• momsAWARE - Living Healthy in a Toxic World
  • momsAWARE - Living Healthy in a Toxic World

The Holidays and Your Health

How to Eat Healthy During the HolidaysHave you given up all hope of healthy eating this holiday season? Would you like to make it through the holidays without sacrificing your health or your sanity? Don't miss our article on The Holidays and Your Health. We offer five simple suggestions for navigating the holiday food maze and starting out the New Year better than ever before! For additional helpful tips on de-stressing your holidays by making good food choices, check out our article Better Food, Better Mood.

Mold Survival Stories

Have you experienced a serious toxic mold exposure or know someone who has? These stories will encourage anyone walking through this difficult valley. Read the accounts of several fellow travelers who have made it to the other side in our Mold Survival Stories.

  • Kelly Batic Hazmat Crew

    Our family of six lost our home to toxic mold. While in the home, we lost a baby to miscarriage and had a two-year-old with asthma who was in and out of the hospital every two weeks. Other symptoms included brain fog, yeast infections, and frequent colds.

    We tested our home and found four different toxic molds. The sewer was backing up and flooding. We were unaware of the mold and bacteria growing.

  • Beatrice Latherings' Trailer

    I survived because of two people on the Internet, plus the support of friends and family.

    The first Internet person nailed my problem as mold and persisted in convincing me. I thought I had Lyme disease and had never heard of mold illness.

  • Heather Plude

    My son went from normal kid to disabled kid in about six weeks. Starting when he was 11 and for about nine months, he was having trouble walking, playing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. He was in terrible pain and couldn't go to school.

    Our whole family was sick. Finally I read the book Surviving Mold. An ERMI test on the house came back high in toxic molds.

  • Gregory Muske

    Tearing apart moldy kitchens and bathrooms was just another day at work.

    My health declined over decades. Eventually, I completely broke, in part because of being steeped in mold spewing from our new front-loading washing machine.

    Conventional medicine had no answers. I spent two years thinking I was going crazy, while researching on my own for 40-60 hours a week.

  • Kristina Townsend - Virgin Islands

    I was exposed to high levels of toxic mold while in the Virgin Islands in 2007. I was there for my job and was housed in a building that had been condemned two years earlier.

    The key to my survival was the testing offered by Real Time Labs. The tests confirmed a diagnosis of mycotoxicosis, which helped me understand the nature of my illness. It also helped me address the real issue and get the medical help I needed.

  • Desert View

    I had both Lyme disease (from a tick bite) and environmental illness/mold hypersensitivity.

    After losing most of my belongings and having trouble finding an apartment that I could tolerate in the humid Northeast, I decided to try what Erik Johnson had described regarding mold avoidance, and I moved to the desert.

  • Erik JohnsonIn 1986, Dr. Paul Cheney asked me, "How would you like to become a prototype for a new syndrome?"

    I refused, saying that my improvements due to staying out of moldy buildings would distract from his theory that our illness was caused by a virus.

    But Dr. Cheney insisted. So I became a participant in the study group that led the CDC in 1988 to recognize the illness that they named "The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome."

  • Lisa Petrison

    I became ill with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) in 1994. By 2007, I was near-comatose all the time, with dozens of symptoms.

    Finally I learned about toxic mold and did a trial away from my home and possessions. After that, I reacted violently to both the house and its contents. The house did have black mold hidden in it.

  • Jessica Grow

    I visited a homeopathic doctor just as I was beginning to feel ill. Within 30 minutes of interviewing me, she said, "I believe you have biotoxin illness."

    Later the blood tests would confirm her diagnosis. I had become bedridden from extreme fatigue, nausea, memory loss, severe depression, body acne, and painful joints.

  • Andrea Fabry - DumpstersOur family of 11 moved into our dream home in June 2000. Symptoms started immediately. It took a botched mold remediation to make the connection between our illnesses and the home. We vacated in October of 2008. We left everything behind.

    Within a few months it became clear that it would take more than leaving the home to restore our family's health.
  • Betsy Anderson's House

    I fled. We had sudden, extreme exposure when our landlord tore up floorboards, releasing a toxic mess from the crawlspace and spreading it through the house with a fan. Fled to a tent in the yard within days, then fled to hotels. Searched for a year for a safe place for my family. Ultimately, fled not only the house and all belongings, but the country (England) for a drier climate.

  • Giles Meehan

    There wasn't any connection that I could see between mould and my debilitating ME (CFS), acquired after graduation from the University of Cambridge in England. Rest and various treatments (chiropractic, diet, supplements, etc.) had helped somewhat. I lived near the sea in Felixstowe, long renowned for its fresh air.

    I made some videos, then Erik Johnson commented that some people with ME don't experience those awful "crash" symptoms after everything they do, if they are really free of mould. So I started looking into that.

  • Christa Upton and Family

    "What is that smell?" I asked my friend when she visited our newly purchased 1970s house. I'd been working on getting the smell out of our carpet for three months.

    "Christa, I think it's mold."

    We ended up spraying and "killing" a massive amount of mold that was hidden under the carpet, behind baseboards, etc.

    Eight months later I was bedridden and very ill, and no one knew why.