Mold Toxicity or Multiple Sclerosis?

I haven't been able to post in awhile because of some major changes in our lives.  For the last year and a half my wife has struggled with numbness on her whole left side along with other extremities being numb including both hands and feet.  She's struggled with what we've come to call "Frankenstein legs", where her legs will literally stiffen up due to major changes in the temperature causing her to not be able to walk well.  She's had brain fog, struggled with short term and long term memory, struggled to remember words to carry on a conversation, fatigue, eye sight issues, tingling, bladder issues, struggled to walk at times and more.  This whole time we suspected it was just her MS causing issues, but a week long Cruise changed everything!

At the beginning of July we went on a Graduation Cruise for our daughter.  We worried about my wife's health and ability to participate in all of the outings we had planned, especially her balance on the Cruise Ship because of all of the walking required.  The first few days were exactly as we expected. We took our time, walked slow and made it up and down the elevator and stairs to the different decks on the Ship.  The first few days we were just travelling across the Gulf heading towards our first Destination Port, and spent the 3rd day in Cozumel riding Segways along the coastline.  During our Segway ride we had a small accident and my wife ended up falling off of her Segway due to another Segway crashing into her.  Luckily she was stopped when she fell, but I was extremely concerned because with the other issues she was having I wondered if she would even be able to walk the next day.

Not only was she able to walk, but we spent the next day swimming with the Dolphins and Sting Rays in the Cayman Islands.  She was walking OK, was able to swim with minimal issues and seemed to be doing good.  By the next day she began to notice that she could lift her left leg all the way up, which she hadn't been able to do in over a year.  She also noticed that she could feel the cold on the bottom of her feet which she hadn't been able to do in over a year.  Over the next few days her body started to feel better and better, and her walking and feeling in her left side slowly started to improve.  Again, this was after 5 or 6 days of being on the Cruise and honestly, this was a bright spotlight in a very dark time for my wife.  I knew she had become very discouraged and even had depression from the struggles over the last year and a half because we had done everything we normally did to treat her MS and nothing was helping.  Little did we know that it wasn't MS causing the issues!

We arrived back in Galveston to leave and go Home to Dallas on Sunday.  By this point, my wife felt better than she had in over a year and I could tell that even more important than that, she had hope in a very dark time.  So, we loaded up and headed home really not sure what had caused her recovery or what we were going to do about it when got home.  We arrived back in Dallas that afternoon and took naps, enjoyed some down time and headed to bed early.  At this point my wife still felt fine and was doing well, but that wouldn't last.  By the next morning the numbness had returned and she felt totally defeated.  This time the brain fog, numbness, tingling, dizziness, stiffness in her legs all came back with a fury!  We started to process what was different and went thru every step including trying the dizziness patches we wore, rest and diet on the ship, swimming, and anything else we could think of from our Cruise.

That's when it hit us!  We had seen a little mold spot in our Bathroom before we left on the Cruise so we wondered if that was the culprit.  Years ago we had to move out of a Home and City because we weren't sure if it was the environment, house or what.  We packed up and moved less than 2 hours away and all of her symptoms went away.  This time we wanted to test our theory and had the Company that was renting the House to us come and remove the mold.  Their employee came to the house and cut out the moldy piece of sheetrock, and since we wanted to keep it for testing my wife carried it to the garage.  She immediately called me because as soon as she touched the moldy sheetrock her body stiffened, she struggled to breath, her legs started hurting and the symptoms continued.  Within an hour or so her fingers started to feel like she had fiberglass in them, poking and hurting.  She wondered if she had fiberglass on her fingers from maybe handling the sheetrock and used tape to see if she could pull it out.

The problem wasn't fiberglass, the problem was her nerves.  The mold had literally made her fingers feel like she had things sticking in her fingers for hours.  We tried all sorts of things but couldn't figure out what to do.  The next day a friend suggested we try Essential Oils on her hands and feet to see if it would help with the mold toxicity.  Within minutes of applying the Essential Oil to her hands the stinging went away and never came back.  Figuring out that the mold was causing her immediate issues set us on a whole different path.  I want to write more about what we've already done, and plan to do, but I've written a long enough post for today.  I'll share more in another post about what Treatments we have already tried, where we live now, and what our plans are, but for now I hope this will help some of you that may be struggling with mold issues and don't even realize it.

If you aren't sure if you have mold, there are tests available at Home Improvement stores that you can test the air in your home along with dust and other particles from vents or other areas of your home.  I would highly suggest testing your home if you've ever thought mold may be an issue in your home.  I know that we will be testing every home we live in from this point forward.  Over the next few weeks I want to share more about our recent Mold journey, but for now I hope our recent experience helps someone.  To be continued...

No Bowel Movements Equals MS Issues

OK, this isn't a fun subject to talk about but it's gotta be covered.  Literally the whole time I've known my wife, which is over 20 years, she has had issues with her gut and having bowel movements.  If you've done any research into digestive issues and disease you've probably found that digestive problems are linked to all sorts of problems with health.  Well we can back that up with our own experience.  My wife has gone as long as 3 weeks without a bowel movement, which isn't good for your health.  Almost every time that she's had a long time between bowel movements she's had issues with her MS.  All kinds of MS symptoms seem to pop up and we've noticed that as soon as she gets her digestive system working better that the symptoms start to go away.

Lately this has even taken a bigger twist.  She's determined to get better digestive health so she's been trying different things to have regular bowel movements.  Lots of fiber, laxatives, water, even meds from the Doc to get things moving.  For months now she's struggled with tingly hands and feet, which we feel like is a symptom of issues from a broken tailbone last year so she's very aware of her body and anything that's tingly or numb.  The weird thing lately is when she has a bowel movement it causes her to tingle around her mid section.  Sometimes the tingling comes and goes quickly, and other times she starts going numb around her stomach.  This is a really weird sensation for her and the first time she's ever had these issues.

We are still trying to figure out how to get her bowel movements regular, which we know is important for her to be at optimal health.  We finally figured out how to get her stomach to stop hurting after meals which was drinking Kombucha regularly.  The only issue with that is since she isn't getting sick after meals she doesn't eliminate at all most days.  So, we are searching for a new Naturopathic Doctor locally and my wife is also going to try Acupuncture soon.  We are excited about both of these because she is sick and tired of the tingly hands and feet.  I'll try to keep the blog updated as we try things and let you know what works for the digestive health and for the tingling.  Thanks for taking the time to read our Journey!