Given the frequency and intensity of emotional symptoms with mold toxicity, psychiatric health deserves extended attention beyond its connection to brain health. Anxiety, depression, panic, fear, Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD), and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are frequently present across the age span in varying degrees. At times, symptoms can extend into psychosis and diagnoses of schizophrenia. Some individuals fluctuate between these symptom complexes, while others remain trapped in one or two. While medically addressing the root cause of nervous system dysfunction, we must also immediately curb the nervous system issues in the short term in order to make long term restoration a possibility.
While not all cases of such psychiatric diagnoses can be blamed on mold toxicity or even its fellow biotoxins like Lyme disease, Bartonella, or Post-COVID, when one of these biotoxins lies underneath the surface, the psychiatric symptoms are typically more difficult to treat than if psychosocial stressors or genetics are the primary drivers of disease. While the pharmaceutical industry has made it a little too easy to pop a pill and turn on sunshine in life, those with mold toxicity do not find such simple solutions to their emotional symptoms as do others. They have often tried numerous anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications with non-ideal success rates. Some get no benefit or only benefit for a few weeks to months before losing their efficacy. Others get the downside of side effects and eventually give up on medications after multiple such experiences. Left with little hope from the pharma world, they then start looking to natural or other alternative therapies for any hope.
Beyond the failure of conventional medicine to help these symptoms and diagnoses, the treatment of mold toxicity can be an arduous journey and an adequate level of emotional functioning is necessary for ultimate restoration. For example, anxiety or depression may prevent initiation of beneficial therapies through a patient’s anxiety related fear or depression related lack of motivation. Any of the emotional symptoms may interfere with the caregiver’s ability to guide the sufferer out of the darkness. For many, the mental illness prevents their full participation and toleration of the detox therapies and therefore it must be ameliorated for ultimate success. In the long run, detox will usually alleviate mental health struggles, but getting to that point can be challenging. Therefore, we try to help ameliorate emotional symptoms to optimize the patient’s ability to function and to proceed with whole person healing therapies.
In helping our patients emotionally, we employ our standard approach of looking to the best of both natural and pharmaceutical therapies. For some, pharmaceutical options both standard and less commonly used options stabilize the mental health issues enough to proceed with detox. For most, natural supports like 5HTP, theanine, nutritional support, and more can shine light into mental health darkness. Often we also incorporate limbic system therapy to turn down fight or flight responses that keep a person locked in sympathetic overdrive. At other times, we connect patients with counselors who work through different stressors and symptoms. In all our Intensive program patients starting in 2024, we provide health coaching on top of our prior team of support spanning a doctor, a nurse practitioner or physician assistant, nurses and administrative staffing.
We thus press towards recovery with all the available resources available. As we press into their recovery program, each person with mold toxicity who suffers from mental health challenges requires individualized attention. The above resources allow us to meet most patients where they are and guide them to where they need to be.
In the big picture, mold toxicity can seem like it is stealing our humanity and attacking our souls. Ignoring that portion of the human being will not accomplish the whole person health we are striving towards for our patients. Keeping the insights above in mind is key to the Sanctuary approach.