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Old 09-02-2018, 08:59 AM
Tinglehand Tinglehand is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Birmingham, AL
Posts: 11
5 yr Member
Tinglehand Tinglehand is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Birmingham, AL
Posts: 11
5 yr Member
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MCEC5 View Post
What made you think to check for mold toxicity in your home? I’ve often thought about this myself, but don’t really have any specific reason to believe we have mold, just another item to cross off the list...
For several years I have been cleaning a section of my hallway ceiling and wall near the top for what I thought was mildew. After reading some stuff about mold, I asked myself if what I was cleaning might be mold and not mildew. I posted my issue on a local internet neighborhood forum and got someone who said they would come out and take a look. A brief walk through and they said I had dampness in the basement but no mold, just water stains. The hallway was a different story. They said that mildew usually doesn't come off with a finger swipe, but that mold does. The hallway was NOT mildew. I took a few swipes with a q-tip, put it in a Baggie and brought it to a local lab for testing. For $40 I found out that my sample contained 94% Cladosporium and 6% Aspergillus/penicillium like mold. The former is common in the air and on both live and decaying plants and is usually not harmful to healthy humans. The later can be more harmful in high quantity, but again is airborn and common and usually doesn't effect healthy humans. People with compromised immune systems can be effected with usually asthma like symptoms, rashes and other related issues. I don't think I was effected by cleanup, but I haven't ruled it out and I am more careful now with what I hope is my final cleanup. I have sealed off what could have been the source of my mold and now I just need to watch to see if it comes back. For info it was my attic access and a whole house fan that had poor sealing which was allowing hot moist attic air to be pulled into the hallway and accumulate near the ceiling in a dark hallway. A perfect invironment for mold to grow on the flat painted surface. Yes mold can grow on paint!

There are blood tests for mold, but rarely used since mold toxicity is kind of rare.
Not to scare anyone, but if you have a mold toxicity issue, the mold literally lives off the inside of your body and eats away at cells on organs and anything else it can find. Again, it is rare and you would have multiple side effects if this was happening to your body. It is just one more thing for people with neuropathy that have been searching for root causes for years and getting nowhere to rule out.

Good luck if you pursue this further. I was lucky I found someone to check it out for free. If you hire an inspection company it will run you around $600, but you will get the entire house checked along with air quality to get some peace of mind. They will advise you on how to cleanup anything they find which down the road could cost thousands if remediation is required. If you don't have any obvious signs of water damage or mold, I think you are probably OK to cross this root cause off your list.

I hope you can use some of this info I provided to further your search for the root cause of your neuropathy. If anything, it gives us something to do in our spare time and keeps that glimmer of hope alive!

Have a great day!
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