Allergies, Mycotoxins…Or…Both?

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We were very hopeful driving to Durham on a sunny but cold February morning to finally get some answers about our health conditions and we would not be disappointed! After going through the usual first visit intake routine and standard vitals check with the nurse, the doctor, a former Navy ENT, did a very detailed and thorough check of our entire ear, nose and throat area. He immediately noticed our inflamed sinuses and saw the postnasal drip. He also identified my deviated septum – no doctors had ever mentioned that before – and I learned a lot about the correlation between allergies, deviated septum, pressure changes during air travel, head colds and sinus infections.

Long story short: lots of air travel creates pressure changes that irritate sinuses. A deviated septum reduces the sinus drainage. Allergies and colds produce lots of mucus. If mucus can’t drain properly it builds up in sinuses and creates a perfect breeding ground for viruses and bacteria that over time turn into a sinus infection.

His next evaluation was having us take a Visual Contrast Sensitivity (VCS) test. This test measures one of the neurological functions called contrast. The test leads one through a sequence of striped white and black circles that decrease sized stripes. Contrast sensitivity deficit is caused by nutritional deficiencies, alcohol/drug/medication consumption,  insect/snake venom and, also, by mold produced mycotoxins. We both failed this test miserably and the doctor explained that since the test was highly accurate, and based on our other symptoms, plus the mold in the beach condo we lived in that we likely had mycotoxin poisoning. For quantitative confirmation, he ordered mycotoxin testing via urine samples.

As my gastrointestinal issues were significantly worse than Dani’s and not improving, the doctor also took blood samples for food allergy testing. He also suggested we stop our allergy medicine for a week and be retested for environmental allergens via a skin prick test.

Now the waiting game started as we waited for the results of the tests to come back. The doctor already gave us a quick download on what to expect next: detoxing to clean our body. He explained that the body is like a camel’s back – it can take so much of different influences, but at some point, the final straw is too much for the body to handle and symptoms start. So we needed to reduce how hard our immune systems were working by eliminating the toxins in our body and triggers that we were continuing to expose our bodies to. We just had to make it easier for our bodies to fix themselves.

It was a good day ! We finally found somebody who not only understood what we were going through for all those years, but actually had a solution to address the root cause and help us get better.