EiR Blog

Being a homeowner is never easy, especially when you're dealing with chronic illness, and the last thing you need are major unexpected problems. Unfortunately, that's exactly what my wife and I suffered recently when a central heating pipe burst and flooded our main living room. Aside from the immediate inconvenience of moving bulky furniture and fixing the leak, I soon began to worry about other consequences, particularly the possibility of persistent mold growth and the potential consequences for our health. Mold and its spores are nothing to be sniffed at - excuse the pun! As a study published in the journal Environment International explains, exposure to these mycotoxins has been linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver disease and immunosuppression. The last of these includes illnesses such as chronic sinusitis, which my wife suffers from (and is currently treating with the Breathe Easy Kit), and possibly chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) which I have lived with for 25 years; in...

As regular readers will be aware, I was unlucky enough to be struck down with a chronic illness as severe and life-changing as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) at the age of just 11 years old. But was it really just "bad luck" or did environmental factors - specifically toxic mold exposure - play a role? This is something I've been considering carefully lately and wish to share with you.  Being just a child at the time, I obviously wasn't concerned with the "hows and whys" of what caused this annoying and frustrating illness, or the ramifications it would ultimately have for me and my family. All I wanted was my family doctor to give me some medicine to cure whatever was wrong. He had of course done so many times before for the recurrent ear, nose and throat infections I'd experienced growing up (mold-related themselves perhaps?). Surely I'd be back riding my BMX on the...