Toxic Mold, Lyme Disease, & Root Cause Healing: Dr. Pras

You're a drug dealer. You just prescribe drugs. It's like everything we've been studying is a symptom to match to a pharmaceutical drug. Symptom, drug, symptom, drug. What I love about you is your kind of mission statement is root cause. But when you're in a system that you don't fully believe in it like you see people suffering from the system, from the outcomes as well. Um I was always trying to figure it out. Your body knows only one thing, how to heal itself. Something is preventing your body from healing and it's your life so you have to change it.

Dr. Karolina PRA, welcome to the Pathway to Peak Performance. I'm so glad to hear that your charity is the Limelight Foundation. That's super cool. Um, so many people can't afford to be treated when they have Lyme disease. So, I think that's an interesting story to start with. Welcome. So, great to have you.

Thank you so much for having me. Such a pleasure.

Our pleasure. So, um, so many things to cover today and, um, I want to start with sort of like your origin story. Let's go back to where you're from and then we'll kind of take it where to all the way to where you are today and the things that you're doing. Um, and there's so much in that to cover. I think it's going to be tons of fun.

Okay. Where to start? I grew up in Lithuania in a very medical family. So since baby days I saw my mom working really hard for her patients and I saw how much joy and purpose to her life this work brought and for me it just ingrained these values how you know what is life about what's the purpose of life it gave so much meaning and I admired her so much and her family most of her family doctors her father was doctor uh he lived through both world wars just treating people in a basement, wounded people and helping them. So, um yeah, it's an environment I grew up with. Um my sister is a dentist, so it's very medical family.

The interesting thing about that is that when you have that sort of in your family, it's like how do you you can't really escape it? you're going to be in that or or some people do but often times you always see a lot of the children go that that direction because it feels natural to.

Yeah, it really felt so natural but then also my mom gave so much freedom and so much opportunities to explore everything we loved doing as kids, you know. I I was an athlete. I went to art school. I did all these hobbies, all these things. I trained dogs like dogs competition, agility, like all these different things and math for me was one of my favorite subjects. I'm like should I do math then you know so why only medicine and uh I had to give it some time and thought but then I just decided to go with it and see where it takes me and then in a medical system while studying I already started noticing how flawed the system is and what's the war going to be like and in the middle of it I was thinking okay should I quit but I'm not a quitter I'll keep going and maybe I can do something to improve it or I don't know. Um but yeah, like somewhere halfway I realized that you're a drug dealer. You just prescribe drugs. It's like everything we've been studying is a symptom to match to a pharmaceutical drug. Symptom drug symptom drug. We learn that there are some side effects but never never a huge emphasis on that. Um nothing about lifestyle, nothing about stress, environment, sleep, diet, little bit maybe there was like 30 minutes here and there about these subjects but yeah and then geriatric care was one of my last modules and I saw people just being on like 20 30 different medication and your job medications and your job is just to keep them taking that and the moment another side effect develops then you numb it the another drug. So I'm like wow like I I don't see myself doing it. I can't and I still have a huge respect for people who stayed in the system. They really invested their heart and um they really want to help people but the system is very flawed and limited.

So yeah, and we're I mean I think you know you see it every day in one you know two of our businesses we we actually interface with doctors who are doing what you're doing now. you're not a client of ours, but you know, we have lots of doctors like you that are clients of those companies. And it's amazing to see just how many people just want to get away from the system. And yet that that traditional system has to exist in some way, shape, or form. Certainly for, you know, situations where people have serious diseases, but even then, you know, now we're starting to think about like there are other ways to treat some of the things that traditional medicine really aren't isn't addressing very well. Um, so it's a really interesting thing. I'm curious. So you grew up in Lithuania and you described it to me as being able to just kind of go wherever you wanted to go. Now this is posts Soviet times, right? So it's must been a very Tell me about the feeling that you had around that. Like when you're there as a kid, how is it?

I think personally it's a perfect place to grow up. Um, I was born after we got our independence. So, I didn't see any of the horrible effects of occupation. Um, but everything was still slow and frozen. Economy was frozen. Um, there was a lot of corruption. That generation who lived through those dark times, they suffered a lot. They they are wounded because there was no self-help. There was no internet back then, you know, to there was no books like going to going to therapy was highly discouraged because if you go to therapy, if you seek for help, then you openly admit that you are crazy and then they can send you into exile because of that or like uh do electroshock or something like that. So um people really suffered. But then my generation who were born in independent country, we did not see any of that. we grew up, you know, it was really safe. It was uh it was just beautiful. Like our cities, two largest cities are around half million people. I think it's a perfect size for a kid, you know, to go to school, do all these activities. I've been super active because I could my school was 3 minutes away from my home. So I would wake up 10 minutes before my classes would start and then after school I could do all these activities. I would go to yoga after yoga. I would do a dance class when I would do a art school. And it's like four different activities after school every day. And my mom or anyone else didn't need to take me there because I could just walk myself to those places since age 8, nine, like as as much as I remember. So I really appreciate that looking back because I don't see it's possible in many countries in many places across the world and it's giving me a bit of like mixed feelings because there were good things and there were bad things at the same time. But now this younger generation they are rebuilding the country. It's blossoming. It's really changing. Every time I come back there, every few months it's like new new things, new buildings, new services, like best quality and you don't need to commute for two hours somewhere. Everything is accessible. So, yeah, it's a it's a hidden gem. We call it a boutique country in Europe.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, Lithuania. Yeah, great great people. Uh very interesting culture. So you're you're going to school, you're doing all those activities, you have all this freedom to kind of move about. Of course, your mother's very busy as a doctor and I and I know that she spent a lot of time extra time focused on patients. Um, and then you decided to go to medical school. Take us kind of through that process. We talked on a little bit, but take us through the process of sort of like what were the challenges? is I mean you're you're on a pathway to peak performance uh as a person. It's pretty clear right from a from a very young age you're somebody that wants to achieve something. So take us through that. Help us understand what it was like.

Oh, it's been confusing because yes, I'm very driven and I wanted to achieve great things and uh have an impact, positive impact on the world, but when you're in a system that you're not really, you don't fully believe in it like you see people suffering from the system from the outcomes as well. Um I was always trying to figure it out like how how can I help what to do? I'm not very political to change the system on a bigger level. Sure. Um but I could do impact on a smaller you know I can help people in my community in my circle my patients maybe encourage other doctors to to open their minds more. Um so I always had this curiosity you know is this medical system same here same in other countries as well or is it just in my country so I kind of redesigned medical school in my own way like I did four different countries. First I took an exchange program. Then I realized I can just get credits like organize exchange program for myself and designed it. So I reach out to universities to um if I can study there and get the credits and um I did that in Turkey, in Prague, Czech Republic, uh in Shanghai and Hong Kong like no one from my from people I know did it in these these places, these continents, you know, especially Hong Kong and Shanghai. So um it's been incredible experience and same flaws exist everywhere. Like here living in the United States for the past 5 years I see same issues and people complain US medical system is horrible but it's not that much better elsewhere. It's better. It is better but not much. It's smaller country, smaller problems but it's like similar things.

I'm curious when you were in uh Shanghai and Hong Kong, two totally different cultures in and of themselves, right? Um but when you were there, what how much of a balance of Eastern medicine with Western medicine was there? So, we see some, you know, like I I I think my my brother was sick one time for like a month with a like some sort of like he was like gray and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. He must have had some sort of virus. My mom took him over to Chinatown to some uh uh Chinese doctor and the guy made a tea and within two days totally fine. Wow. Yeah. So was we thought the kid was going to die, right? Yeah. So I'm curious like what was the balance there?

Yeah. So I was still within western medicine model. So I was in that system and it's not integrated. Traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine they separate. Um I was in Shanghai University uh hospital that is mostly Germanbased. Um I mean the language is English but what I was seeing in a hospital was a lot of mal practice. I I'm a huge fan of Chinese medicine. Huge huge fan. But the practitioner has to know what he or she is doing because it's really risky. And I've been seeing so much more practice like uh severe liver damage, irreversible liver damage, like people being all yellow, eyeballs, yellow, like crazy things. And then of course if they get harmed in one system, we they look for help in another. Um so yeah, some of the people were able to save, some of them no. And China, it's a big country. They're are great practitioners. they're not that great. And for traditional Chinese medicine, the licensing, you know, it's it's different. So, yeah, it's interesting just to kind of think like, you know, you're sort of there and kind of wonder like what is the balance the same it sounds like it's the same thing here. They're just not integrated in shape or form.

So, it didn't discourage me to believe in Chinese medicine. It just it did the opposite. It gave me more respect. You know like herbs can be extremely powerful. All these things can be so powerful. So you have to administer it. You have to know what you're doing. I'm using in my practice some herbs but the ones are the ones are safe and widely used across the globe. Um not going into something more specific and risky. But these herbs can be more potent and you know antibiotics for Lyme disease. I'm taking herbs that are so strong and they are broadsp spectrum. They can do more work than um pharmaceutical antibiotics do. So it's it's just fascinating.

They have adaptogenic qualities is right.

Yeah. Right. Like anti-inflammatory immune stimulating. So not only keeping your microbes bacteria in check.

Yeah. So it's like almost like a GLP3 right? So we look at like reddit tide. So we got GLP1, GIP and Google gone instead of just the one agent that we had in just the GLP1. So it's sort of like the the notion of taking one thing that addresses a whole bunch of things that produce an outcome.

Exactly. It's a synergistic effects and then you can also stack a traditional Chinese medicine doctor knows how to stack these banks to, you know, to give your body what it needs to bring your body back to the balance. I really like this model. They are not treating a symptom per se. They are bringing body back to balance. They are finding what's finding your imbalances.

Yeah. Instead of oh you have pain let me give you painkillers. Oh your thyroid is weak. Let put let's put you on medication for the rest of your life.

Yeah. No it's that's that's a crazy notion of being on medication for the rest of your life. Right.

That's why I love what what I love about you is your kind of mission statement is root cause. you know, you're trying to get to the what is the thing, not treating symptoms. Let's get this thing erased. And I think that's a huge statement because so many people don't do that.

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, we kind of covered medical school and all of that, but one of the interesting things about you is that another thing that you say is doctors get sick, too.

Okay. Where to start? They I mean honestly doctors are one of the most sick people I see like they it's not uncommon to be overweight. It's not uncommon to have severe hormone imbalances. Uh doctors are just on a maintenance of drugs like if someone would follow the doctor 24/7. If you go home with them, open their shelf, you know, maybe regular person would have some supplements, some herbs or and few medication for emergency. Doctors have so much in their shelves, things they are taking on daily basis just to manage their symptoms when they get side effects when they take more. But uh yeah, that's one side of the picture. But another another side of the picture is u in society it's kind of like almost looked down that if something happens to you you're not good at what you're doing. So a lot of doctors don't even talk about their issues they hide. So now the same influencers doing they portray perfect health so that people would buy their services their product. But the reality is and I know from some like close very close circle the reality is that these people are usually dealing with more issues than than a regular person. That's how they got into the thing they are doing.

It it is interesting and I once heard somebody say never trust a fat doctor. Yeah. Right. Um and yet how many times have you interacted with somebody who's like you go man you are just not you're not living it. Um so many times. Yeah I have seen it. Yeah. I think it comes back to these four kind of you know really important things. First of all, and I don't know if in order of importance, you know, how you see it, and I'd love to get your take on it, but sleep. Yeah. Um, diet, exercise, and then optimization around that. Um, and so many people just don't know because they don't they don't, you know, you go to get a test, they're not testing you for the range of things. We don't we're we're so in the sick care model that we're really built for waiting until somebody has a problem because that's how they make money. So when I was young in the healthc care space, I was like, what's going on? I mean, why aren't we trying to figure out where people how do we prevent stuff? It just wasn't how the model was built. And um yeah, I could go on and on talking about that and um but I feel like you know now there's so many things you can do from a testing standpoint to understand where people are. So in your practice today, how do you do it?

We start with blood work and also very broad questionnaire. So the first consultation it's uh from 60 to 90 minutes. So when you really get to know the person and all the history, all the symptoms and connect the dots with blood work and have this whole picture and see what's happening with the person. But the way I read blood work, I don't use these conventional ranges I use like much more narrow. So then you can see you can see so much from the blood work. You can see what systems might be affected and where is it going towards. You can see before something happens, you know, you can see before li liver is damaged. You can see before thyroid is gets too weak. So, uh you see these patterns connect to a person's story and then you optimize the lifestyle. There's a lot of lifestyle changes. You have to change your life. What's that led you to those symptoms and to to these results? You cannot me start medicating it and expect results. Yes, you may achieve some results but that's going to be very short-lived if you don't change your life. It's your body knows only one thing how to heal itself. Something is preventing your body from healing and it's your life so you have to change it. You can't expect the pill to do everything. Yeah. I'm not against medication to help with symptoms to alleviate the struggle the person is going through like a person the patient should never suffer. So yes for medication but it should be the some goal in the near future to get off it so you don't need it but it usually all most of the chronic illnesses come from deficiencies toxicities and your nervous system dysregulation.

Okay. So we've got we've got deficiencies. So I could be hey I don't have enough vitamin D. Right.

Right. It's just one example.

Right. Toxicity. I have heavy metal toxicity.

Right.

And then nervous system dysregulation some way shape or form which could be also related to all of those things.

Yes. So those those first two could be causing the nervous system issues and often probably are.

Right.

Right. It's all super interconnected and the body gets stuck in this vicious cycle that one issue is feeding another. That's why I say it's never one root cause. Now it's a trend in this natural medicine, functional medicine to chase the root cause or root causes, but it's never one and it's usually like not even two. It's many root causes feeding one another. Mhm. Um, so you have to address them all somehow or address at least few of them so your body is supported enough to heal.

I think that's such a great way to look at it. Um, I'm curious, what are your thoughts on pharmacocinetic testing, you know, where you're really going in and you're seeing, okay, hey, we've got this panel, we know where you're we have issues, but now how we're going to treat it based on your genetics. Cuz I feel like what most people really don't realize and you see it everywhere. It's sort of like this notion of, oh, this supplement's good. So, because I take it, you should take it. Y maybe not, right? Maybe taking um Lcarnitine is really bad for you based on who on who you are. So, you can get some of that in the panel, but then going a little bit deeper to try to understand your genetics. How do you how do you come out on that?

Genetics can be helpful. I think now it's it's such a hot topic and people hyperfocus too much on it. In certain cases it can be lifechanging. Yes. But a lot of people let's say metilation now it's everything. Everyone talks about metilation and they test their genes and like oh I'm I'm bad at metilation. My body cannot process uh this and that. Um let's do these metilated B vitamins and when they overdo they feel bad on it. Uh, so it's really it happens so often, but people forget about gene expression. Genes you have doesn't mean you're ever going to have issues with that. So it's not a death sentence. It's how your body um in what environment you are and how your body is turning on and off those genes. The same with mold. It's um the mold flipped my life upside down. And part of it there is a genetic component to that. There is. Yeah. But one quarter of population has the same gene there. The body cannot naturally detox mold. So you know normally our bodies are designed to detox everything we inhale. We inhale micotoxins in some contaminated environment and our bodies are designed to flush it to get rid of it. um and 25% of population have this um hletype of HLA gene that they just don't detoxify micotoxins.

I have a question about that. Do you see that like factor 5 lies? We see that in northern European people, right? Um but you don't do you see this in this 25%. Do you see this spread out all over the place and it's just a gene mutation or something that is an issue for this 25% everywhere?

uh I don't know about other continents but in Europe and United States it's really prevalent and it's not a mutation it's just your hypotype so it's not something that you have abnormal genes it's completely normal just some people are not that great detoxificators as others are and people with those genes it doesn't mean they're going to ever get sick but again few things happen in life some severe mold exposure, some stressful event, COVID and these things they they all wreck the body like they causes this crisis in the body that your immune system can no longer cope with everything what it what it has to deal and then you get all these reactions and illnesses.

So yeah, wild. Um, so there are the people out there that are like, you know, okay, going back to that end of one thing. Um, you see they they've got these protocols and they're like, "Oh, follow my protocol." Um, and even in exercise, you know, I've been training for so many years and, you know, there are times when I I look at like you got to change up your training. You you you have to train differently. Sometimes you really got to cut down to build back up. What what do you like in terms of exercise? What what's sort of we we've covered sort of like the the beginnings of the what we're going to talk about here, but from an exercise standpoint, what do you like?

Yeah. Uh what I like might be very different what another person likes. It it really depends on personal goals, but I think functional movement, different types of movements, that's super important. the way people lived I don't know in stone age like moving in different patterns instead of just lifting and I'm not against weightlifting it's great but it should always be combined with some functional movement where you move in rotation so then you can also stimulate your fascia flow and keep your body healthy like stimulate lymphatic system stimulate circulation and everything instead of hyperfocusing on one type of isolated muscle group exercise.

So, so what's what's if you're sitting if you're sitting at a desk for the majority of the day, this new thing that's out is okay, hey, let's let's um get up every 45 minutes and do 10 squats. I'm sure you've seen this, right?

Yeah. But that's just up and down movement. What could you add to that that would give you that rotational mo mobility flexibility that you could do as a part of that 10 squat every 45 minutes routine?

You know what I'm doing because of this mold? Going back to this topic, I lost my furniture at least three times. Like lost all my belongings, everything. So I sit on the floor sometimes and I had a period of my life where like I just got rid of everything and before I make sure this environment is super clean and mold-free, I'm not buying new furniture again. So I had just a coffee table and I was sitting on a floor and like wow my body changed because of always standing up from the floor not from the chair. My legs became so much stronger so much. So every time you stand up to I don't know get some water, it's like a full squad up and down. And I try like from then on, okay, I bought furniture. I still don't use it. I sit I sit next to my couch on a rag. So I really got used to that unless it's something more formal, you know, like a Zoom call. So then, okay, I'll move to my desk. But the floor it is like that's it. I'm sticking with it because my body just changed. my posture change and I realized chairs are amazing occasionally when it's like work when it's something more formal. Yes. But then we always just sit a little bit and stand up. We never do this full movement that actually human body is designed to the way we grew up you know our ancestors with no couches they would sit on a floor maybe some little stone and then they stand up and run climb do things but it was never like chairs and desks. So, I highly recommend getting rid of furniture. So much more space.

What do you think if we change this podcast to be sitting on the floor? You think that would work?

I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Some cozy design, some some plants. Maybe you could come back and help us figure out how to like move it to the floor.

Yeah. Um I can't wait to see some of the guests try to figure that one out. Right. Just tell them like no, like I don't know, jeans that are not stretchy or synthetic. You can say, "Look, we our medical our chief medical officer says we have to sit on the floor. It's just the way that it works around here, right?"

Um, but I'll tell you, first few days it was hard. And then I realized, wow, I did so much disservice to my body always just relying on chairs, you know, like in in China, in Japan, it's normal to sit on a floor. It's really normal. And we westerners designed our life thinking that it's convenience but in a long run it causes us you know we pay a price joints and Yeah. Yeah.

It's interesting uh because I think about in my career just the millions of miles that I've flown and being in airplane seats for just hours upon hours and then you know it just it's so bad for you. It's unbelievable if you do that where you were talking millions of miles, right? It's it's a lot.

Yeah. I hate traveling now. Um because have to sit in the airplane seat. So it might wrecks my lower back. I have to be very careful about that, you know. Um and what seat and who I'm sitting next to? You know, there were times when I was like just pushed over this like how did this person get this seat? How did I wind up with this person who's But that's just the way that it is.

So all right. So let's talk about I want to go into this mold exposure story. Can you tell it?

Yeah. I had multiple mold exposures throughout my life. The house I grew up in underneath there was a basement that was never fully insulated. So there was huge mold issue. And my story is pretty typical uh what I see now with clients with friends stories. If there is let's say five people living in a house, a family of five, maybe only two or three of them going to experience symptoms and those symptoms for each of a person going to be super different. For some it can be brain symptoms, it can be anxiety, memory issues, difficulties learning. For some people it can be more physical. It can be rashes, eczema. for some people is sleep issues, um night sweats, neurological issues, some tremors and that's why it's really difficult to understand why what's happening in that family, why some people are sick and then other people are completely healthy. So I was the one who always experienced mysterious symptoms throughout my childhood. None of my family members had anything similar. And they may have also reacted to that mold, but not as badly as I did. I still haven't tested their them for their HLANS. I'm super curious to learn actually how much it impacts because based on that mold is harmful to everyone, but based on your genetics, that's going to define if you have short-term damage and your body gets rid of toxins and then you're fine again or it causes you a systemic immune system dysregulation. That is long-term damage, massive inflammation. Yeah. And long-term damage. And then even if you move out of exposure and try to detoxify, take all the binders and everything, you still have to rebuild your immune system and that takes time.

So I I've been experiencing weird symptoms like metallic taste and mouth, but you know, it's like it doesn't stop you from living. So you kind of like, okay, it comes and goes. You don't pay much attention. And then nose bleeds as a kid frequently. So much tummy tummy pains. Now it's known from people who work with VS um people it's called chronic inflammatory response syndrome s doctors who worked at that they say if a child has unexplained tummy pain and there was no other reason 95% it's because there's mold in the house and the child is reacting. So that was me. My mom she's a doctor. She took me to so many doctors when I was a kid. I always had this chronic tummy pain. So now everything connected but you know it only connected me a year ago like all the dots connected to me a year ago because you don't learn about it in medical school and even in functional medicine you learn about mold until certain extent but then you don't go that deep to like genetics and chronic inflammatory response syndrome. So there was a huge learning curve and I think medical system did me a disservice. You know a lot of people they've going through same issues they say I've been dismissed by medical system and I really feel for them but what is what if you are doctor and you dismiss yourself because things you learn you learn to ignore many of the symptoms you know being in a system you trust it you invest your time your years your heart your blood and sweat of that and you learn to believe that what you're learning everything is 100% truth. So you trust your professors, books, science, everything. And then you learn that if your blood work looks okay within those broad ranges, your blood work looks okay, but you still have symptoms, then it's normal or genetic and you will live with that your entire life. like my low blood pressure. It's now it's clear that but it was because of mold but medicine explains oh it's genetics my mom also has very low blood pressure but she lives in the same house where I live so probably it's the same mechanism you know that your anti-uretic hormone is affected and then you just you don't keep the blood pressure at normal level your smallerity is affected yeah so there are all these mechanism everything connected like to me you learn to ignore your symptoms being in a medical system because then if there is no explanation if your blood work looks normal for the system then it's either genetic or it's in your head you're hypochondric that's what they teach then you go to psychologist psychiatrist you go on anti-anxiety pill or like something like that so you learn to live with your symptoms instead of advocating for your health and looking for answers So I got really discouraged. First I was really looking for answers but then I got so discouraged. I'm sitting I remember in this university I'm sitting in this institution in lectures and having this metallic taste in my mouth clearly feeling like intoxicated poisoned and I'm sitting there and thinking there's no answers in this institution to this symptom. So it's it's either I am crazy or I should live with it. and you start ignoring these subtle things your body is trying to communicate to you through symptoms that look I'm intoxicated. I need some support. I need some help. These symptoms are clear messages. It should not be ignored. I just learned to ignore it. So I dismissed myself. You know I don't have a story like a lot of people in lime and mold world they say medical system dismissed did this and that. Like I didn't even go to doctors much. I went once to gastroenterenterologists with 20 or 30 years of experience and like you trust the authority but all they can do is PPIs like proton inhibitors like you have I don't know PMS cramps or something gynecologists have one tool it's birth control pill one tool nothing else like nothing to support your body your detoxification maybe your liver is overloaded with everything nowadays we're being attacked with so many toxins and mean including micotoxins. Maybe your liver cannot keep up and detoxify these excessive estrogens and get rid of those. So you get this estrogen dominance, but you go to your doctor and the only solution is birth control pill to everything. And it's so simple to support your body, to support your liver. You just take some herbs, you adjust your diet, you you get into a better rhythm that improves everything. your mood, your life quality, your relationship with people, everything. If you do these simple few things instead of going getting on a pill.

Really interesting. So, you move from you wind up in New York City, your apartment there has mold, you scrap everything, you move to Miami, brand new building, everything's nice. Mold there, too.

Yeah. I wish it was this simple, but in New York, it was really when I just started learning about impacts of mold. And when I thought I know a lot about mold, I still knew so little, I just knew I have to get rid of it. I have to get out of there. I have to get rid of my belongings. And it was a smart thing to do. I'm happy I did it, but it wasn't overnight, especially when you affected. So, for me, I took time to furnish that apartment. It was co, so all the furniture orders took longer. So, I lived at my friend's place while while I was furnishing my apartment. And I just lived there for 12 days. And that's all it took for me to get super sick. My sister was visiting me. She experienced also symptoms. And that's when I started realizing like something is really wrong here. And our symptoms were a bit different. Chronic fatigue for Bob, but my sister would stay in bed for 14 16 hours. And you know, she's on vacation. She flew to visit me and she's in bed all the time. First, we thought, okay, maybe it's a jet lag. But then it's like 1 week later. This is not a jet lag. For me, it was um short-term memory loss. I would black out in the middle of conversation. I would forget what I'm saying. And it happens to everyone here and there, but it should not happen multiple times like you know five times within one hour. I go to a room because I need something. I forgot what I'm doing here. Like what's what's happening? Um it's been really hard because when you start doubting yourself, your brain, you don't know if you're ever going to come back. If if you don't know if you're ever going to get your brain back when is get like physical symptoms, rashes, those going to go away. But when your brain is affected, it gets scary. You don't know for how long. You don't know what's happening with you, what this mold did to you. And I wasn't fully sure it's mold. You know, where do you start? Then you're affected. You're in such inflamed state. You're suffering, barely functioning. And then you have to prove landlords that there is mold. That's the hardest part. My landlords, they were brutal. You know, I'm just I just immigrated to United States. They have 300 units. They have lawyers inside the management system of the building. They probably dealt with similar situations before. They knew really like how to they just refuse to let me off the lease. And that's been really hard process especially when you are sick. You don't know where to live. You cannot trust the environment you're in. You cannot trust your own body because it's failing on you. you don't know where else to move. There is no guarantees that the next place you're going to move to is going to be better. Statistically, CDC says it's over 50% of buildings have water damage and mold. Uh practically, it's over 70% or even more from people experiences. So, it's really it's a process. You don't know where to go. You don't know where to run. I got Airbnb for a month. That's not uh it's not very cheap in Manhattan, but it's like okay, I'll heal here. It has mold, you know. So, it's like you rent somewhere hotels, it can be five-star hotel. It it's so common they have mold and then you constantly have to like move and move and move and it's been hard. And then yeah, like I've chosen Florida. I know because of humidity it's higher risk but I've chosen very nice building that I thought it's going to be well maintained and uh I was just starting getting sicker and sicker in the place I thought I going to find my healing I'll focus on myself on my career and everything I was getting sicker and sicker and I was starting I started spending more time in bed and again it's a very typical story you get sicker quicker because every exposure damages you faster and more. And then if there is mold in the apartment, in my case, it was behind kitchen cabinets because and it wasn't a humidity issue because Florida is humid. It was leaking leaking dishwasher. Of course, outdoor humidity contributed to that because probably it never fully dried and it constantly kept on like feeding on it. The um entire drywall got mold inside. Full kitchen full full of mold and then it gets into AC unit and it blows on you because when you're in a bedroom you many bedrooms they have AC just blasting on you 24/7. So you inhale more spores. When I had inspection, when we opened AC unit and also did snake cameras inside vents, we found so much mold in it. That is like horrible. It's all toxic mold. So, I've been in bed trying to heal and I've been inhaling more mold and I was getting sicker and sicker and sicker. I had no explanations. My doctor friends, my doctors had no explanation. We thought, okay, it's long CO because CO really hit me hard at least three times and then I stopped counting or testing or anything, but it's it's been really bad. So, it's been a cascade, you know, mold exposure in a childhood damaged my immune system a little bit, but I could still function. Then, COVID damaged me uh pretty badly. Then, perhaps I had this lime since 16 years ago, but my immune system was kind of taking care of it. It's been there. Some symptoms would show up and go away, but every of these things, every mold exposure contributed more and that's it. My immune system just broke and could not give any longer. And that's when I I don't know, my life just flipped upside down. I was spending days in bed without answers, without solutions, not knowing what to do. But yeah, luckily later on I I found answers and clinical diagnosis is extremely important. Extremely extremely important. Without an accurate diagnosis, you can only do this much. So it's been a journey.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's we talked about deficiency, toxicity, and then nervous system. Yeah. So curious that has to have I mean a significant impact on your mental sort of like I mean I don't know that be very um difficult to deal with.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been super confusing and I'm very reasonable and rational person and sometimes pretty stoic and I know that everything is okay in life. You know, it's um we label things as good and bad, but everything is really like neutrality and it's it's okay. But you understand that, but you feel completely the opposite. Your mind is racing, your heart is racing. You have no idea what's happening. It's better, sometimes it's worse. One day it feels like I won't survive. That's how it feels. It's not even my thoughts. It just feels that I won't survive. That's it. My body is giving up. And I can't explain. It's like part of me understands that I will survive but you just know you won't. This symptom is called sense of impending doom and it's pretty common in mold world but I didn't know back then. Um so this knowledge is really empowering when I've learned what exactly brain inflammation is and mold causes your lyic system your center of emotions to get inflamed and then it's just a mess like you don't understand. one day everything is falling apart, next day you wake up and things are normal and I can keep doing things. Um, and that's why like it's it's an invisible illness because people might see me socializing or dancing or like I was still able at the beginning to do to keep some physical activity going on and you don't understand yourself like am I really that sick? Like I'm okay. I can do things, you know, I look okay. um I'm capable to work out a little bit and to work and next day you think that you'll never get better and it's on and off like this with every exposure then your body gets so sensitized then you react to foods to different environments you can go to yoga class like I'm happy I'm grateful to my body I really had a good yoga class I worked out and then I'm sick for the next 3 days or 5 days the fever so was it because I overboard out or was it because it's Miami yoga studio that has mold in air conditioning and that's super common. That's more than 70%.

How do you determine how do you like if it's everywhere and you are sensitive and there are 25% of the population is sensitive then um before you move into a place there's not that there isn't like some what do you do what do you do to try to figure out if there's mold testing how do you test how do you do it?

well the problem is there is no perfect testing for mold you can do air samples total sports count uh in there or you can do dust test and visual inspection like always do visual inspection um where you just get dust off the visual inspection so under the sink in a kitchen open all the cabinets check everywhere check AC unit you might not be able to open it but if you have such sensitivity then you have to demand from your you know from your landlord um agent to do these things and yes the sample is the most informative. So you have these Swiffer cloths, you collect dust and then you send it to the lab. We do PCR testing and they see what's in it, what kind of molds, some of them it's it's it's um non-negotiable like Katto, you don't want to live there. You can't you can't remediate that. So certain molds you don't even move in there. Uh there's no sterile place. All places is going to have some mold because they are natural. They are outside, outdoor, indoor. But it really depends what mold you have. If you have toxic mold, then you don't want to live there. You can ask for landlord to remediate it. It's always good to check to see uh to have this conversation up front to see how willing they are to take some action if something is there, if something happens. Because some landlords are in the biggest denial. Like I when my dishwasher has been removed, you can see so much black mold on the wall, everyone said, "Get out of there today right away. Don't take your stuff. Leave it. It's probably contaminated. Just get out of there." My landlord, he was like, "Hm, I don't think it's mold. It's just something black on the wall." and and it's like my friends went through the same and landlords are in the biggest denial. I'm like where from what planet they coming from?

You know, you also think too now uh if somebody starts asking you about mold, that's probably like that's a tenant that you might not want, right? So, it's you got to be careful how you how you do things. So, very difficult to actually I think as a young person try to figure out. It's interesting when my son went to uh to school in the dorm for the first year. I know that that dorm was toxic because everybody was sick and then you had that first year dorm sickness that everybody, you know, it's like just spreading around and he got really really sick at one point. Almost came home.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Um everybody was sick in that dorm.

Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. I hear these stories even from like close friends so frequently and again different people have different symptoms but couple of my friends siblings had suicidal ideations just because they started college and you would think oh maybe it's the study load is too high or like stress or something it was actually mold you know we moved the bed there was so much black mold behind the bed um in a cabinet And the moment we moved out, no more anxiety, no more depression, just normal, you know, students being students. Um, it's so unfortunate. I was trying to look up some statistics. More than 50% of students report they have like moist moist in their dorms and all mold, actual visible mold. I remember in my dorm, I could smell it.

Yeah. Yeah. My Yeah. Um, and you know when I go to Miami, you could just smell there's that weird smell. It's almost like you the same smell that you smell in Mexico.

Yeah. In the airport.

Yeah. Now I know they've redone the airport now. I'm sure I don't know if it's but I can still smell it. It's probably still there. I can still my brain is on alert. I smell it from

Yeah. But I remember that right. It's just like he come I was like And I hate that smell. I hate mold smell.

The bigger issue is air fresheners that they use to cover mold issue and I see it everywhere. I'd rather choose mold smell so at least I know I have to get out of this building instead of staying in a building that is full of the scents um to mask mold issues and we do it everywhere in in residential buildings. You walk in and the building can be like four or five years old. It's still pretty new, but it already has moldios. Smells like hotel and it's actually has moldishes.

It's crazy. I got to tell you the story. So my we go on this this trip. It's fishing trip. So we get this Airbnb go into it. Fabuloso. That stuff is so like I can take some of this but I'm very smell sensitive. I have a nose. I can smell weird smells and it and it bothers me. We go into this place, the fabuloso is underneath the sink. So, the people that are cleaning the place are using this this cleaning product. It's so toxic. It's so bad that I literally I can't sleep at night um in this place. I just is like I and I there's no other option, right? So, I was like feel like sleeping outside because it's just so bad, right?

Yeah. True. Like uh the moment I check in into Airbnb, I look for like if I smell air fresheners, I disconnect them. I hide them. I seal them. Wrap just cover them. Uh because they are so toxic. On top of that, they are hiding other issues.

Let me ask you this. So, what about people that wear perfume or or scents? Any kind of scents? Does that bother you?

It depends how intense it is. If it's really subtle, it doesn't bother me. But if personally I'm buying something for myself, I going to use it occasionally, rarely. And I choose only natural perfume. Like I don't I don't do the synthetic fragrances because they're endocrine disruptors. And in general, you don't cover you don't want to cover your natural, you know, smell like I don't believe in over perfuming. Sometimes people feels like walking in a cloud of sense like it bars a lot of practitioners in this integrative functional medicine. They they warn patients up front or at least somewhere like on the website like don't wear intense perfumes because it irritates people who are more health conscious and aware. They don't want to see, I don't know, 10 patients a day, each of them coming with their own cloud of uh fragrances.

Mhm. Well, I'm I'm curious because I did and I forgot this morning, so I put on a little bit of uh stuff. Can you smell it?

I can't.

Okay. Because I always go very light. But yeah, yeah, it's interesting. And the endocrine disruptor portion of it. Yeah. That's something I want to talk to you about. I want to hear. I want people to hear. So, a lot of people don't realize that you're trying to live a healthy life and then you put the stuff on. I was always super smell sensitive. Like, I couldn't have any kind of laundry detergent. It had any kind of scent to it. I don't want any of that stuff around. So, from an endocrine disruption standpoint, how do fragrances impact people? People are putting this stuff on, right? It's not just the stuff in the environment, but the stuff they put on. How does this work?

Yeah, there are different mechanism for every chemicals are chemicals your body cannot excrete. So whatever goes in it stays stays in. The most common mechanism is that there are xenoest xenoestrogens. So we mimic your estrogen. We connect to receptors where your u actual estrogen should connect and it impures so many functions in your body. So you get hormone disbalances because of that. Plus there are other mechanism and it irritates your lungs um respiratory system and so on and ultimately

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean it's great that your body is so aware and rejecting these things before um you know it's too late. A lot of people ignore these things and then they accumulate their total toxic load bucket becomes so full and that's when disease happens and symptoms. Yeah, they'll show up.

Join us Friday for part two of the interview with Dr. Karolina.