The following is excerpted from the Mold-Help website.
Fungi, which include yeasts, moulds, smuts and mushrooms, are responsible for causing four types of mycotic (fungal) disease:
1. Hypersensitivity - an allergic reaction to moulds and spores
2. Mycotoxicosis - poisoning by food products contaminated by fungi
3. Mycetismus - the ingestion of preformed toxin (toadstool poisoning)
4. Infection - systemic (Mycotoxicosis, the subject below)
These are the most common symptoms of fungal exposure (bear in mind, people never fit all of below criteria). Most people with some forms of Mycotoxicosis meet at least 8 (recent symptoms) of the following criteria:
- Fibromyalgia/mps (and several correlated symptoms)
- Respiratory distress, coughing, sneezing, sinusitis
- Difficulty swallowing, choking, spitting up (vomiting) mucous
- Hypersensitivity pneumonitis
- Burning in the throat and lungs (similar to acid reflux and often misdiagnosed as such)
- Asthmatic signs; wheezing, shortness in breath, coughing, burning in lungs, etc.
- Irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, diarrhea, sharp abdominal pains, stomach lesions
- Bladder, liver, spleen, or kidney pain
- Dark or painful urine
- Dirt-like taste in mouth, coated tongue
- Food allergies/leaky gut syndrome/altered immunity
- Memory loss; brain fog, slurred speech, occasionally leading to dementia
- Vision problems
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Large boils on neck (often a sign of anaphylaxis)
- Yellowing of nails, ridges, or white marks under nail
- Thyroid irregularities, sometimes leading to complete dysfunction; adrenal problems
- Headaches
- Anxiety/depression, heart palpitations - confusion, PTSD
- Extreme blood pressure, cholesterol, or triglycerides irregularities
- Ringing in ears, balance problems (very common), dizziness, loss of hearing (aspergillus niger)
- Chronic fatigue (also included under this classification directional confusion)
- Intermittent face flushing; almost always systemic, called the Mylar Flush (neurological)
- Night head sweats, and drooling while sleeping, profuse sweating
- Multiple chemical sensitivity; only upon exposure to Stachybotrys and Chaetomium
- Nose bleeds (stachybotrys)
- Bruising/scarring easily; rash or hives, bloody lesions all over the skin (often systemic, see images: skin)
- Reproductive system complications; infertility, changes in menstrual cycles, miscarriage
- Sudden weight changes (detoxifier genotypes tend to gain weight, non-detoxifier genotypes tend to lose weight)
- Cancer
- Hair loss, very brittle nails, temporary loss of fingerprints (in rare cases)
- Joint/muscle stiffness and pain
- Irregular heart beat/heart attack
- Seizures, inadvertent body jerking, twitching, inadvertent facial movements or numbness in face; hypersensitivity when re-exposed to molds, which can lead to anaphylaxis
- Anaphylaxis upon re-exposure to mycotoxin-producing molds
- Death, in extreme cases