When you walk through your front door, the last thing you want to worry about is whether your home is making you sick. But if you’re dealing with unexplained chronic symptoms—fatigue, brain fog, headaches, or sinus issues—it might be time to consider an often-overlooked culprit: your environment (aka your home!).
Mold and actinos (actinomycetes) are common but silent invaders that can unfortunately lurk in your home, contributing to Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) and other chronic health problems.
As a functional nutritional practitioner, I’ve seen firsthand how constant exposure to these toxins can wreak havoc on your health. That’s why I recommend that you check for mold, endotoxins, beta glucans and actinomycetes in your house with in-home mold testing as a crucial first step in identifying and eliminating these harmful substances so we can get you started on your healing journey.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the most effective tests you can use for detecting mold and actinos, why these mold testing kits matter, and how to take action if you find something concerning.
What Are Mold and Actinos?
Mold is a type of fungus that loves to grow in damp, humid places like bathrooms, basements, and kitchens—basically, anywhere that's had water damage (but doesn't necessarily have to! Mold can even show up behind walls of new builds, under carpets, and even in your coffee and water filters).
The spores are tiny and can easily go airborne, making them super easy to inhale. You've probably heard of some common indoor molds like Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, and the notorious "black mold," Stachybotrys. These molds can produce mycotoxins, which are toxic and can cause a range of health issues.
Actinos, or actinomycetes, are a group of bacteria that are part of the normal flora in the human body, and they also also thrive in moist conditions such as water damaged buildings (WDB). There are actinos found in soil, compost, and decaying vegetation but can make their way into your home via shoes, pets, or even open windows. Actinos can also colonize the human skin and penetrate the skins layers and enter the bloodstream, triggering inflammatory responses and leading to CIRS in gentically predisposed people. While mold often does not produce a smell, Actinomycetes have a musty smell and can settle in areas with poor ventilation. Just like mold, they produce harmful substances that can cause health problems when inhaled or absorbed through the skin.
Mold produces mycotoxins while actinomycetes can produce endotoxins. Mycotoxins are toxic metabolites that can mess with your respiratory system, skin, and immune system. Endotoxins, on the other hand, are part of the outer membrane of certain bacteria, including actinomycetes, and can lead to severe inflammation and immune responses when you inhale them.
How Mycotoxins and Actinomycetes Affect Your Body
Cellular Damage: Mycotoxins can cause oxidative stress, leading to damage at the cellular level. This stress can disrupt the normal function of your mitochondria—the powerhouses of your cells—leading to decreased energy production, chronic fatigue, and increased susceptibility to other illnesses.
Immune System Dysregulation: Actinos and mycotoxins can severely impact your immune system. They can suppress immune function, making you more vulnerable to infections, or trigger an overactive immune response, leading to chronic inflammation. This chronic inflammation is at the heart of many autoimmune diseases, cancers, and other chronic conditions.
Neurotoxicity: Mycotoxins can cross the blood-brain barrier, leading to neuroinflammation and brain fog, memory issues, anxiety, depression, and other cognitive impairments. Long-term exposure to mold and actinos can contribute to more severe neurological conditions and exacerbate mental health issues.
Endocrine Disruption: These toxins can interfere with hormone regulation, leading to imbalances that affect your thyroid, adrenal glands, and reproductive system. This disruption can manifest as hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, menstrual irregularities, infertility, or even early menopause.
Gastrointestinal Distress: Mycotoxins can cause significant harm to your gut health, leading to increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut), which allows toxins and undigested food particles to enter the bloodstream. This can trigger food sensitivities, chronic digestive issues, and contribute to systemic inflammation.
Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS): Mycotoxins, actinos and endotoxins are major contributors to CIRS, a complex, multi-system illness triggered by exposure to biotoxins. In CIRS, people who carry certain HLA haploypes innate immune systems become perpetually activated, leading to widespread inflammation and symptoms affecting multiple systems, including the respiratory, neurological, and musculoskeletal systems. Symptoms of CIRS can include fatigue, joint pain, headaches, cognitive dysfunction, gastrointesinal dysfunction, shortness of breath, and skin issues, among others.
Check out my previous article here: Can Exposure to Mold Cause Anxiety?: The Silent CIRS Threat to Your Mental Well-being
If you’re dealing with unexplained chronic symptoms, persistent fatigue, brain fog, or worsening autoimmune conditions, mold exposure could be a key piece of the puzzle. Functional medicine approaches this by identifying the root cause—mycotoxin exposure—and creating a personalized detoxification and treatment plan to restore balance in the body. This might include binders to remove toxins, support for mitochondrial function, gut healing protocols, and strategies to reduce inflammation.
Addressing mold toxicity isn’t just about getting rid of the mold in your environment—it’s about healing your body from the inside out. This comprehensive approach can help you regain your health, reduce chronic symptoms, and protect against future illness.
Can I test myself for mold exposure?
Yes, there are at-home tests you can use for detecting mold, Actinos, and endotoxins in your home and as well as mycotoxins, and actinos that may be showing up in your body. There are specific biomarkers associated with CIRS that can futher assess how these toxicants may be affecting your health.
Why Home Testing Is Essential for Preventing CIRS and Mold Exposure
The symptoms of CIRS and mold exposure are often vague and can be easily mistaken for other conditions. That’s why it’s crucial to test your home environment if you suspect that mold or actinos could be contributing to your health issues. Home actinos and mold testing can help you identify the source of exposure, allowing you to take steps to eliminate it and begin the healing process.
How to Detect Mold with The Best Home Tests for Mold and Actinos
ERMI (Environmental Relative Moldiness Index) from EnviroBiomics: The ERMI is test offers a comprehensive assessment of mold presence in your home by analyzing dust samples for 36 different mold species. This detailed approach yields a moldiness index score, which can quantify the severity of mold contamination and inform appropriate remedial actions.
HERTSMI-2 from EnviroBiomics: The HERTSMI-2 test is another dust test that targets five specific mold species (Aspergillus penicillioides, Aspergillus Versicolor, Chaetomium Globosum, Stachybotrys Chartarum, Wallemia Sebi) commonly associated with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). This one is cheaper compared to 36 for the ERMI.
EnviroBiomics also has dust testing options to assess the home for actinos, endotoxins, and beta glucans. Test panel #31 is a comprehensive panel that includes HERTSMI-2, actinos, endos, and beta glucans.
Actinos Skin Swab Tests: If you’re concerned about how actinos are affecting your body directly, skin swab tests can provide insight into what’s being absorbed through your skin. This test is looking for a number of different actinos species including both naturally derived from outdoors, Soil habitat (SH) and human habitat (HH), which are more problematic for our health. Actinos can penetrate the layers of the skin and enter the bloodstream where they can generate toxins and activate the innate immune system, resulting in chronic inflammation.
What to Do If Your Home Tests Positive for Actinos and Mold
Functional Medicine Approach to Address Mold Toxicity & CIRS
If your home tests positive of mold, we will dive deep into functional lab testing and personalized treatment plans to get rid of the toxins and get your body back into balance to address your CIRS symptoms and prevent chronic illness from manifesting any further.
Here's where we may start…
Biomarker Testing for Overcoming Mold Toxicity
Urine Mycotoxin Test: Identifies the presence of mycotoxins, which are toxic metabolites produced by mold.
Blood Tests: Checks for markers of inflammation and immune response.
MARCoNS nasal swab: Multiple Antibiotic Resistant Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (MARCoNS) can colonize and thrive deep in the nasal passage. MARCoNS produces endotoxins and interferes with our immune system and increases inflammatory repsonses within the body.
Once testing confirms mold toxicity, a personalized detoxification plan is key. This plan should be developed in consultation with a functional medicine practitioner and may include the following components...
Complete Elimination of the Sources of Exposure (mold, actinos, endotoxins, beta glucans)
To effectively get rid of biotoxin exposure, you need to bring in an Indoor Environmental Professional (IEP) to assess and identify where the source of mold, or other biotoxin is coming from and to discuss proper remediation plan. This may include bringing a remediation specialist who can thoroughly remove mold from your home. Hiring professionals to assess and remediate mold, actinomycetes or endotoxins found your home is crucial because DIY solutions may not be enough to fully eliminate the problem and may even contribute to even worse symptoms.
I also recommend implementing some practical environmental controls like using air purifiers with HEPA filters, running dehumidifiers, and ensuring your home is well-ventilated to prevent mold from coming back. These steps can really make a difference in keeping your home safe and your health in check.
If your home tests reveal the presence of mold, actinos, or other harmful substances, don’t panic, but here’s what you can do next to make sure you are taking the proper action steps in your home and for your body.
Ongoing Cleaning and Maintenance of The Home
After remedation of the home has occured it is important for your IEP to conduct a post-clearance testing of the remediated areas. This should include retesting the home with HERTSMI-2, Actinos or Endotoxin tests.
Once all remediated areas pass post-clearance testing, it’s important to encorporate ongoing cleaning, insepection and occasional retesting of the home determine the general health and condition of the property and to maintain a healthy environment.
Supporting Your Body’s Drainage & Detoxification Pathways
To support your body’s detoxification, work with a functional nutritional practitioner like myself to develop a personalized plan to support your body’s detoxification process.
This may include specific supplements, dietary changes, and other lifestyle adjustments.
To help your body detoxify, I'd recommend making some dietary changes that really focus on reducing inflammation. Think about incorporating whole, nutrient-dense foods like organic vegetables, lean proteins, healthy fats, and even some homemade fermented foods to support your gut health.
It's also a good idea to steer clear of foods that tend to harbor mold, such as coffee, peanuts and other legumes, corn, wheat, dairy products, and store-bought fermented foods. And don't forget to drink plenty of purified or distilled water to keep your kidneys functioning well and help flush out toxins.
Supplements can be a huge help in this process too but please work with a functional medicine practitioner to get personalized recommendations of effective, high quality supplements. Taking the wrong supplements could make symptoms and conditions worse or buying supplements off of Amazon could not even be effective and a waste of time and money.
Using specific binders to assist in removing toxins from the body. Most commonly I am using MycoBind or BioToxin Binder. If these don’t work I may call in the help of a provider that can order prescriptions and use Cholystramine or Welchol. For liver support, supplements like milk thistle, N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), and alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) can be really beneficial. To give your immune system a boost, consider taking vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc. And for reducing oxidative stress and inflammation, antioxidants like glutathione, resveratrol, and curcumin can make a big difference.
You can also use a variety of detox tools to help your body cleanse its toxin load. For example, spending time in a sauna, especially an infrared one, can help you sweat out toxins including mycotoxins. Mycotoxins, which are fat-soluble, can be excreted through the sweat glands, aiding in the detox process
Simple lymphatic drainage methods like dry brushing, massages, and gentle exercises can get your lymphatic system moving and help flush out toxins.
Making these changes might seem like a lot at first, but they can really support your body in detoxifying and getting back to feeling your best.
Lifestyle Adjustments for Overcoming Mold Toxicity & CIRS
Incorporating lifestyle adjustments can significantly enhance your body's detoxification processes and overall health from a functional medicine perspective. Here's why these practices are beneficial:
Practice Stress Management Techniques: Mindfulness, meditation, and yoga can reduce your cortisol levels, which is crucial for detoxification. Having high cortisol can impair your liver function and gut health, which are both essential for toxin elimination. These practices also improve your vagal tone, enhancing the body's parasympathetic response and supporting optimal digestion and detoxification.
Get Quality Sleep: During sleep, your glymphatic system - the brain's waste clearance system - becomes more active. This process helps remove toxins that accumulate in your brain throughout the day. Plus, sleep is when the body performs most of its cellular repair and regeneration, including in detoxification organs like the liver.
Engage in Regular Exercise: I highly recommend getting in daily movement and exercise to boosts circulation, which is vital for efficient toxin removal. It enhances lymphatic flow, helping to clear cellular waste. Exercise also increases your glutathione production, a key antioxidant involved in detoxification processes. Sweating during exercise can help eliminate certain toxins through the skin, though this is a minor pathway compared to the liver and kidneys.
These lifestyle changes work together to support your body's natural detoxification pathways, particularly by enhancing liver function, improving gut health, and reducing oxidative stress - all crucial elements in the functional medicine approach to detoxification.
Professional Support
Throughout the detoxification process, having a functional medicine practitioner by your side is crucial. We will customize a plan to fit your unique needs, making sure that everything you do is safe and effective. Regular consultations can help tweak our plan as we go, offering constant support and guidance.
By embracing a functional medicine approach to mold toxicity, you can effectively get rid of toxins, reclaim your health, and prevent mold-related issues from cropping up again. It's all about taking the right steps, tailored just for you, to get back to feeling your best.
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Your home is your haven, a place where you should feel safe and comfortable. If you've been feeling unwell and suspect that mold or actinos might be the culprits, taking the step to test your home environment can be a game-changer. These tests can give you the clarity you need to start improving your health and well-being.
Don't wait to take control of your health. If you're ready to tackle these issues head-on, let's talk. Book a call with me, Eli Priest, Functional Nutritional Practitioner, and together I'll help suggest at-home mold testing kits and we'll go over your home testing results. We'll craft a personalized plan tailored just for you, so you can get to the root of your mold toxicity symptoms so you can start feeling like yourself again. Your health is worth it, and I'm here to help you every step of the way!
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