weird.
First i felt incredibly and unreasonably agitated, then i got vertigo and dizziness and huge confusion, idk what mad cow disease feels like to a cow but thats how i feel? and i was like shit. I went too hard with the detox.
I was with a friend and he sat with me until I felt like I could walk again. we walked into a place to get food. within ten minutes of being in there, i got itchy hives, my head started swelling up, face feels huge pressure, bad dizziness like i was going to faint, and I've had anaphylactic reactions before.
i have an Epipen for this but i did not bring it with me so i told him i had to get out of that building and just had to cut our time short and left immediately.
was it the building? was it the food i started eating? was it the heat? what is going on.
My biggest thing is this:
I feel really SAD. I want to be "normal" again. I want to hang out with friends and go into buildings. I want to be able to do things outside of the home and have actual energy. I want to eat food without wondering if i'll have one of these reactions.
I'm trying to have patience for the process but i have felt really isolated from life because of this for a long time, and sometimes i feel like a freak because people who do not have MCAS and related conditions have zero idea what you're talking about and sometimes i wonder if they think i'm nuts.
does anyone else feel like this? like wanting to bad to just be normal and rejoin life and hang out with friends without having to rush home to take some hero dose of an antihistamine?
Would love to hear your experiences and to those who are on the road to recovery, how thats going, what it was like in the beginning when you started detoxing from mold once you got into a mold-safe living space -- anything you feel comfortable sharing I'm all ears
Hi, I really would like to hear from people who have recovered or at least made a 90 percent recovery, I'll give you brief background:
Got sick from toxic mold exposure two years ago when previously had never reacted to it -- developed MCAS, MCS, CIRS, POTS, Dysautonomia, Hashimoto's, etc, was also hospitalized several times over it for reasons I won't detail here, and wound up developing severe actual mold allergies on top of the mold illness -- didn't have any of those prior.
It's taken me two relocations and testing 30+ properties for toxic molds before I found a mold-safe place to live, I just moved in three weeks ago.
I've tried Shoemakers approach, it doesn't work for me, for several reasons.
the only thing that really moved the needle forward for me was HBOT.
Now I'm with a functional medicine doctor who leans more toward Dr Campbells approach. I started on an antifungal but still had reaction? It was a really similar reaction to the binders.
She said this wasn't normal, but didn't explain any further than that.
I'm now starting to spin out wondering if this is another waste of time and money, as this illness has literally almost bankrupted me and put me into so much debt.
She gave me nystatin to start with, then itraconazole capsules, then some nasal spray with both itraconazole, EDTA and two other ingredients in it, and I'm supposed to slowly titrate onto all these things.
I haven't been able to get to the itraconazole because i can barely tolerate the nystatin.
I hear different things from everybody. Some swear by Itraconazole. Some swear by binders. Others did neither and did something like EBOO or Kambo - neither of which are options for me.
I am just f***ing scared! I want my life back SO BADLY.
It helps a lot being out of exposure. I still have blurred vision and severe fatigue, but part of me wants to throw my hands in the air and say F this and not take any of these meds and just roll the dice.
I am trying to not be dramatic but this has been a sci-fi hell and if you would have told me mold could do this to you three years ago i would have said you were a liar because i would have never believed this was possible.
Can anyone weigh in so I dont feel like im about to start a medication that might kill me or make things 100x worse?
I hate how much BS information there is on both camps in the mold illness community -
thanks to CONventional medicine completely ignoring this issue to protect insurance companies, we now have a flooding of charlatans in the functional medicine space who largely have no idea what they are doing and I'm just really freaked out.
I've voice concerns with the new doctor I'm seeing and based on her response my faith in her went from 90 percent to nearly zero. I'm really tired of this.
I Just want to hear from people who have genuinely recovered. What did you do?
im writing here in hopes of hearing shared experience because i feel really sad and almost humiliated because of this.
I developed MCAS due to chronic exposure to toxic mold and mycotoxins. I'm being treated for both right now and just began a medical detox with a doctor, but the doc warned me to go super slow, and clearly I did not heed that warning hard enough because today things got weird.
First i felt incredibly and unreasonably agitated, then i got vertigo and dizziness and huge confusion, idk what mad cow disease feels like to a cow but thats how i feel? and i was like shit. I went too hard with the detox.
I was with a friend and he sat with me until I felt like I could walk again. we walked into a place to get food. within ten minutes of being in there, i got itchy hives, my head started swelling up, face feels huge pressure, bad dizziness like i was going to faint, and I've had anaphylactic reactions before.
i have an Epipen for this but i did not bring it with me so i told him i had to get out of that building and just had to cut our time short and left immediately.
was it the building? was it the food i started eating? was it the heat? what is going on.
My biggest thing is this:
I feel really SAD. I want to be "normal" again. I want to hang out with friends and go into buildings. I want to be able to do things outside of the home and have actual energy. I want to eat food without wondering if i'll have one of these reactions.
I'm trying to have patience for the process but i have felt really isolated from life because of this for a long time, and sometimes i feel like a freak because people who do not have MCAS and related conditions have zero idea what you're talking about and sometimes i wonder if they think i'm nuts.
does anyone else feel like this? like wanting to bad to just be normal and rejoin life and hang out with friends without having to rush home to take some hero dose of an antihistamine?
Would love to hear your experiences and to those who are on the road to recovery, how thats going, what it was like in the beginning when you started detoxing from mold once you got into a mold-safe living space -- anything you feel comfortable sharing I'm all ears
im writing here in hopes of hearing shared experience because i feel really sad and almost humiliated because of this.
I developed MCAS due to chronic exposure to toxic mold and mycotoxins. I'm being treated for both right now and just began a medical detox with a doctor, but the doc warned me to go super slow, and clearly I did not heed that warning hard enough because today things got weird.
First i felt incredibly and unreasonably agitated, then i got vertigo and dizziness and huge confusion, idk what mad cow disease feels like to a cow but thats how i feel? and i was like shit. I went too hard with the detox.
I was with a friend and he sat with me until I felt like I could walk again. we walked into a place to get food. within ten minutes of being in there, i got itchy hives, my head started swelling up, face feels huge pressure, bad dizziness like i was going to faint, and I've had anaphylactic reactions before.
i have an Epipen for this but i did not bring it with me so i told him i had to get out of that building and just had to cut our time short and left immediately.
was it the building? was it the food i started eating? was it the heat? what is going on.
My biggest thing is this:
I feel really SAD. I want to be "normal" again. I want to hang out with friends and go into buildings. I want to be able to do things outside of the home and have actual energy. I want to eat food without wondering if i'll have one of these reactions.
I'm trying to have patience for the process but i have felt really isolated from life because of this for a long time, and sometimes i feel like a freak because people who do not have MCAS and related conditions have zero idea what you're talking about and sometimes i wonder if they think i'm nuts.
does anyone else feel like this? like wanting to bad to just be normal and rejoin life and hang out with friends without having to rush home to take some hero dose of an antihistamine?
Would love to hear your experiences and to those who are on the road to recovery, how thats going, what it was like in the beginning when you started treating root causes of why you developed MCAS, anything you feel comfortable sharing I'm all ears
This is maybe going to sound dumb but my head is so foggy I'm not sure where to start. My doctor has me on a detoxification regimen for mold illness, and I have some incoming ketotifen for MCAS, along with several other supportive supplements. However I'm also told I need to be on an anti-histamine or anti-inflammatory diet and I have no idea what that means. Does anyone have a list of do's and don'ts or a website or resource for how to be on this diet while repairing a body that has gone totally haywire? Thank you for any assistance.
Hey all, new-ish to the area and looking for Yoga studios that offer Kundalini Yoga which can be hard to find. If you don't know of any KY classes, what yoga studios would you recommend in general? Looking for ones more focused on traditional/spiritual aspect of yoga as opposed to just the physical/exercise aspect. Thank you!
Hey people - I got my bloodwork back from MyMycoLab so to anyone else who has taken this test and began treatment based on these results, I REALLY want to hear from you. I know they offer a free consultation (which I booked) but they're literally booked out until September -- their medical advisor is currently seeing over 100 patients per week so yeah. I don't want to wait that long.
I do have a provider where I just moved to, but I can't get in to see her until August.
I don't particularly want to share my results here because its personal info, but it is worse than I thought, and some of the mycotoxins that I'm highest in for IgG are really concerning to me.
What did you do if you had to wait to see a doctor? I obviously can't prescribe myself Itraconazole. I have some from another doctor but IDK if it's enough to get me to see the doctor next month (if you start and stop that can be bad) -- Did you order any of the supplements he recommends? Did you start taking those immediately?
There are supplements I'm taking but I've been down the road of binders, aside from the fact that they've never been proven to work on actual humans, they don't work on me (I was made 1000x worse then I tried) just wondering what else I can do to speed this along.
Thank you.
I recently moved here and they are one of the complexes I am considering, but I like to get feedback from ppl who live there because I've had so many hellish experiences with apartments.
They are too new to have any relevant reviews, it's pretty much just people who toured the complex but don't live there.
Thank you.
New to Colorado, wanted to hear from you all - why'd you move here if you weren't born and raised, and what keeps you here? What would you tell someone new to the area?
Hey- looking for your experience on what you specifically screen for when dealing with private landlords. I'm seeking new housing now and have some anxiety around this. I've ran into some weird ones recently.
The last one I had, when I'd have a legit maintenance concern (smell of sewage gas in building, broken AC in summer) his immediate reaction was "you can leave if you don't like it" so I was afraid to bring up maintenance issues bc I thought he'd retaliatory kick me out or something. He was just unhinged.
Shit would break or need maintenance, I'd offer to pay out of pocket for a professional to handle it, he'd refuse and try to do it himself and make the problem 100x worse, would gaslight or lie about serious issues, etc.
Point being -- people lie and deceive all the time, we live in a zero trust society. Trusting someone to not be a vindictive lunatic with one of your more serious contracts (where you live/lease) is a big ask these days.
I have my criteria for things I screen for when I look at places to rent but I'm thinking I need one for landlords too.
Do you have any you're willing to share? Thank yoU!
Wanting to hear your experience, I've been through so many diff tests and practitioners and discovering there are more scammers and charlatans with med licenses than I previously thought, thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their experience!!!
The long short: I've been dealing with toxic mold exposure (including but not limited to Stachybotrys) for 2 1/2 years straight. I'm in my mid thirties and I was hospitalized for a stroke and for GI hemhorraging and the symptom list and diagnoses are literally endless.
I finally left Florida and went home (Oregon) to detox. Instead I got re-exposed to Stachybotrys, aspergillus, penicillium, walemia sebi etc and got even more sick.
So a few days ago I left and somehow managed to drive (would not recommend in this condition) to Colorado. Yes, I have discovered there is a significant mold issue here too.
This morning I had a severe reaction. I have this feeling of impending doom that I'm at the end of my life. I can't shake it.
I flipped out. I couldn't see (vision blurred and burning) I couldn't think, I could barely formulate sentences, everything hurt, and I had very dark thoughts of just ending my life because I'm about to run out of money, I've maxxed out a credit card, I'm still working but it doesn't cover medical expenses because nothing is covered by insurance, I called someone I trust and she wanted me to immediately go to the ER.
I told her no, because they don't do shit in the ER and I can't afford an ambulance or hospital bill.
She then looked up toxicologists here in CO and one of the best in the nation is here, and they are listed as treating mycotoxin illness.
I called once I was able to formulate coherent sentences (which took a couple hours) and the person who I spoke to was like... I literaly had to ask him "Excuse me, do you treat mycotoxin illness here, or do I need to go somewhere else?" This person working at a toxicology hospital/lab whatever talked to me like I was insane, or like I had called an ambulance because I'd stubbed my toe.
After telling him what I was experiencing, he goes, "so... you just like, have an allergy to black mold? like what do you want me to tell them you want done?"
To which I replied "how do you work at a toxicology department? Black mold isn't an allergy it's a literal poison and it kills people, have I somehow not given you enough information or what is it you want ---" honestly I can't remember what else I said because I was crying and my memory is shit right now.
After I listed all the on paper diagnoses and labs confirming that these mycotoxins are in my body and all that BS he goes okay, i'll pass your information along and someone will get back to you. Which I know is BS. And if someone like that works there, holy fuck that is not a good sign.
I am genuinely afraid I am going to die from this. I am also feeling completely hopeless at what seems like evil gaslighting to something that we have documentation throughout history that has killed people just by being aerosolized in contaminated grains, (see the soviets in WW2) and something that was used as a literal bioweapon in the gulf war and in the vietnam war (look into what "yellow rain" was).
How is this real. Am I fucking insane? How the hell did you get help?
New to the area - where are your favorite places in the actual Denver area that you like to walk around or relax at? Looking for a place where I can get some nature time and exercise but not necessarily driving to the mountains (or maybe?)
Hey I just want to hear from people what worked and what didn't, I will share what I have discovered so far.
For reference, I've dealt with toxic mold exposure the past two years, including black mold (but definitely not limited to). Diagnosed with CIRS, MCAS, and all the other fun stuff that I'll leave out but is associated with mycotoxin illness.
*Please don't let anything I say that didn't work for me discourage you from trying -- everyone's bodies are different, we all have different co-occurring stuff going on, our genetics are different, etc. -- if there's one thing I know, it's that this is NOT a one size fits all recovery path.
Did not work:
Shoemaker protocol - no go for me, could not tolerate binders. I discovered later this was due to the "cellular stabilization" phase being skipped with this method, which we're supposed to do before we attempt a detox. However, we are all at different levels of illness, some people tolerate binders just fine.
Endless supplements from Functional med doctors or naturopaths - no
Manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) - personally I had the kickback reaction from this (same reaction I had to binders) although that was much earlier in my recovery, i may be able to tolerate it now.
Does work:
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) paired (in same session) with targeted red light therapy -- YES. This is the only reason I am functional enough to return to work full time. It is the only thing that has (so far) moved the needle forward for me personally.
Infrared sauna - yes, definitely helps. Not as much as HBOT but it does help.
Red light therapy on its own - yes, mostly for pain / inflammation and mental health symptoms associated with this.
Eyedrops with Ketotifen (Zaditor is the name - you can get it at Walgreens) - Ketotifen is a mast cell stabilizer. This works like a charm for burning eyes and blurred vision, way better than other anti-histamine eyedrops.
Things I want to try that I haven't yet:
Dr. Andrew Campbells method. I want to get the actual blood serum antibody test to measure what is *still* in my blood (urinary tests can undersell because what we excrete is not what is keeping us sick) and honestly, I want to try Itraconazole.
I know he suggests specific vitamins / supps / diet in tandem with itraconazole. I want to find out what those are, but obviously I want to make sure it won't make things worse (i.e. taking glutathione when you have gliotoxin in your body which makes things worse)
Would love to hear from people who have noticed legitimate improvements, or someone who has been on a certain path for a long time and can speak to it, or whatever you'd like to share.
Hey everyone. I may be moving here. 36F. Remote healthcare worker by day - singer, songwriter, spoken word/slam poet by night. I'm at least gonna check it out beginning of May and see how I like it. What's it like for artists and/or single people in their 30s, and how's the housing situation? If you're not a Denver native, what's something you wish you knew before you moved?