Mold & Chemical Sensitivity

One thing tripped me up for a long time about mold illness: how mold, a biological organism, can cause sensitivity to chemicals.

Pondering this question a few months ago, I realized it was not mold itself that made me chemically sensitive.

It was mycotoxins.

This often confuses others because they don't understand that mycotoxins are separate entities from mold spores. Spores are essentially seeds. Mycotoxins are gases that certain molds produce. Some of these toxins are so powerful they have been used in chemical warfare.

After my body was flooded with mycotoxins, it could no longer distinguish one kind of chemical from another. When I came into contact with a perfume or cleaning agent, my immune system reacted like it attacked by mycotoxins again. I wouldn't die from the chemical exposure, but my body didn't realize that. So it reacted as if I would: headaches, exhaustion, burning lungs, brain fog, etc.

For a long time, whenever I was exposed to chemicals, I thought I would die if I didn't get clean air. So I listened to my body and sought uncontaminated oxygen.

The best part about life on the wind is that I can travel to places where at oxygen is accessible.

Fresh air has been the key to becoming less chemically sensitive. It's been an odd and unexplained path, as the less I was exposed to chemicals and toxins, the greater the sensitivity when I was exposed. But in late summer of 2013, the sensitivity peaked, and ever since, I've slowly become less reactive to chemicals.

Mycotoxins raise alarms as much as ever, but I can get a whiff of sunscreen now and enjoy pleasant memories of the beach. Without feeling like I will die. I still search for clean air immediately, and I will never wear any chemicals myself again, but my body is finally beginning to tell the difference between man-made chemicals and nature-produced mycotoxins.

Now, perhaps, others will understand the difference between mycotoxins and mold. Mold is a living organism; mycotoxins are a non-living chemical.

Mycotoxins cause chemical sensitivity, not mold.

~Janelle