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...

Moving Back Home

After moving our family to Colorado, we have now moved back home to Texas.  Colorado was a total bust for our jobs and our lives, so we took a big step and moved to Texas to start a business.  We've been working in non-profit work for the last 6 years, but I think we are ready to move on from that career.  So, we've been back in Texas for a little over a month now and have started our new business.  We are continuing with some of our online businesses also, but this new business is a brick and mortar business selling Safety Supplies and Equipment.

The moves have been hard on my wife's MS.  Moving is a stressful activity physically, and it's mentally taxing especially when you are moving to a new area and a new job.  For my wife, it took a few weeks for her to acclimate to Colorado and I don't know that any of our family ever acclimated completely in the 5 months we were there.  After the stress from the job started to increase due to bad management, we knew that we needed to make a change.  We've learned through the years that some things are not worth holding onto, and our jobs were not worth the stress it was placing on our family.

So, we decided to step away from a regular paycheck and start our own business.  This has been stressful in itself, but my wife and I are both working hard to make this work.  We have extremely supportive families which I know has helped my wife's MS, and is helping our new venture.  We are excited about the future and so far my wife has had very few issues with her MS in Texas.  When we first unloaded she was struggling with some dizziness and we immediately found a Chiropractor.  After 2 adjustments she's been doing great.  It still amazes both of us that her body responds so quickly and so efficiently to Chiropractic.

I guess the one thing that we have learned through the last few years is that you have to take control of your life, and sometimes that means moving 7 hours then turning around and moving 12 hours only 5 months later.  It's been tough but it's been a very healthy move for our whole family.  Hopefully this new career will give me more time to write and share as we experience new things in Texas.  Hope everyone is doing great out there, and thanks for taking a moment to read about our lives! 

Multiple Sclerosis Dizziness

Through the last six months my wife has worked extremely hard to listen to her body as she is having issues to see what she can do to help.  One of the issues she struggles with off and on is dizziness.  Sometimes its dizziness that leads to vertigo type symptoms and other times it's more of an annoyance that she just deals with throughout the day.  One thing she has learned is that she can stop the issue with rest and water, and if she drinks a lot of soda or tea it can bring on the symptoms.

This last week we went out to eat after a stressful day.  She and I both drank sweet tea and she drank 3 full glasses.  After driving back to the our offices, we were standing around outside the vehicle and the dizziness hit her.  Within minutes she could feel her head spinning and knew she needed to get home.  She went home, laid down and drank water and the dizziness went away.  I think it amazes both of us how quickly her body reacts to things, whether good or bad. 

She knows she has to drink plenty of water to keep her body hydrated and pays for it when she doesn't.  Years ago when we first started researching Naturopathy and how to treat MS differently, the first seminar I went to was on how dehydration affects MS and other Auto Immune diseases.  Since then, my wife has tried to make sure she drinks plenty of water every day and finds out really quickly when she doesn't drink enough.  The only other treatment we have used for dizziness is Chiropractic, and she is adjusted regularly so usually we don't have to take a special trip to the Chiropractor for dizziness. 

Dizzy, Light Headed, Nausea with MS

Last week my wife hit a point where we knew we were going to have to take action or watch her continue toward a full on MS attack. We went to see our special Chiropractor and immediately she started to feel better. Normally it takes a few days for her body to get back to some kind of normal state, and this time is no exception. Over the last few days, she has had moments of dizziness, feeling light headed, nausea and a general feeling of being woozy. It seems to hit out of nowhere and sometimes lasts just a few minutes, and at other times it goes on for an hour or longer. This has only made her car sickness worse, and she has been having to lay down and rest a lot.

I can feel her frustration with her body not cooperating. She is trying to finish up our taxes, and she hasn't been able to focus on much due to dull headaches. The Chiropractic visit helped to stop the immediate threat of vertigo, and we will probably go back this week to make sure her vertebra didn't just move back out of place. This is a four hour round trip for us, and we wouldn't do it if we didn't feel like it truly made a huge impact on her health. I guess I have learned there are no magic pills, magic diets or other get fixed quick treatments for Multiple Sclerosis, just persistent warring again the disease and constantly learning to find new ways to make daily life better.

Spinning Head With MS

Yesterday my wife woke up feeling pretty good, other than an unsettled stomach. She met me for lunch and right after she arrived home, her head started spinning and she began to vomit. She wasn't able to leave the bed for the rest of the day, with her head spinning. By mid afternoon her head hurt so bad that she wasn't able to sleep, and she was trying everything to relieve the pain and spinning. She wasn't able to sleep well through the night, and woke up feeling worse. From the time the spinning started, her body struggled to regulate her body temperature. She would become overheated easy which made the feelings of sickness even worse.

This morning I offered to take her to our Pro Adjuster Chiropractor and she felt like she would get better as the day went on. Around lunch time she showed up at my office struggling to stay on her feet, dizzier than the day before. We immediately contacted the Chiropractor and headed the 2 hours to see him. He adjusted her in about 10 minutes and she began to feel the rush of blood flow and feeling spread through her body and head. After about 10 minutes her headache had subsided to a dull pain and her dizziness was almost gone. After another 30 minutes we were sitting in a restaurant eating, with her continuing to feel better, laughing and talking like nothing was wrong. It still amazes me that a simple adjustment can radically change her well being.

While at the Chiropractor's office I spoke with him about the CCSVI research I have been studying. I explained the lack of blood flow due to twisted veins, especially the jugular veins, and asked him how the adjustments might affect this issue. As we talked about my wife's specific issues he adjusted each time she visited, he pointed out that the C1 and C2 vertebrae were always an issue for her. He explained to me that the jugular vein can easily be affected by these two vertebrae and that today was no exception. He also explained that a Chiropractor adjusts to affect nerves, but an Osteopath adjusts for blood flow. We talked for some time about how both of these issues, nerves and blood flow, are affected by adjustment and how my wife can see such drastic results from the adjustments time and time again. I am definitely not a doctor, and I am only passing along what this particular Chiropractor spoke to me about, but it sure does seem to make sense after he explained how the adjustments could be affecting the blood flow and potentially a CCSVI issue. We will continue to work with Chiropractic care until we decide whether we are going to pursue the Liberation treatment. I can honestly say that we are very excited about the future and my wife's health, and am very pleased with the current treatments we have found to help along the journey.