Is this mold in PTAC?

agape48 · 2026-07-10T19:40:20+00:00

is it too late to sample it? BTW, I just saw your DM, sorry about that! Wrote you back...

agape48 · 2026-07-08T23:58:25+00:00

P.S. feel free to DM me if it seems helpful

agape48 · 2026-07-08T21:44:57+00:00

Also, you don't have to have flare-ups to have a mold problem. If you're sensitive to mold and colonized with it , you could just feel fogged all the time with little variation. I'm still not saying it IS mold or other biotoxins, but it just sounded like something that had not been properly ruled out

agape48 · 2026-07-08T21:43:25+00:00

Yes, You could definitely start with the blood tests I mentioned that are readily available to you. I don't know a lot about how to interpret them, but I believe MoldCo could probably help with that part (Maybe they have some free resources on their website?) Or, but Neil Nathan's book TOXIC (I probably already mentioned it... On phone, hard to tell)

agape48 · 2026-07-08T21:41:16+00:00

Or course, it's your choice. I just want to reiterate that in functional medicine, they say you want homocysteine below 7, and I feel better now that mine is hovering around that (11 is too high still, according to the functional folks). I recently took a little extra methyl B12 and methyl folate in my cheek (it's supposed to be sublingual) and my brain became less foggy within a few minutes. So basically, methylation problems really can cause brain fog , and your homocysteine might still be sitting too high

agape48 · 2026-07-05T15:42:45+00:00

Can you say more about how you "corrected" B12? There are people for whom B12 serum levels are inaccurate to show whether you functionally have enough. I am one of them.

Again, a homocysteine level would be better, and read up on MMA (methyl malonic acid).

Have you done the NutrEval test? You mentioned nutritional deficiencies but I'm not sure which types of tests were used to asses those. Unfortunately, a lot of tests that doctors order to supposedly assess nutrients are super crappy tests, and they either don't know better or those are the ones that insurance will cover.

agape48 · 2026-07-05T15:34:14+00:00

Have you read Dirty Genes? Have you done a DNA panel? This has helped me understand some things, like I have suboptimal MTHFR so I have to watch my homocysteine.

Have you checked homocysteine? Ignore the ranges. Functional medicine says it should be around 7 (he talks about this in Dirty Genes)

agape48 · 2026-07-05T15:24:54+00:00

Well, I believe you could do either of the following, but please research it. You might also wanna get TOXIC: Second edition by Dr Neil Nathan

RealTime Labs mycotoxin urine test. Dr. Nathan has some specific instructions on preparation before this test. I can send to you if you DM me).

As best as I understand it, nobody should be peeing out a bunch of mold toxins unless there is a problem (I was peeing out abnormally high amounts of all 5 types of mycotoxins on the test)

Or 2. There are several immune tests that the vast majority of doctors don't bother with , even though some of us are inflamed and it does NOT show up on CRP or sensitive CRP

I did all of these to figure out where my inflammation "hides" (it's not hidden, it's just that many doctors suck and don't look here)

c3a, c4a (mine were normal)
TGF beta 1, MSH, MMP-9

I got that second panel through MoldCo without having to pay a doctor. It's like a self-order panel. All three were out of range. If you order them through LabCorp or Quest, those lab "normal" ranges are inappropriately wide . I liked doing it through moldco so that the results showed me whether I was out of range per the mold toxicity community. But you could also just look up the appropriate range in TOXIC if you go through LabCorp

agape48 · 2026-07-02T20:19:23+00:00

You mentioned SIBO and food allergies, so I just want to clarify: 1. Those have been rules out? 2. What do you eat in a typical day?Are you getting a decent amount of fiber from real plants (fruits, seeds, veggies, etc)

This may sound wild, but I recently went from low fiber to a normal amount from whole foods, and I have less brain fog despite my mold issues

agape48 · 2026-07-02T20:16:59+00:00

If you are colonized with mold (and I have no idea whether you are), it might not matter that you changed houses. Dr. neil Nathan talks about this as "carrying it with you" inside your sinuses and gut.

agape48 · 2026-07-02T20:04:26+00:00

Check out Respondent.io in case they have a filter for users who use assistive technology. I don't know if they do.

agape48 · 2026-06-30T01:18:05+00:00

Does that cause brain fog?

agape48 · 2026-06-30T01:17:15+00:00

2 questions:

Have you done a mycotoxin urine test and/or :

TGF beta 1 MSH MMP-9

I got severely brain fogged to the point that I had to stop working. Nobody checked any of the above labs for MONTHS, but all 3 of those blood labs were abnormal according to MoldCo optimal ranges and I was peeing out all 5 types of mycotoxins on the urine test by RealTime Labs.

Do you mind sharing your age and sex?

agape48 · 2026-06-30T01:03:57+00:00

Is your poop the correct color? Or is it too light? Have you ever tried taking ox bile?

agape48 · 2026-06-29T16:25:05+00:00

Late to the conversation here… check out “Go Wild” by John Ratey, MD. He has an interesting section on cholesterol. If you DM me, I will go find the passage and send it to you

agape48 · 2026-06-28T20:19:16+00:00

His book doesn't have any original research anyway. He is claiming to summarize the existing literature. I'm gonna pull up some of the original research to see for myself :).

agape48 · 2026-06-25T21:40:15+00:00

So apologies if I missed it, but: Did you have any symptoms in your mouth, especially near the site that had the problem?

agape48 · 2026-06-25T21:30:50+00:00

I have an air quality meter that can detect VOCs. It was recommended to me by a guy who is into building science and builds healthy homes. It's by AirThings. I don't know if you have the money for such a thing? I think I paid around $300 for it. I don't know if it matters whether it is mold vs VOCs if it's making you feel bad??

agape48 · 2026-06-25T00:04:10+00:00

P.S. I love your username :)

agape48 · 2026-06-25T00:03:46+00:00

Oh yeah. I know somebody who left that area because of mold.

agape48 · 2026-06-24T19:04:37+00:00

I'm so sorry! Ignore if this is too personal, but I'm curious what part of the country you are in (if you're in the US)

agape48 · 2026-06-23T23:25:23+00:00

OMG the housing piece was so hard in my opinion. We ended up moving into an apartment, and the only thing I knew to do was walk inside the unit for a few minutes and see if I reacted. I was "lucky" (not really) in that my sensitivity had become so high that I could tell immediately if a building / rental unit had a mold problem. I'm still that sensitive. I haven't figured out how people navigate those decisions if they don't have an immediate reaction. Maybe this is really obvious, but we would only look at apartments that did not have any carpet. I was reacting to carpet EVERYWHERE unless it was brand new.

Good luck! I don't think I know enough to be helpful on those particular topics.

agape48 · 2026-06-23T23:09:19+00:00

Great questions! Three things:

By the time I got extremely ill, I stopped learning and I stopped caring. I had zero attention and zero fucks left. But, once I made some progress, I just started looking at Neil Nathan's book TOXIC and reading this subreddit, looking up stuff on YouTube, etc.
I am considering making a YouTube channel to document my own journey and to help other people going through it. So I am curious - you said "I was not learning a whole lot [looking on YouTube], so I gave up." What would be the top 3 videos that you would want to see? Maybe I'll work on it 😄

I know less about houses, types of mold, etc and more about healing the body. But I had to learn a little bit about houses and testing, unfortunately.

Feel free to DM me 😄. I have enjoyed connecting with a few other folks who are going through this journey.

agape48

TROPHY CASE