e.m.claytor

The Mold and the Beautiful

Of Mold and Men

The Mold of Our Lives

The Mold and the Restless

Out with the Mold

These are just a few of the titles I’ve been throwing around to describe what has come to be known as the mold saga.  A saga is by definition lengthy.   It keeps going.  And going. 

And this definitely feels like a saga.  An unending saga of twists and turns, discoveries, hope, disappointment, deep pain, and new beginnings. 

Many of you are aware that I’ve been dealing with significant migraines for over a year.  In July 2018, I began dealing with on and off depression.  This was unusual for me.  I often experienced some mild depression in the winter season, but usually the summers were better.  But July 2018 was rough.  I got sick with some kind of upper respiratory garbage that felt more like intense allergies that just wouldn’t quit.  I had on and off nosebleeds.  And on and off migraines.  I was tired.  Like exhausted, hurt-all-over fatigue.  But I kept thinking it would let up.  Surely I could just change some things in my life and feel a little better.

A little background information.  I’m a wellness nerd.  At 33, I had not had a general doctor since I stopped seeing my pediatrician at 17.  I didn’t need one.  I was rarely sick.  I got check-ups as needed, but if I ever dealt with a health issue, my first course of action was always lifestyle adjustment.  At 22, I changed my eating habits and dove into natural remedies. I read up on herbs and supplements.  I spent many years contemplating going on to become a naturopathic physician as I loved researching remedies, and I saw the way that lifestyle change and medicinal herbs were powerful in healing the body.  I didn’t eat processed foods, sugar, or grains. I eventually shifted to eating a plant-based diet, and I felt great.  I did yoga regularly.  I felt healthier than I ever did as a child. 

Then everything shifted.  In October 2017 I started a new job, and we moved into a new house in December 2017.  Within a few months, I was constantly exhausted.  By July, I was dealing with a lot of depression, allergies and migraines.  I had nosebleeds (only on the left side).  I started experiencing vertigo on the regular.  Waking up and trying to get out of the bed in the mornings was a constant struggle – even on the mornings that I didn’t wake up with a severe headache.  I had constant fatigue.  But I thought surely I could adjust.  I had become lax on eating fully plant based, so I tried some slight adjustments to my eating.  I found new supplements – Alpha Lipoic Acid, D3, high dose b12 – surely something was missing.  I couldn’t be this miserable and be so healthy.

Finally, I caved and got a general doctor.  I went and had bloodwork which came back great.  I told him about the migraines that were becoming more frequent.  I told him about the weird nosebleeds, vertigo, pain behind my left eye, and scraping pain I always felt in one spot at the top of my head on my left side.  He ordered an MRI.  The concern was aneurysm.  I knew it going in – it was something I was concerned about before he mentioned it. So, in September 2018, I had the MRI.  And it came back clear.  No aneurysm!  A welcome relief.  So we determined that I was experiencing episodic migraine.  I started taking Imitrex.  Let me just say – what a nightmare.  The Imitrex side effects were awful for me – a feeling like an elephant was sitting on my body holding me down so that I couldn’t breathe.  But I kept trying.  Eventually, the migraines became worse, and I started experiencing tremors on the left side.  My left hand would tremble uncontrollably during a migraine episode.  My face would go completely numb around my mouth on the left side.  I had black spots in my vision on my left side. 

I went to the optometrist.  I had pictures of the back of my eye.  Apparently, there were no floaters (even though I had persistent black spots in my vision on the left side—and still do). My eye looked healthy, and no tumors were visible.  A relief.  But it didn’t take away my symptoms. 

I would spend 10 days at a time with headache, vertigo, tremors and nausea.  And I would continue to go to work.  I’d miss a couple of hours when I simply couldn’t continue, but I pushed myself to the limits of my body. I knew I couldn’t give myself the time I needed because I simply was not getting any better.

The only relief came when we were out of town. During vacations, I was great.  And I remember feeling human again and thinking that the Alabama weather just wasn’t working for my head. 

By January of this year, I was in a state of chronic migraine.  The pain was unrelenting. The tremors were constant.  The vertigo was more than I could stand.  I was depressed. I was fatigued.  I couldn’t pull up words.  I had constant brain fog. I was cranky. I was completely miserable. 

I went back to the doctor in February and was told that I was experiencing migraines with stroke-like symptoms and that triptan drugs like Imitrex were no longer an option (they are contraindicated for migraines with stroke symptoms).  So I got a new prescription for Fioricet.  This drug actually gave me a day when I didn’t feel like I would die. But the next day brought with it an even worse migraine – a rebound migraine. They like to call these Medication Overuse Headaches, but seeing that I had taken literally one pill, one day, and then two days later got a massive migraine, it’s hard for me to see how the descriptor is accurate. 

Sometime in the midst of all this, I ended up in the ER with what felt like a heart attack.  I had an intense nerve pain in my left side near my heart, and it began burning and spreading. My heartrate sped up, and I had trouble breathing. I intuitively knew I wasn’t having a heart attack, but I also knew something was wrong.  So I went to the ER and got my heart checked out.  Maybe mitral valve prolapse, I was told.  I was also told the caffeine in the Fioricet may have triggered it.

All this time I’m continuing to get worse.  The headache was intense daily, and it only let up slightly when we had dry weather.  But what a ridiculous rainy season.  Everywhere flooded.  It rained for weeks.  And those were the days when I was my absolute worst. 

I’m extremely laid back and rarely angry or frustrated, but I had begun to have a much shorter fuse than usual. I can remember screaming at Daniel for asking me what I wanted for supper.  I couldn’t think straight or make sense of much.  Planning dinner was impossible. I had to ask for help making decisions.  The worst part of it all was this constant inability to pull up words.  I would hybridize words and say words backwards or leave words out all together.

Again, I was working this entire time.  And it took every ounce of my energy just to go to work.  When I got home at the end of the day, I was a useless potato. I cried a lot. I thought I was going to die or be disabled forever.  I struggled to play guitar because of the tremor in my left hand.  And I certainly didn’t get any kind of housework done. I went to work. I came home. I crashed.  Repeat.

Even my guts decided to freak out on me, and I became completely unable to eat peppers, citrus fruits or take vitamin C.  I couldn’t figure out how this was at all related to migraines, but it just seemed like another part of me falling apart.

Eventually, I got so sick, I could barely hold a glass in my left hand. Even when the tremor wasn’t  constant, I had muscle weakness in that hand so badly that I lost my ability to grip.  And I noticed that my foot began to be weak as well, and at times I felt like I had to drag it behind me. 

This led me to the neurologist.  I knew something had to give, and these symptoms weren’t going away.  Thankfully, the neurologist I saw was thorough, and I underwent a battery of tests.  First, a full contrast MRI to rule out tumors.  Then an EEG to rule out seizures – because I most definitely experienced déjà vu and other symptoms of seizures.  Next, blood work to check for clotting disorder.  Finally, after discovering I had hyperreflexivity on my left side – I had another MRI to check for spinal lesions.  The letters “MS” got thrown in there due to my symptoms.  Everything. Was. Clear.

The end of June I had to present at a conference in Houston.  Daniel and I left for the week to enjoy New Orleans on our way.  We had a great trip, and I had no issues the whole time we were gone. Once again, I felt like I could live again.  On our way home, we decided it was time for me to start applying to PhD programs.  I was going to move forward and had hope that I’d be better.

One day back at home and the migraines and all the symptoms returned full force.  I was beyond disappointed. How could I even consider pursuing my PhD if I couldn’t think or process information and was in constant pain??

Then… we found it. 

One week after we were home from Houston, Daniel woke me up and told me he’d found mold in the basement.  A LOT of mold.  It was growing on the floor joists, and it had apparently been growing in a space that couldn’t be seen for a long period of time and had spread just enough for it to be visible.  Within one day, I decided I wasn’t going to stay in the house any longer.  We stayed with my parents.  Within 3 days, I was already getting better.  Within a week, I felt completely different.  There was no way I was going back to live at that house.

Even the neurologist was confident the issues I was experiencing neurologically stemmed from mold exposure and sensitivity.  It was unbelievable that I could be nearly disabled in one house, and within a week, all those symptoms be reduced to the point that I actually had energy and felt like myself.

Everyone was so happy that I seemed to have found the source of all my symptoms.  Don’t get me wrong – I was relieved. Relieved I could improve. Relieved I had an answer.  But this was not an easy transition.  And there would be much more to the mold saga.  Much more to do.  More doctors to see.  More toxins to discover.  And an entire lifetime of possessions that would have to ultimately be discarded. 

Yes, we had found the source.  But we had not yet begun the battle.

Obviously, since this is a saga, there will be additional installments. Hang tight.

Mold Saga, Part 2

Mold Saga, Part 3