Conference Highlights

Day 1

I am in Austin Texas, at The Forum For Integrative Medicine conference, Breaking Barriers: Advancing Treatment for Complex Chronic Illness.

So I will do my best to give the highlights, at least in my mind of today’s presentations.

But before I start, did everyone have a nice Leap Day yesterday????

There were 4 speakers today and the topics were mostly about Mold illness and Tic Borne disease, aka Lyme and coinfections. To sum everything up, instead of treating the mold or tic borne pathogen, treat and rebalance the systems of the body that have become dysfunctional to help clear the inflammatory response to the pathogen.

In other words, as we do all the time at the IMW, fix the following systems.

Metabolism

Immune/Inflammatory System

Nutrition

Hormones

Gut

There are many overlaps to the above systems, but treating each person as an individual, checking their Annual Wellness Test (AWT) results, and then helping to rebalance those systems goes a long way in helping people recover.

So now here are some tidbits of info. This is NOT medical advice, but just some things to think about.

1. 1 square inch of mold in a house, on wood or dry wall or other, contains on average 1 million spores of mold.

2. Mold can be found in CPAP machines as well as Keurig and other drip coffee machines. It is suggested they are rinsed out and dried every day to avoid the chance of mold growing.

3. 25% of people are genetically susceptible to mold and tend to have a harder time when exposed due to more difficulty in clearing out the toxins. This is why 2 people can live in the same home, and one gets ill and the other does not.

4. Mold spores grow when humidity is above 50%

5. Treatment for MOLD goes in 3 stages if needed. 1- Clean the environment or stay out of the moldy environment. 2- If that does not fix the issue, BINDERS are used to bind up the toxins produced from the Mold. 3- If binders don’t fix the problem, then antifungals can be used. I will add that there are many other supportive treatments that can be used alongside all of the above, but they are decided upon on an individual basis.

6. Natural Flavors that are in many food “products” only need to be 5% natural with the other 95% possibly being other synthetic chemicals. I’d avoid any food products that contain these. So look at all the ingredients in food you purchase.

7. Bartonella infection, usually tags along with Lyme, can cause thyroid receptor issues. This means people with Bartonella might need some thyroid support.

8. Both Mold and Tick Borne illness can cause Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), which can overlap with symptoms of allergies, anxiety, chronic infections and Postural Orthostatic Hypotension Syndrome (POTS).

So pretty much, Mold and Tick Borne Infections can overlap and treatment can be similar other than for Tick Borne infections many docs still use high dose antibiotics. I realize they may be necessary, but long term antibiotics can have other side effects I prefer to avoid.

Fridays topics of interest include:

• Long COVID

• Vascular pathology caused by chronic infection

• Gut Microbiome and Disease

• Optimizing the healing response

If I have time I will put out another recap post tomorrow. If not, well, you will just have to wait another day or two.

No, I have NOT yet had a real Texas BBQ. I did have a nice meal at a seafood restaurant. Don’t give me sh-t for having fish in Texas. The food was great, but the portion sizes not so much. I was hungry when I left so on the walk home I saw a food truck that served grass fed burgers, no buns, cooked with beef tallow. So good beef without the inflammatory vegetable/seed oils. So I had a 1/4 pound patty as my dessert Wednesday night for dinner. Funny thing was I was a bit tired Thursday night, and it was cold in Austin, so I had 3/4 pound of burger from the same place delivered to my hotel. It was delicious. Maybe tomorrow I will get a Texas BBQ. Keep your fingers crossed for me please.

Comments and questions always welcome.