Mold: The Immune Trigger You Can’t Afford to Ignore
What do to about Mold, an Immune Triggering Event
When it comes to your immune system, mold isn’t just a nuisance—it’s a triggering event that can set off a chain reaction of inflammation, gut dysfunction, and chronic illness.
In this episode, we explore how environmental mold—often invisible and underestimated—can keep the immune system stuck in overdrive. You’ll learn why mold exposure, especially in children’s early years, can distort immune balance (TH1/TH2), block detoxification, and create a perfect storm for other toxins like heavy metals, glyphosate, and bacteria to take hold.
We’ll cover:
Why “low moisture readings” don’t mean you’re safe from mycotoxins
How mold toxins act like gas, continuously off-gassing from walls—even after water damage is “fixed”
Why mold exposure often includes bacterial toxins, pesticides, and other environmental stressors
The hidden signs in your labs: low iron, poor nutrient absorption, thyroid autoimmunity, oxidative stress markers, and more
The best testing options for mold exposure: mycotoxin, organic acids, mold antibodies, VCS, and targeted bloodwork
How we help clients recover: detoxification strategies, immune modulation, gut healing, nutrient repletion, and addressing lingering infections
If your immune system has “lost its common sense” and seems to react to everything—or your child can’t seem to get well—this episode will give you the insight and next steps you need.
Please note that transcripts may contain minor errors or inaccuracies. We hope you enjoy reading them and find them helpful.
Hey, hey friends, we are back at Hey, You're Gonna Be Okay. I'm Elizabeth and today we're gonna continue our conversation on mold. In part one, we talked a lot about how mold toxicity shows up and how it can quietly wreak havoc on our bodies and especially our kids. And today we're gonna talk about what do we do about it. Here's really where I wanna start. Mold is a triggering event when it comes to your immune system, okay?
That means if we want to restore balance to the immune system, whether it's for ourselves or for our kids, we want to restore health that we have to address the environment. So those are the two big steps, know, multitrigging of it. Balancing the immune system, address the environment, and really addressing the environment and balancing the immune system have to happen at the same time. And then balancing the immune system will persist. That work will persist once the environment is clean.
Now, we oftentimes have other stuff to clean up, right? Nutrient depletions, that can be a part of what happens with mold. We can have nervous system, limbic system all out of whack, but I will tell you, we have seen in practice that when we clean the environment, we get the person in a safe clean environment, and when we balance their immune system, oftentimes the limbic and the nervous system issues kinda take care of themselves. So.
When it comes to your immune system, mold is absolutely a triggering event. Why is the environment so important with mold? Well, to me, this seems kind of simple, right? The environment you are in or your child grows up in, even more so, is really, really critical, especially in the early years. You hear me talk a lot about mold in kids versus mold in adults because in those early years when the immune system is still developing and learning what is friend and foe, right? So the immune system of the child in those first six to eight years,
Its job is to basically judge everything that comes in contact with the child. That's why we want our kids to get dirty. That's why we want our kids to experience bacteria in the world. Because the immune system is going to identify like, this is streptococcus bacteria that just got blown in Katie's face. Katie's immune system goes, gets the streptococcus bacteria, now we don't have strep. We have good immunity against strep. The same is true of mold.
Really, if any pathogen, the immune system in those early years is learning. So if and when a child grows up in a moldy environment, you can imagine that their immune system is confused. It's kind of just like the old adage around, if you put a frog in boiling water, right, he knows. But if you just turn up the heat slowly, he has no idea. Same thing, if the child has been, was in utero in a moldy environment, was born and brought home to moldy environment, remains in a moldy environment, that immune system is never gonna develop.
appropriate tolerance to mold and know that that isn't Katie's body, for example, is not going to combat it over a lifetime. if the environment isn't stable, if there's mold or other triggers in the child's life in their environment, their immune system continually gets activated as well. So say you live in a house that has radon that's not mitigated. The immune system is regularly being activated when it comes into contact with the toxicity. Same for toxins in our water. Plenty of clients who've discovered...
like old cast iron pipes that are just nasty, copper pipes, those sort of things leaching into the water source, well that little person's immune system is constantly activated around that toxic exposure. Mold is no different. It's like an alarm system on the immune that won't stop ringing. And when that happens, other issues in the body happen. The gut stays inflamed, detox slows down, their immune system starts.
starts to lose a sense of what's dangerous and what's not. The same can happen in adult. That's why mold is triggering event because the immune system loses its tolerance. It's like, I don't know, is strep a problem? Because we thought mold was a problem, but Elizabeth's breathing it in all the time. So me, the immune system, I'm gonna just, I really worry about the strep because we're exposed to that a lot. And you can start to see how the person, their health will cascade. So.
This is where we start seeing those imbalances between TH1 and TH2 immune responses. If you want to learn about that, go back to those first three episodes of the podcast in season one where we talk about TH1 is the killer side of the immune system, TH2 is the inflammatory or inflammation, puffiness, allergies, that side of the immune system. It's like the immune system loses its common sense. It reacts to things that it shouldn't when the body's in a moldy environment and then it stops reacting to things that it should.
So it's not just mold, like I said, like when there's water damage, we're also doing with bacteria, with lipopolysaccharides, with endotoxins, with mycotoxins. So anytime there's water damage, you have a lot of things piling on top. Again, all this piles on top of other things in our environment, right? So we're exposed to so much more glyphosate, or round up the active chemical that's used as a herbicide.
It's used in a lot of ways, which is really fascinating, but it's an issue, right, in America. Thalates, BPA, chlorine in our water, even low levels of molded mycotoxins can become a big problem when you think about these cumulative exposures. And here's what I want you to hear, is the more toxicity that we can remove from a person's environment, the healthier they will be. So sometimes we feel like cleaning out our cleaning products and turning them into cleaner items or using vinegar and baking soda instead of...
bleach, whatever it may be, we feel like this is so many things to do and so much work and these are expensive but truly if we can take the total load off of the body, we can allow the body, we basically raise up the body's ability to work. No, you can't always just do that for everything, right? We can't just clean everything up and then still live in mold and expect to have perfect health but all those little incremental steps that you do to clean up environment exposures, to be outside more, to have more.
a oxygen-rich environment, those things really matter. But also, even when water damage looks dry, even when inspectors say that moisture levels are fine, mycotoxins can still be released like a gas from your walls. So say you've had water damage before, mold developed, there's ongoing mold, ongoing wetness, I'm sorry, you can still have the mycotoxins being released from your walls or from wherever the water damage occurred. So if you've had a wet basement and the concrete,
has some staining, maybe there's the carpet was wet but it got dried a couple days. There can still be mold underneath of that in the subfloor and the carpet padding and even though don't see it, it can still be releasing mycotoxins. That is why mold is tricky, right? Because maybe we don't have a wetness right now but there was wetness before. And when you get into houses, we don't know who or how our homes are taken care of before we were there and honestly sometimes we don't know all the parts of how our homes were taken care of when we were there. So what do we do?
What do we do for the human body that has been exposed to mold? First, we're gonna test, okay? Some of the tests that we use to get a clearer picture. And there's nuance to these tests. No test is perfect, okay? I would say that even a blood work, right? We have this expectation that testing will solve my problems. It can. But also, we see blood work deviate, and it's one snapshot in time. So some of these tests that we use, again, are gonna not be perfect. A mycotoxin test. This is typically a urine test.
This tells us if you are carrying a mold toxin load. This shows us what the body is excreting toxin wise, mycotoxin wise. So it's not going to tell us exactly like, Elizabeth is exposed to Stucky Botryst in her home and Aspergillus niger. No, it is going to show us the particular types of mycotoxins, which can be really helpful. And that can actually show us a lot because we can deduce from certain mycotoxins where they came from.
But this test is usually a urine test and it's something that we'll use to track things over time. A lot of times too you'll see somebody in mold releasing just a little bit and then we started on a protocol and you will see them release a ton and then a few months from now they'll continue releasing more and mycotoxins. All of that depends on so many factors. Is the person still exposed? Is maybe the person exposed at work or daycare?
Is the person carrying a lot of visceral fat because the body will store mold mycotoxins in visceral fat to keep organs and circulating blood safe So mycotoxin testing is great. It helps us really see if there's a big problem It helps us track kind of progress and it does track things out into the mycotoxin. So we know, you know, they'll be like ochratoxin A Mycophenolic acid
There'll be aflatoxin in one. And you can deduce and work backwards. Gliotoxin, we know where these things come from or what group of molds they come from, and so that helps us to kind of understand and think through like where maybe could these things be? It also is correlated to various health impacts, okay? So something like okratoxin can create a lot of GI toxicity, can create a lot of carcinogency. That would be basically leading to cancer, right?
We can see a lot of nephrotoxicity. It's very toxic to the kidneys. So if I have someone who comes in and is struggling with kidney and liver health, I'm always considering mold and mycotoxins now or in their history. Organic acids test, another urine test that is used more broadly. Mycotoxin really is gonna be what you wanna see to see what mold we're being exposed to levels. The beauty of an organic acid test, one, it's a urine test. Two, it's looking at
yeast in the body. So remember fungus loves family from last week's episode. If there is mold in the environment we're often going to see a rabinose on this test elevated indicating candida issues. We're also going to see some metabolites of aspergillus molds and fusarium molds and we can again kind of deduce like there's probably some fungal issue in this person's environment and then we can also see if there's been colonization in the body by using the oat. So if I'm living in a moldy environment regularly
I can have colonization in my nasal cavity. I can have colonization in my gut, right? The mole just needs moisture. Where do I have moisture? All inside of me. And so that mole can come and live and essentially be poisoning me repetitively. Some of the beauty of an organic acids test is it gives us some bacterial markers. It gives us Clostridium markers, which Clostridium family bacteria will take advantage of a body that's compromised by mold and mycotoxins. And then we also see oxalate metabolites. Those are gonna be affected by mold.
and mycotoxins, we're gonna see things like mitochondrial markers, you're gonna see neurotransmitter markers. Lots of really good info that just tells us about the general state and health of the body. At the time of testing, we're also gonna see several nutrients, so it gives us lots of tools for helping to put that body back together. It gives us info around folate metabolism, methylation, how the body is able to deal with some of that toxic exposure, and it's just a really helpful test for us to check in on fungal load.
and then body function to kind of give us a pathway on how to get out. But really for the purposes of mold, the organic acid test is to see what mold has colonized in your body. Is there mold literally living in the body? It's kind of, it's high point. Mold, antibody testing can see how your immune system is responding. A lot of times I'll have people come in and say, know, I did allergy testing, am I allergist and I'm allergic to mold. Okay.
A body should be reactive to mold. We should have a reaction. It's when we have really, really high antibodies to mold. That is when we have more of a concern. And if a body's been exposed to mold for a long time, you're gonna see higher, higher antibody numbers. But for me, that's not really super helpful. I also live in the Ohio Valley in the Kentucky area, and so a lot of people are going to have mold.
and antibody levels elevated, especially towards the end of summer, going into fall, because the fungal load and humid climate is quite a lot. So they're not really the most helpful. A VCS test, this is a really inexpensive test you can do online. You can just Google a VCS test, I think it's vctest.com, and it's basically a visual contrast sensitivity testing. So you're gonna go through on your computer screen and look at a bunch of pictures, and you're gonna have to say which one is having more contrast here or there.
and it sends you through this series of pictures to look for mold exposure effects on the eyes, neurotoxin exposure effects on the eyes, Lyme disease effects on the eyes. It's also gonna help us look for Sears, chronic inflammatory response syndrome, and it's really so inexpensive, non-invasive, if someone's thinking about not testing for mold.
isn't open to it, VCS test is so inexpensive and easy and we can just pop right through it. I think it's like 15 bucks and I think you can buy a few at a discounted price. It has some pretty good data behind it. We love that and it is really, it's so easy. You can have the kiddo do it, who can talk and who can more than talk. need to be able to discern contrast but it can be a really helpful, easy.
you know, like low hanging fruit kind of tests for us to kind of see. And sometimes for me too, if I'm hearing lots of mold and Lyme symptoms because they mimic one another, I'll have the client do a VCS test to get me a little more information on how the eyes are being affected. other testing in blood work. What are we going to see in traditional blood work? So you may go to your doctor for your annual checkup or just to try to get some kind of baseline. And there are things that we can see. They're not always going to be there. I've seen plenty of people with
beautiful blood work who are living in so much mold, but a lot of times these are the things we're gonna see deviated. Low iron and ferritin, ferritin being your iron stores. We're often gonna see an underactive thyroid and thyroid antibodies showing autoimmunity. Think about where your thyroid is, right? It's here in the throat. We breathe in mold spores, we breathe in mycotoxins.
It's a pretty sensitive organ, it can absorb, it's going to respond, it's also gonna slow things down when it's affected. And then those thyroid antibodies are there, that's the immune system trying to clean out trash in that thyroid area, right? So we tend to think of traditionally antibodies as autoimmune, they're just attacking the thyroid tissue. Yeah, well that's true. Immune functional immunology shows us that the immune system is not dumb.
It goes and does things for a reason, on purpose, right? So there was something in that thyroid that provoked immune cells to start infiltrating that area. A lot of times, mold can be that. Low zinc levels are another thing. Zinc is a really important nutrient for the immune system. If your immune system's been dealing with that mold ongoing, we're gonna see low zinc levels. Elevated eosinophils, this is part of your CBC with differential, one of my most favorite. Most inexpensive, I think it cost us $4 to order.
You can get most any doctor to run it and if they won't you can ask them to note your file that they won't run it and they will run it. But it's going to give you maybe your five main immune cells split and that's going to help us to see and think about what infectious issues or exposures are you dealing with. it's not, it's definitely you have to have someone who understands how to look at it. But it can be really helpful and expensive data. Low bilirubin or other signs of oxidative stress. Sometimes we're going to see elevated.
Billy Reuben as well, a lot of times we're gonna see other liver enzymes, other liver markers elevated, depressed one way or the other. But those things are important to think about. Your liver is a filter, your kidneys are a filter. We're gonna also sometimes see kidney markers be off. We can see electrolyte markers be off or very imbalanced persistently. That's another flag for me that maybe there is mold. Poor vitamin and mineral absorption over time is something that I'm gonna think about with mold. If someone's really, really depleted,
I'm always wondering like what's been here depleting and breaking down their body. Like we talked, fungus is a decomposer. So that's always something that's curious to me. And then again, if someone has evidence that other infections have taken hold, if they have cyclical colds, they have cyclical sinus infections, they can't get rid of their Epstein-Barr virus or mono. They're always having small intestine bacterial overgrowth. They're always having GI issues. Nothing is getting them anywhere. That tells me that we're probably looking at mold illness. Now.
How do we at Hey Hey May help the body recover? We have really, really wonderful outcomes for our clients, mostly because we're ruthless and we've all been through sickness and we wanted to be done with it. so understanding functional immunology and how the immune system keeps the body safe, keeps the body well is the key. Now, when we look at cleaning the environment, when we look at cleaning the body, those things are important.
but the immune piece is really, really important. So this is what we do. We start by addressing the environment. Because if mold is still in the home, the body cannot heal. Lots of things we can do. We're gonna talk testing and what to do when you suspect mold in your home on the next episode, and then we're gonna get to talk with a mold inspector, which is exciting. So we're gonna address the environment. We'll unfold that a little more next time. Then we're gonna support detoxification and drainage pathways so the body can start clearing out the toxins. A lot of time, toxins will...
clog those systems basically, they overwhelm the body. The body has to use things like hydration to do other functions to deal with the incoming toxic exposure and not so much pushing things out. So we really work on drainage and detox. We wanna make sure that our body is draining well. Toxins have to be leaving before I can push anything out of your body. That's so important. That's why people get sick. Really, really sick when they start any kind of protocol, they crash.
because there's not adequate detox and drainage pathway work been done. Really important. Another key part of our process is we're gonna balance and modulate the immune system. We're gonna calm down those overreactions at the TH2 side that's like really inflammatory and food reactions and allergies. We're gonna calm that side down while we're gonna support the body's ability, that killer side to go and purge and clean house, get the mycotoxins out, get the molds out. We're gonna help balance the immune system, help.
restore the immune system's tolerance of mold, we're gonna make sure that it knows what is mold, what is the body, and it stops attacking those tissues instead of attacking the actual problem. We're gonna replenish what's been depleted. When you have lived in or experienced mold, you are absolutely gonna be depleted in vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, manage inflammation, nobody's more inflamed than a mold client. We're also gonna support the integrity of cell membranes, okay?
That's a whole nother talk for another day, but it's a really, really key piece in restoring the body from the ground up, from all of those cells that have been harmed by the mold and mycotoxins. Another key part, and why people don't often get better after mold is we are going to address the chronic infections that have taken hold while the immune system has been suppressed. More often than not, we see a ton of streptococcus because that's present in our normal microbiome. It's in our ear, nose, and throat. For many of us, it's in our gut.
and when the body is suppressed, we're gonna have an overgrowth there. We often see C. difficile or clostridia family infections. We often see a lot of small intestine bacterial overgrowth. If I take you out of mold and I'm not addressing your gut issues, if I'm not addressing your circulation issues, your numbness, your neurological problems, I'm not getting you better. So we are ruthless about addressing those other infections, repleting what's been depleted, making sure that we're restoring function. And of course,
The last and most important pieces we're working on healing and sealing the gut and other barrier systems in the body. We think of the gut as like our only barrier because we understand it as a leaky gut, right? Your brain can be leaky, your lungs can be leaky, your skin can be leaky. So we wanna make sure all those barrier systems are strong. If in their season of living in mold, they were not able to police that mold, they're gonna be weak. We're gonna need to heal and seal the gut, make sure that the brain
blood-brain barrier is intact and in fact protecting the brain from toxin load, lungs, all those things. We want to make sure they can do their job of keeping the bad stuff out and the good stuff in. Listen, if this is sounding overwhelming, please hear me when I say you don't have to do all this at one time and you absolutely don't have to do it alone. Healing after mold exposure is absolutely possible. I've done it twice and it's something we walk through with our clients gently system by system at your pace. We totally equip you.
in finding help to remediate, in knowing what appropriate remediation is, in looking for people who can do a really great inspection and understanding testing. If you wanna learn more about how we help families recover from mold illness or if you're looking for support, you can always find us at heyheymay.com. You can always find me on Instagram too at heyheyelizabethmay. Tons of information there. We've got some really great mold articles on the blog to help get you started in testing in your home. And of course, next week we're gonna talk about
cleaning the environment, then we're gonna move into inspection. So thanks for listening today. I hope this gives you a little more clarity and mostly a lot more hope because healing from mold is possible. And hey, you're gonna be okay.
