Episode 5: Surviving and Thriving with Mold Disease

The main character in this brief history is Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker, the physician and researcher who discovered Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. Learn about how the death of millions of fish in a river in Maryland started a medical odyssey that led to the doorstep of a hidden modern epidemic. By the end of this chapter of the Heal From Mold book, you will know what killed these millions of fish and how it is very much related to how people are sickened by mold and water-damaged buildings.

Mold disease is for real! Unfortunately, the fact that the contents of a water-damaged building can harm human health is not well known and often actively opposed without any sound scientific basis for doing so. Because if quality science is given consideration, the existence of Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome is clearly real and cannot be refuted on a rational basis. This chapter addresses the skepticism head on and will give you a better understanding of what seems to be a paradox: if the science for mold disease and CIRS is so persuasive and established, why do so few doctors, insurance companies and other authorities know about it.

Chapter 1 is entitled The "F Word" in Medicine: Or Why Fibromyalgia is Not That Legit." Check out the introduction in episode 2 if you want more context. In chapter 1, we discuss the limitations of a fibromyalgia diagnosis in a rational diagnostic approach to illness, particularly mold disease. A patient with chronic fatigue and a constellation of other symptoms that defy conventional understanding will sooner or later be put into this category. Understanding CIRS requires first understanding what it is not; not fibromyalgia.

Nurse Practitioner Paula Vetter is retired from clinical practice, but hard at work completing her new book. Entitled Surviving and Thriving: A Recovery Manual for Patients and Families Impacted by Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, this new addition to the CIRS literature will serve as an accessible and invaluable resource. It is a distillation of her experience and knowledge from over thirty years practicing medicine, the last of which were focused on CIRS. Paula discusses how effective the Shoemaker protocol is and practical tools for avoiding exposure to water-damaged buildings. She discusses the importance of working with a certified CIRS practitioner and explains the significance of the pearl, "The protocol works if you work the protocol."

There is trauma to living with chronic illness. Struggles with identity. Loss of former capabilities. Altered relations with family and friends. Physical and emotional suffering. Patti Schmidt has a unique insight into these challenges as a survivor of both Lyme disease and Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (mold disease). After recovering, Patti became a therapist and health coach and, for the last four years, has served as a facilitator of support groups for patients with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. On this episode, she discusses how she met Dr. Shoemaker and recovered from her illness under his guidance, the work she does with patients and practical suggestions for patients and their family and friends for living with mold disease. Listeners can reach out to Patti at [email protected] to learn more about joining her support group.

The number one email I get about the podcast is not for medical advice. It's for advice about managing a sick building. There's few experts in the world more qualified to teach listeners about building health than today's guest Larry Schwartz. Larry is an Indoor Environmental Professional who has presented at the Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome conference and is a thought-leader in the space of scientifically validated methods for assessing water-damaged (ie "moldy") homes. In this episode, Larry gives step-by-step tips for what a home-owner should do regarding his or her water-damaged building, defines what an indoor environmental professional and remediator are and describes the critical shortage of qualified experts who understand CIRS.

I was on a run this morning and thinking about what to do for the next episode of this podcast. The first episode has been well-received generally, but it did not really cover the basics of what mold disease is. Then it dawned on me--give away your book! For free! To give some context, a few months ago I had started and essentially completed a fairly robust draft of what I hoped would be the friendliest book on mold disease. It would be directed toward patients only and presume that they did not have any scientific background. I named this pet project Heal From Mold and shelved it after a couple exhausting rounds of editing. The mission of the book was to explain to patients how mold disease worked in a way that was educational, engaging and, possibly, even fun. I wanted to use a conversational tone and be unsparingly honest in acknowledging the failure of conventional medicine in treating mold patients. On the other hand, I also wanted the book to give readers hope--hope that there were effective ways to diagnose and treat mold disease BASED IN SCIENCE. In this episode, I will read the introduction of my book. It discusses the common plight of mold disease patients being ignored or dismissed by conventional medicine. It covers how I came to discover that mold disease was real. And it outlines the evidence for the existence of mold disease.

Welcome to the first medical podcast dedicated exclusively to mold disease or Complex Inflammatory Response Syndrome, as it is officially named. Mold disease is real. It affects millions of people. It also has an effective treatment. The discovery of mold disease and a treatment protocol is primarily the achievement of one man, a physician and researcher named Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker. Dr. Shoemaker has been treating diseases related to biotoxins, like mold, for the past twenty years and, while he is now retired from clinical practice, he continues to conduct research. Dr. Shoemaker joins the inaugural episode to discuss his latest publication that explores the unique pattern of DNA-activation that occurs in mold disease. This field is called genomics and the most recent study demonstrates that use of his treatment protocol leads to a REVERSAL of the inflammatory changes that lie at the heart of mold disease. It is admittedly a technical topic but it highlights much of the promise of the high level of science for mold disease, or Complex Inflammatory Response Syndrome: objective and sophisticated testing for diagnosis and demonstration of treatment effect at--this bears repeating again--the DNA activation level!