Show Notes

• Camilla Thompson Mould Safe website
• Nicole Bijlsma Unstress Podcast
• VCS online mould eye test
• Nutripath Mould test
• Australian College of Environmental Science website
• Toxic Mould Support Facebook Page
• Dr Sandeep Gupta Unstress Podcast
• Surviving Mould website

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Introduction

• 02:15 – Camilla Thompson’s Background

• 05:30 – Understanding Mould Safe Living

• 10:00 – Identifying Mould in Your Home

• 14:20 – Tips for Maintaining a Mould-Free Home

• 20:15 – Nutrition and Wellness Tips

• 25:30 – Listener Questions

• 30:00 – Final Thoughts and Takeaways

• 32:00 – Outro

Camilla Thompson on Mould Safe Living

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Unstress. My name is Doctor Ron Ehrlich. Now, before I start, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I am recording this podcast. The Gadigal people of the Eora nation pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. Well, today we are going to be exploring a problem that could be going on in many of our homes without even knowing it and wreaking havoc on our health. And when that happens, and you really don’t know what’s going on, this is an important thing to, become aware of. It’s mould, it’s water damage within houses. It’s damp. That causes mould and the mycotoxins which affect it. My guest today is Camilla Thompson. Camilla has been a health coach and executive coach. She’s a certified nutritional health coach. Mental health First Data has studied epigenetics and neuroplasticity. Camilla is also the co-founder of Select Wellness, a company that specialises in the design and delivery of bespoke strategic mental health and wellbeing programs. And it’s what does some very big companies like Canva, Atlassian, PwC, Woolworths, Microsoft. It’s quite a list and she’s coached many high profile executives and leaders across those various industries. Now more recently, Camilla has co-founded Mould Safe and a company. This is a company that offers mould testing and remediation, as well as supporting people living with mould and and and the health effects of it. And she draws on her own personal experience, which she shares with us today. It’s a fascinating discussion, a problem going on at least in a third of our modern homes. And, as I said, often completely overlooked by the medical profession, who themselves are ill equipped, ill equipped to recognise, diagnose, let alone treat the problem which sadly is, you will hear, can go undiagnosed for years and can have devastating effects on people’s lives. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Camilla Thompson. Welcome to the show, Camilla.

Camilla Thompson [00:02:18] Thank you. It’s wonderful to be here on. We finally made It to do our podcast. We’ve been talking about this for a while, haven’t we?

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:02:23] We have, we have been. The subject, of today is really about mould, which I think we’re going to learn a lot about how how ubiquitous and what a problem it is. But you came into this, this interest in this area through personal experience, as often happens in health. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about it. Tell us how it all happened.

Camilla Thompson [00:02:45] Yes. Well, I was living in the eastern suburbs, in Rose Bay, in a rental home, beautiful old home, the oldest house on a very, expensive street. And our landlords were Polish. They were in their 90s. They’d been through so much in their lives and so many atrocities, and they weren’t really concerned about keeping and maintaining the property. It was one of their sort of priorities. And we had so much bad weather over the years, like really bad storms. And, we’d had water damage on the house. It had been sort of banded and fixed up over the years, and I lived probably for about eight years, unknowingly in mould. So we knew that there’d been water damage. We didn’t really know or understand the effects and impacts of mould as much as I do now. So we could sort of see, but it was an old property, so it’s very hard to kind of tell the extent of the damage. I had ongoing illnesses for about eight years, just recurring, immune system problems. I had bulging eye infections, constantly dehydrated. Felt like you had a permanent hangover, that you’ve been drinking red wine, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t drinking, so there was a lot of very sort of recurring strange symptoms that I was experiencing. But I kept going to doctors. I was going to local GP’s and saying, I’m not well, I keep getting sick. I keep getting viruses. I’ve got immune issues. And they just kept doing blood tests and saying there was nothing wrong with me. So we kind of went round and round around for many, many years. I saw naturopaths, kinesiology, you know, anyone and everyone I could try to get to help me. So yeah, it was it was a very overwhelming time. In the end, I actually got told by a doctor that it was in my head and that I was choosing to be sick. So that was that was a lot to take on. Pretty confronting. And unfortunately my husband as well at the time because he wasn’t sick, in the house, he, he, he thought that maybe it was psychosomatic and that that wasn’t actually anything wrong with me. And I kept thinking I was ill.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:05:00] How frustrating. But not uncommon. I mean it’s so interesting isn’t it, that unless we can put a label on it very quickly because most, most we’ve talked about this several times where most GP consultations are 10 to 15 minutes if you are lucky. Yeah. Getting a complex, story is frustrating for the practitioner and the patient, and and if the result is, particularly if the doctor or practitioner doesn’t know about something, then it has to be all in your head.

Camilla Thompson [00:05:34] Absolutely. And GP’s have no education or training and mould. They don’t even know how to test for it. So there’s no available tests that they can do for mould. Occasionally you’ll come across a GP, he’ll say, oh yes, I’ve had a patient that had mould on his lungs once or something, but it’s they are just absolutely clueless. And I don’t mean that in any way. Insulting about mould, illness and Medicare do not cover any of the tests that are available. So it’s it’s it’s very hard to get a diagnosis. And that’s the problem. 25% of us of the population have, what I call the mould gene, but it’s actually a specific gene, which is part of the coeliac family, and it’s the HLA Dr. or DK gene. And that gene means that we can’t actually get rid of mould. So we’ll inhale mould spores, and then they stay in our body and they disrupt all of our systems so they’ll disrupt our hormones. Immune system. Every system in our body gets disrupted by the mould and we can’t physically detox it. Our body does not know how to do it. So 25% of us are walking around with this gene, which means that we can’t. Find and get rid of mould. So we have to use binders to do so. So you have to actually go through protocols and programs. A lot of people follow Shoemaker. And that means that you can actually start getting the mould out your body so that your body can start to regulate again. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, there’s a lot of long term damage and a lot of long term illnesses. You’ll see things like lyme’s, a lot of autoimmune. I have something called sirs. For the rest of my life, which is a chronic illness, chronic, inflammation response syndrome. So it’s actually a syndrome here, that I have from being poisoned and exposed to mould.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:20] It is interesting, isn’t it? And you experienced this yourself with your husband. Who? They’re in the same house as. You had a different response. And this is where it’s another one that is frustrating, not only with the practitioners on the one hand, but, hey, I’m living in the house with you. I’m not. But what is all this? You know, like nothing’s wrong with me. Yeah. And, and this is getting back to a whole model of health that we’ve talked about on this program for many years, about life thing and balancing between, on the one hand, stressors and on the other hand, building resilience. But the whole balancing being pivots on your genes and how your genes express themselves 100%. And that is a very big thing to consider and explain why one person gets it and the other doesn’t. So thanks for sharing. Yeah, that’s a really important point. And we’re going to talk about, what you can do about it. You mentioned Shoemaker, who I know we’ve done some programs and I know that that protocol is is really the gold standard, and we’ll come to that. But tell us how you eventually did and uncovered that this was, in fact, the problem.

Camilla Thompson [00:08:30] Yeah. So I ended up going on a detox. I went on a, bone broth detox with, there’s a guy in Sydney that makes his own bone broth. And I went on that. And in the bone broth thing, you had to take clay and lots of other sort of funky, weird concoctions that he’d made, and I did that for a week. I felt amazing, and it was the best I felt in years and years and years, and I, I couldn’t work out why I felt so good. I now know with hindsight, it’s because there were actual binders in some of the stuff that I was taking in the detox, so it was getting rid of some of the mould. So I felt great for a week. And then after about two weeks after that, I went really downhill and I ended up, I was pretty much bedridden. I had what’s called a sort of mimicking arthritis. So my body was like an old woman. So every bone was cracking. It was hurt. It was painful for me to walk. I went back to the doctors. I said that there’s something seriously wrong with me again. Blood tests. We can’t find anything wrong with you, you know. Go away. Pretty much.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:09:33] Mcmiller. Were you still on the bone broth?

Camilla Thompson [00:09:35] No, no, I did it for a week. Yeah, I did it for a week. Felt amazing. And then I went dramatically downhill, so it must have got rid of some mould, but then also opened me up to then, I don’t know.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:09:46] Getting this. I know bone broth. I mean, it’s a great thing there are some wonderful properties to it, but it’s also can be quite high in histamine as well.

Camilla Thompson [00:09:55] Well, this is possibly. Yes. So great point Ron, because I think this is possibly what happened is that I felt good for a short period of time, but then I aggravated my, my condition. Interesting. So yeah. So I was bedridden and, didn’t know what to do. Was feeling completely hopeless. And, you know, depressed. My mental health was all over the place. You get with mould, it really impacts your mental health. So your anxiety goes through the roof. You can get very upset and angry. Something called mould rage, we call it. But that’s where you just can’t cope and you’re so overwhelmed. A very good friend of mine came over to the house and she’d been working for a mould remediation company in Sydney, and she came into my bedroom, and she’d been convinced that we had mould in the house. We couldn’t see anything. So this is the thing. There’s four people in a home. My husband, my two sons, my youngest son kept getting sick. So did I, but my oldest son and my husband were fine, so we really weren’t aware that it was our house making a sale. So my friend came over and she just looked in this cupboard and she said, Camila, you’ve got serious water damage here. And she opened up a cupboard in our bedroom, found the mould, showed us what it was, then went into my mattress that was mould in my mattress and my bedside tables and my blinds in our bathroom. I’ve everywhere around us was. There was mould and markings that I didn’t realise were mould. Because you typically think mould black and sometimes it isn’t. So there was all these different forms of mould that was growing in our house. She then went to all the different rooms of my house and found mould in every single room. My youngest son was one of the ones that was really bad as well and my home office. So I’ve been working all day. So I was working all day and sleeping and mould. So I was really. And obviously I have that gene, so my body wasn’t getting.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:11:46] Where you want. We were on the ground floor where you would. Was it in? Yeah.

Camilla Thompson [00:11:50] It was. It was a solid ground floor and our landlords lived above us. So, yeah, within 24 hours, we had to evacuate the house because it was so bad. And we had a team come in and do all the testing. So they came in and did you know similar. I know you’ve had Nicole. Just more on this. On that.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:12:07] No, no, please tell us again because this again, we cannot hear this off. Yeah.

Camilla Thompson [00:12:10] So they came in and tested. So they did air sampling and surface sampling and they we got the reports back very quickly. And we were just told, you’ve got to get out of this house. It’s not safe for you to be living here anymore. So and we couldn’t take any of our belongings because everything’s contaminated. So if you take stuff with you, you’re going to then contaminate another space, another area. So we spent three months living in a marrison apartment. Once we got out of the house, we realised the mould was bad. Finally, I could go to a functional doctor and I could get tested, for mould, which I did, and hope and go. Yeah, I was riddled with mould.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:12:48] So what was the test that the functional doctor did that was different from all the other blood test your GP had done?

Camilla Thompson [00:12:54] Yeah. So the functional doctor has access to a lot of other blood tests that that the regular GP’s don’t. So they actually did blood tests. The blood tests aren’t 100% reliable. The urine tests are actually much more reliable. I wasn’t offered that at the time, but that’s what I now recommend people to do, is to do the urine, because that will show what types of moulder in your body. And it’s very accurate.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:17] Interesting.

Camilla Thompson [00:13:18] But yeah, nature path do a lot of testing. So I did lots of blood through them. I also had something called Mark on. So the mould was growing up inside my nose and going into my brain. And so it was growing up in this area here. They can’t test for that in Australia. So you have to be swabbed and that gets sent to the US. And then they test that in the US. And that came back that I had my cousins growing up here.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:41] So mould in your nasal cavity going up to.

Camilla Thompson [00:13:44] Your brain.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:45] Sinuses in the brain and the brain. Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s a really is this is so interesting to hear you talk about this because we I mean, I’ve been interested in mercury toxicity in dental materials for many years. And one of the paths to the brain, the shortcut is through the nasal passage. You can’t get much quicker than that. So it’s so interesting to hear you talk about mould as being in, in, in that area as well. And the mark on am I con I’m correct.

Camilla Thompson [00:14:16] Yeah. With an S mark cons. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:14:18] That is a test. You do a swab of the nasal passages and send that off and you.

Camilla Thompson [00:14:24] To the US. Yeah. Wow.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:14:26] Okay.

Camilla Thompson [00:14:26] Yeah. Interesting.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:14:28] And so, Camilla, we’ve got urine, which is a good test indicator, but we’ve also got this mark on test.

Camilla Thompson [00:14:37] We’ve got the mark on test. There’s also, a test you do online, which is an eye test which can tell I think it’s a kind of what it’s called now. I think it’s bcoz or something like that. It’s, it’s four letters or maybe three. And this is another thing that moulded my brain is finally coming back. But your cognitive my cognitive functioning was so impaired from mould as well. Like I couldn’t remember anything. It’s it’s, I have to say, because I’m now in perimenopause, it’s very similar to the menopause brain when you with mould, it’s it’s it’s very similar. But yes. So those those are the test. But what’s, what’s quite overwhelming is that they can’t get rid of the mark ons until you’ve done all the other steps of the protocol of the shoemaker. So you have to some white to fix this. This is the last thing you fix is up here. But then you know it’s there and it’s growing and you just have to to live with it. So it’s not a particularly, pleasant thought. And, you know, that moulds up there.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:15:34] So, so okay, you’ve you’ve been living in this house, and somebody comes along and points out to you that in fact, it’s everywhere. Yeah. And yet you’ve missed it. Yep. And then you’ve been going to blood tests for years and it’s been missed. And you’ve had now these functional tests done. And, and I will, I will look up that visual test because, I’ll put that in the outro because I do I have heard of that.

Camilla Thompson [00:16:05] Yes. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:16:06] And it is an interesting one. Two. Yeah. And then you, you move out and I presume, I hope where you move two there’s a big one is not in mould as well because this is.

Camilla Thompson [00:16:19] Oh that was the hard part.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:16:20] This is the hard part because, because I want to get into the shoe maker. We’ve mentioned it twice already. But but it is interesting isn’t it. Because you move. And this raises the issue. How big a problem is this. And we live in well, we live in an area where we’ve just had the most torrential rain. Yeah. And that’s not uncommon in Sydney and or. Yeah. Yeah.

Camilla Thompson [00:16:44] But we’re living in a mode crisis run like this. This I’m. It is shocking. And, we’ll talk in a minute, but I’ve now set a business up supporting people with mould. So I’m talking and listening to stories every day, and it’s it’s heartbreaking what people do in particularly in social housing, elderly people in retirement villages, you know, daycares like, it’s it’s shocking. But yeah, we are living in this crisis. 1 in 3 people are living in mould in New South Wales, and at least of half of people have experienced mould issues that live in, Australia. So it’s we live in an environment that’s absolutely primed for it. So, you know, we’re having these extreme weather conditions, then it warms up. We’ve got the humidity. People are ventilating their homes properly. They’re not using dehumidifiers. So that whole prevention piece and acting quick after a weather incident isn’t happening. People aren’t educated around it. There’s so much misinformation about mould. What.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:17:41] Are some what are some of that. What what is some of that misinformation.

Camilla Thompson [00:17:44] Well I mean and a great example is something you could buy in Bunnings called Exit Mould. Yeah. Which actually feeds mould. And when you spray directly onto mould it releases the spores. So when you spray these sprays you’re releasing more spores. You’re actually feeding the mould. It’s a it’s a food source. So it’s a living organism. So it gets rid of it. It bleaches it, but it’s still there and it’s still living and it will keep coming back. So that is just something that’s been marketed to us, which doesn’t fix or kill or do anything but mould. Yeah, mould has to be mechanically removed so it gets into porous materials. So the remediation process is is very complex. It’s not a case of wiping it away and hoping it doesn’t come back. You know, it’s it’s a living organism and it’s very clever. So we have to treat it in a way of removing it completely and then removing the spores from the atmosphere as well. So it’s it’s quite a scientific process.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:18:40] And I think also where, where water gets under a carpet or into Gyp rock, which is a very common. Yeah.

Camilla Thompson [00:18:48] It has to be removed.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:18:50] Cut chip rock walls are ubiquitous in Australian building. Yeah. And once Jip Rock is wet, I mean.

Camilla Thompson [00:18:58] You know, but this is the problem is, how is the way that houses have been built as well and built on slabs and not enough ventilation. And so it’s we really are in a crisis here in Australia. And the industry is not regulated, for mould remediation. So people can get a quote for someone to come and do something from $600 up to 4000, there’s no regulation. There’s so many dodgy practices that are being used to remove mould. Thankfully you’ve got training now from people like Nicole from Aces who are training people to do the building biological sciences.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:19:33] Nicole Bushman. Yes. Australian College of Environmental Science, I think it is, yes.

Camilla Thompson [00:19:38] Yeah. Something like, if it.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:19:40] Is a regular. Yeah. A regular guest on this podcast. Yes.

Camilla Thompson [00:19:44] So, but the remediation side of it. So Nicole does the testing site, we also through my business mould safe. We also do the remediation site. Gail, who’s the lady that found mould in my house has been working in this space for ten years. So she I always call her the queen of mould remediation, which she hates. But, she really is amazing. Like, there’s no one that knows more about getting rid of mould than her. And. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:20:09] Gail, you mentioned her name before.

Camilla Thompson [00:20:11] Yeah. So that’s the lady that found mould in my house, my friend. But she’s now my business partner. So we’ve set a business up on the coast. Central coast now, helping people.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:20:20] Yeah. So? So, it is a big problem. A third of houses affected by it. 25%. A quarter of people have a gene that makes it impossible for them to deal with the toxins it produces, which goes a long way to explain why many in the house may be okay, but some in the house have devastating symptoms that are frustrating and difficult to diagnose. You mentioned you’ve had the test done and you’ve, you know, the different tests, but you’ve also mentioned the Shoemaker protocol. Before we came on, we were talking about detoxing and biohacking. Tell us a little bit about how you overcame some of those issues using that protocol.

Camilla Thompson [00:21:02] Yeah, absolutely. Well, it says a whole diagnosis process. So you there’s criteria for you to go through before you get diagnosed with says or mild illness. And that sort of is in alignment with the Shoemaker protocol. And it has mixed, sort of feedback now about Shoemaker. And there’s a lot of other practitioners that are using different ways to treat mould, but that is, as you said at the beginning, that is kind of the gold standard. So you have to get blood tests, you have to have a certain level, of mould in your body. You have to have mark ons as a whole sort of criteria, for the Sirs diagnosis. But the Shoemaker protocol involves using different things. Things like colostrum. We call it CSF. So colostrum is a binder and that’s part of the Shoemaker protocol. And what that does it’s it is a drug that was used around cholesterol. But it’s what they use. It’s the go to for mould binding. And you take that every day. And the problem with colostrum is a lot of people are very sensitive. So when you’ve got mould poisoning you’re highly sensitive. So I am so sensitive to I have, low tops, completely, almost chemical free in my house. My makeup, everything I put on my body is as natural as possible because you your sensitivity has become so heightened when you’ve had mould disrupting your system. So a lot of people, some people can’t do colostrum, they can’t take CSM. It’s just too much for their body. I got quite sick when I first started taking it, and then I had to half the dose and then my body started getting used to it. But the thing that’s quite full on with the Shoemaker protocol and doing the colostrum as well, is that you have to we’re going to talk about poo, but, you.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:22:52] Know.

Camilla Thompson [00:22:53] We need to talk more about I think.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:22:55] But we’ve done a program similar on what does your poo say about oh good. Okay. So don’t you worry. Our listeners are, well, ready to talk about poop.

Camilla Thompson [00:23:05] Good. All right. Let’s talk about poop. So, yes, you have to. The way we get rid of mould is we put it out. So the simply. So if you don’t have the gene you ingest, you mould spores, your body goes, oh, yuck. I don’t like this. I’m going to get rid of it and you pull it out. If you’ve got the gene, it goes into your body, but it goes, oh, I don’t know what to do with this. It’s just going to have to stay in here. And then it goes, oh, I’ll just go and do this and that and disrupt your whole body. But the colostrum that binds but it also bugs you up. So you have to go to the toilet every day when you’re on colostrum. Otherwise what happens is it binds all the mould which becomes really concentrated in your body. And then if you don’t expel it, if you don’t excrete it and get rid of it and go to the toilet, it then goes back into your body. But it’s it’s even worse because it’s stronger and more potent.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:51] So does this colostrum cause constipation?

Camilla Thompson [00:23:54] It can do. Yes. Can do. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:56] So we need to deal with that as well.

Camilla Thompson [00:23:58] So then you have to take high dose magnesium citrate I think. Yeah. it’s been a while. Gosh. It’s been I can’t think how long it’s been since I went through probably 6 or 7 years ago. Maybe five years. So, but anyway. So. And then you have to take something to help you go to the toilet. So it’s. I lost a lot of weight. Like, a lot of weight, because you’re eating, you’re binding, and you just trying to go to the toilet all the time. It’s it’s it’s a very overwhelming process. But. And you’re just panicking that you can get it out your body all the time, and then it’s not going to reinfect you. So it is a lot to do it. There are other options. You can use charcoal. I use charcoal for quite a while, but that ended up damaging my gut lining as well because I was taking that for too long. Some softer options and things like Chlorella, which is an amazing binder. Okra is something you can eat as one of the best binders, from a food perspective, but yeah, charcoal, Chlorella clay. I currently take zeolite every morning at the moment, the crystal zeolite, which I’m loving. And that helps to get rid of the heavy metals. Yes. Often you have heavy metals if you’ve got mould as well. So it’s just it’s just seems to be that a lot of people also have that.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:25:14] So yeah. I think the other thing is, I mean, in order to solve a problem, it always helps to know what that problem is. Yeah, I know that sounds obvious, but it’s it’s important. And then I think with something like this, it’s also and particularly detoxing in general, slower is better. Yeah. Slower is better. And you need to be kind to yourself and patient. And I mean when I say, well, I mean when we say slower, Camilla, I mean, we’re talking it could take a year.

Camilla Thompson [00:25:46] It took me 18 months.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:25:48] 18 months. Yeah.

Camilla Thompson [00:25:50] And patience is something I learned because you just want that out your body. Yeah. It’s it’s so toxic. I’ve sort of. I talk about PetMed, which is post-traumatic mould disorder. Yes. Okay. And it’s a thing it for me, it was one of the most overwhelming times of my life. We lost our home, we lost all of our belongings. So all of our contents were written off. And, you know, precious things from when my kids were babies and photos and baby books and everything had to go. So it’s like going through a natural disaster. You lose your home, you lose your belongings, but you’re also sick. So it’s you’ve got that added layer of you’re fighting an illness as well as feeling like you’ve lost a lot of your material possessions and your home. And then trying to find somewhere to live was very hard for us because everywhere. So many places have mould. And then you have a fear. And the fear I went through, you know, I went somewhere this morning that had water damage pretty bad. And so I’ve had to come home and take charcoal and start a little mini detox because I was there for 40 minutes. So I was exposed to a water damaged wall. I could see mould, but I couldn’t leave where I was. And I just had to trust that my body knows what to do. And then when I got home, I would take some charcoal and I will go through the detox process for the next 24 hours. But previously to that I would have had a panic attack. My anxiety would have gone through the roof because the fear of getting infected by mould again is so overwhelming. Because you know what you’ve got to go through to get rid of it and you know how damaging it is. You know, I wasn’t able to go to friends houses, shopping centres. You know, I was pretty isolated for quite a while until I suddenly changed my mindset. Yes. When I can do this, I can fight mould and and even today, I was a bit of me was going. Oh. But then I was like, I know what to do. My body knows what to do. I need to trust my body that it’s been here before. It knows how to get rid of this. But you know, there are this. I’m on a there’s a Facebook page called the Toxic Mould Australia, Facebook page. And Ron, the stories on there are heartbreaking. You know, even in winter, people are sleeping in tents outside their homes because they can’t afford to move or they’re sleeping in their cars. There’s kids with sores all over their faces. You know, I it the stories on that Facebook page. I feel like a lucky one of the lucky ones, I really do. Because, you know, I’m thriving now. I, you know, I my health is good. And but I and I had the money to fix it. A lot of people don’t. You know, I spent tens of thousands of dollars getting. Well. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:28:36] Yeah. So. And this is, this is when you say you lost your home and, and possessions in a natural disaster kind of setting. This wasn’t covered by insurance.

Camilla Thompson [00:28:48] Well, I got some payout on my contents because it was linked to a water incident and water damage, so. But I was massively under insured, as I think most of us are. But. Yeah. So we did get us, but we got a small payout which we could buy new beds and, you know, the sort of basic furniture things because we had to get rid of everything. You can take your clothes, you have to wash everything, and sort of, borax or kind of stone or something like that, so you can wash your clothes. But other than that, everything else is pretty much anything porous has to go.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:29:21] So, so, look, I mean, people listening to this who have experienced this will be nodding their heads and young, yes, people who have some complex health issues and may not have considered this will be thinking, wow, this resonates. Maybe I should be looking a little more critically at my home. Yeah, and considering this. But for those who want to prevent it occurring, let’s let’s talk a little bit about that and how to how to make our houses as mould free as possible. Yeah.

Camilla Thompson [00:29:58] Well I mean the main thing is ventilation. So it’s really about making sure that we’re opening windows. If we’ve got en suite bathroom that we’ve got the, the, you know, the extractor fans and that we’re opening windows when we have showers and leaving those fans on for at least 10 to 15 minutes after we’ve had a shower on suites of the worst. And most of us have them, you know, if we’ve got carpets as well, depending on how old those carpets are. A lot of mould spores stay in carpets. Dust and mould are really good mates. Yeah, they love to hang out together. So mould fades off dust. So the more dusty your house is, the more likely you’re going to have mould spores. So making sure that your house is clean and that you don’t, you know, do you, Mary Queen, do your house like just simplifying and not having loads of junk and loads of stuff stored and things stuck in cupboards because that’s what happens as too much stuff. There’s too much dust, there’s not enough airflow. And so I think just simplifying things, making sure our house is clean, dust free dehumidifiers. Every house must have a dehumidifier in Australia. Like it’s just a it’s a. I didn’t even know about them before I got into this journey of mould. I had no idea, you know, that we needed dehumidifiers, and when you put them on for a couple of hours and you see the amount of water comes out, it’s like mind blowing. You’re like, how is this in my room?

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:31:18] It’s interesting with those two dehumidifiers because similarly, and this happens a lot for me when I do a podcast, and I’ve done over 600 and I’ve interviewed Nicole ten years ago. So when I first I’ve interviewed her many times since. But but when she mentioned that to me, I went and got a few dehumidifiers because you’re just not going to pick up one and move. But around the house I’ve got about three in the house. Yeah. And it is really shocking. When you switch it on and you see the level of humidity, which is typically, you know, when I start, it might be around 65% in the house. Yeah. What do you think? A good level should be in a room.

Camilla Thompson [00:32:05] Look, I, I mean, girls better off to answer this question. She’s a mould expert. You might have to talk to her on the time. I think she aims to around. I’m sure it’s around 50%. 55. I think about 50%. I think it’s between two. It’s hard to get it down to 50. So where do you get normally? Get yours too.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:21] Well I, I’m a I go a little bit overboard because I know it’s going to bounce back very quickly. And I usually set it for about 45.

Camilla Thompson [00:32:30] Yeah 45 is ideal but it’s hard to get it. Yes. A lot of people get panicky because a lot I can’t get to 45. So we say look 50 is great but 45 is ideal. but yeah, the.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:41] Amount of water you get in that tray in the machine, is just unbelievable.

Camilla Thompson [00:32:47] It is. So that’s that is a number one prevention thing, like dehumidifiers and, you know, air filtration devices as well. There’s some really great ones. I have, and over and over and over. Yes. And that just pulls mould spores into it as well. It’s got a charcoal sort of Hepa filter. You know, making sure your vacuum has got a Hepa filter so that when you’re, you know, when you’re vacuuming, you’re vacuuming up spores as well because they’re, you know, they stay in carpets and things like that. And yeah, don’t feed mould, you know, like it’s these exit mould bleach products are an absolute no, no. So, that’s, you know, ventilation, dehumidifiers, air filtration. And the dust is a big one, so just making sure your house is really clean, and not dusty.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:34] It does, you know, within this time of, of, preserving, energy, you know, energy conservation, this whole idea of sealing the house off, has become, you know, to reduce your heating costs has become a double edged sword, really, hasn’t it? Because in doing that, we’ve created this part of this problem.

Camilla Thompson [00:33:58] Absolutely. And I think we see this all the time at the moment with this sort of juxtaposition between landlords, tenants and agencies and, you know, and the tenants saying, okay, I’ve got an issue in my home. The landlord’s not always wanting to invest money to fix it. The agent’s sort of stuck in the middle and, you know, there and then it’s a sort of a blame game of like, well, you haven’t done this or, you know, you’ve had your dryer on and you haven’t had the window open. So it’s caused condensation, I think. And also it’s important to distinguish between mould as well. So we’re all going to find mould in our homes. I still find mould in my home. I’ve got I’ve just had to throw all our blinds away. They all had mould on the back and I’m fastidious about, you know, ventilation and dehumidifiers. But we are still going to get mould. So there’s condensation mould but the damaging mould is from water damage. So those are the my toxins. So that’s where it’s really damaging. And that’s coming through damage from buildings from storms that we’ve had or leaking pipes or whatever it might be. So that’s the spores that make us really, really sick. The condensation mould that we see is not great, but it’s it’s actually just it it is it’s going to be there. You can just keep sort of trying to clean it away. Best to use just sort of soapy water and microfiber cloths to wipe mould. And every time you wipe you then need to clean it because you don’t want to keep contaminating but never spray directly onto mould as well. Because as I mentioned earlier, the spores will, release.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:26] The other thing I guess is the once you recognise you are in that 25% of susceptibility, which is an interesting test too, isn’t it, to do this to see whether you’re genetically predisposition to it? And interesting that your husband and one of your children is fine, but you and one of your sons is not. This is when, you know, this whole adaptive range that we live in becomes an issue, doesn’t it? For some people, yeah. They can drink and smoke and do everything, you know and they’ll live to be 100. Yeah. And others drink and smoke and die at 35 or 40 you know. Yeah. So we need to really with those that are susceptible.

Camilla Thompson [00:36:11] Absolutely.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:36:12] Different story, isn’t it? You have to build resilience into your system.

Camilla Thompson [00:36:16] You do and you have to be aware. And so it’s just being, you know, aware that you are susceptible to that. The test, the gene test is actually one of the only tests that’s covered by Medicare. So you can actually do that one. So yeah. So finding out if you’ve got that gene, it’s really important. But I mean, what we’re finding at the moment, there’s Doctor Sandeep Gupta, who I’m sure you’re familiar with.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:36:37] I have also done a podcast with Sam. Oh, okay. It was wonderful.

Camilla Thompson [00:36:42] Yeah, he’s been amazing. Like, he’s like he has been the advocate and the champion around mould. He’s gone to the government, he’s done studies. He’s currently working on another three year study, I believe, with Macquarie Uni and some other doctors around mould illness. But you know, and the toxic mould Australia group has is a great place as well for people to ask questions. It can get overwhelming. I had to take myself off it for a while because I just I’m a highly sensitive person and I got really I personally got really distressed hearing a lot of people’s stories. But Sundeep has been amazing. Like he’s, he’s really sort of creating this awareness. But I’m working with local MPs here. Lucy Wicks, who’s one of our local MP. She lived in mould. She got really sick. A lot of people have heard her story. Doctor Gordon Reed, he’s a GP, but he’s actually becoming really, educating himself and getting across what’s going on as far as mould illness. And he’s been in Parliament last week in Canberra talking about this, saying we’ve got to regulate this industry, we’ve got to recognise mould as an illness. There needs to be Medicare rebates, funding support, we’ve got to have regulations. People should be safe in their homes. Wrong. Like people are not. And it’s just not good enough. We something has to be done. I’ve my saddest stories I’ve heard of like, of people living in retirement villages and they’ve worked all their life, saved their money, paid their taxes, and then they get to a point where they can’t look after themselves, they go into a retirement village, or maybe they can record themselves, but they need the extra support. They spend all the money that they’ve saved and worked for to buy some crappy, formal, tiny little space which is not ventilated. They don’t open it up because they’re worried about getting cold, and the majority of them have mould issues in these, in these units or these villas, and they’re spending their last days unable to breathe multiple different illnesses and dying because of mould. And what we just it’s just it’s not good enough and something’s got to be done. And that’s why I’m. Yes, I’m I’ve got a business that helps support people now with referring them to doctors and natural gas and doing the testing for them and using building biologists. And we can also do the remediation, but it has to be regulated because people should be safe in their homes. And we’re not.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:39:07] I mean, I think there are there are a couple of levels of regulation that I can think of. One is the building code itself. Yeah. Which is a big ask. I think there are some powerful forces that are influencing government. Governments love to cut red tape to, to expedite things. So there’s that, there’s the regulation of actually recognising this as a serious illness because I know you mentioned sirs, CPRS, chronic inflammatory response syndrome, but unfortunately it’s not recognised as a disease in Australia, which is kind of ironic because chronic inflammation is the common denominator in every disease. Yep. So there’s a bit of a contradiction in ambiguities if ever there was one. And then then we’ve got the whole, support through Medicare of recognising that and then the regulation of the industry to remediate because you like even if spraying exit mould on can make it worse. Oh my God, if you start digging around and remediating in inverted commas, you could be making things so much worse.

Camilla Thompson [00:40:20] Absolutely. Yeah. If you’re exposing, you know, I’ve, we had a client who sent me some photos this morning where they pulled up their lino and there was just black mould underneath it. So they’ve pulled it up so the spores wouldn’t have gone into the air. So you immediately need to get an air filtration device in to start sucking the spores and then removing the materials. But, you know, they’ve just had to put the lino back down. And so it is. And I think it’s, you know, working with builders, builders are starting to get much more educated about mould as well. But it’s it’s a whole system approach. Wrong. And this is the problem. All GP’s need to be trained on how to identify and diagnose mould and what tests to use. That’s huge in itself. You know, the whole building industry needs to be looked at. The whole, you know, there’s there’s so much regulations around rentals and leases and I know in the UK now they had a couple of they’ve had a couple of young children die in social housing, living in mould in the UK. And so they’ve got some laws in place now and there’s more regulations so that when you rent a property you have it’s had a check mould check. And that’s really what we’re calling out, is that all rental properties have that stamp of approval where someone’s come in and they’ve tested for mould and they’ve gone this, this is a safe space for a family to live or whoever, to come and live into this home.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:41:40] And this is the sort of thing that. Building biologists do. Yes. And that again needs regulation because.

Camilla Thompson [00:41:47] Regulated data.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:41:48] You need to be trained. And that’s why we’ve been very happy to have Nicole Bilge Moron and talk about her whole program, which I know from experience because my daughter is has done it. Yes. Is a very rigorous.

Camilla Thompson [00:42:01] It is my.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:42:02] Program.

Camilla Thompson [00:42:02] Girls just done it too. Yeah it is. It’s there’s so much to learn and then there’s training. So the CRC is kind of the gold standard for mediation. So that’s their protocol is what everyone should be following. But unfortunately people aren’t. There’s a lot of people they call it spray and pray. They’ll just come in and fog an area. They’ll they’ll wipe the mould. Forget. And it’s called spray and pray that we hope that it will go away, but actually it causes more damage. It disperses more spores and it’s toxic. So and and it’s doesn’t solve the problem. You need to actually remove where the water ingress is coming from and remove those porous materials or whatever. It’s probably going to be a structural issue. So again, because it’s not regulated, people don’t know what they don’t know and they trust. And this is the thing is that there are there are cowboys out there that are that aren’t following the CRC protocols. And there’s training you can do with them. So there’s water restoration training. There’s mould training like there’s there’s so much going on in Australia. But it’s just not it’s not being regulated by the government. The US is way ahead of us. So they are they you know, they have had so many issues with mould, particularly in LA in a lot of areas. So they are they’re much more across this. They’re probably we have five, ten years ahead of us.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:43:22] So well, Camilla, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing this, your story and, so many really empowering. I think it is empowering because, as I say, to solve a problem, it first of all helps to know what the problem is. And clearly this is a problem. So thank you so much for joining us. We’ll of course have links to your, your site and, and all the information that you’ve mentioned. Thank you.

Camilla Thompson [00:43:47] So thanks so much, Ron. Lovely to be here.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:43:50] Well, there was a lot in that episode and things that were mentioned that I thought I’d just, offer you a little bit more insight to Camilla. Mentioned a test of the nasal cavity called Macron’s m I r c o n s. It’s an acronym for multiple anti antibiotic resistant Coagulates negative staphylococci. Well, that’s quite a mouthful, but it’s an antibiotic resistant staff that resides deep in the nasal passages of 80% of people with low melanocytes, melanocytes stimulating hormone that is, those suffering from bio toxin illness and other chronic inflammatory diseases. And the acronym for chronic inflammatory Response syndrome is C, IRS or Sirs. All these acronyms, but that is a mark on test m I c the capital small o capital n is now the other thing that Camilla mentioned and we will, be releasing that episode that I did with, Doctor Sandip Gupta, who is one of the leading, medical practitioners in Australia who has studied with, Richie Shoemaker, the Shoemaker Protocol. And actually, you can, you can access a lot of great information on the website. Surviving mould.com. Now, the Shoemaker protocol also uses a visual contrast sensitivity test, visual contrast sensitivity test. And you can find that on the surviving mould model D the American spelling.com. So the Shoemaker visual low contrast sensitivity test is a screening system relied upon by the Shoemaker Protocol practitioners, patients and healthcare professionals and researchers all around the world. It will provide extremely valuable information to guide your recovery journey. The screening offers a symptom assessment that can help you determine if you’re suffering from Sirs, c, IRS, or mould bio toxin illness. It’s a really interesting test. It’s a measure of one of the neurological functions of vision known as contrast. And bio toxins apparently impair the ability to detect subtle contrast within 24 to 36 hours after exposure. So this is a really good, screening test that has 92% accuracy. Now, another thing that was mentioned, that Camilla mentioned that I had to look up and that was still remain. That’s classic. To c h o l e s t y r a m I n e Calista remain c s m. It’s an FDA approved medication used to lower elevated levels of cholesterol. It’s been used safely for over 40 years. And millions of patients who’ve taken the medication for extended periods of time. Cholesterol mean is not absorbed. It helps you get better, but it adds nothing to you. All it does is it takes things away. So this is the binding mechanism of csme cholesterol main. And it binds cholesterol, bile salts and bio toxins in the small intestine. So there’s a few links. If you go to our show notes we’ll not only have links to Camilla’s mould safe website. And that’s available in Australia, but also to the Shoemaker protocol and the surviving mould. M.o LDK. Com so a lot there in our show notes. I hope this finds you. Well, until next time. This is doctor Ron Erlich. Be well. This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health and related subjects. Its content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences and conclusions.