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Suggest Lab Tests To Help Diagnose Mold Sickness

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Posted on Wed, 23 May 2018
Question: Dear Dr. Ditah,

THANK YOU for asking me how I am doing, as I do have several follow questions for you Here goes:

1. I have believed for some time now that I have some form of inflammation or infection in the area of my eye cage and forehead. This is not a headache, but an inflammation/infection of some kind. Call it an inflammation – call it an infection - it is present 24/7. If you look at my 15 Feb 2017 blood test (sent to you earlier) you’ll see that my C-Reactive Protein (CRP) is sky high at 3.6, whereas a “normal reading” should be under 1.0.

I did a quick search online for “high CRP test results” and I come across information about chronic inflammation the possibility of parasites, etc. Please see the attached from Dr. Mark Hyman. My question is: do you think my high CRP reading/indication of inflammation is concerning? and if so, what would you suggest as a treatment plan? (By the way, I walk 3–4 times a week, usually over 10,000 steps each time, which is about 5 miles of walking 3-4 times a week, so I don’t think there is much more exercise I can get in my weekly routine.)

2. I sent the below remarks to my primary care physician, Dr. XXXXXXX at Kaiser Permanente, after his nurse called and left me a message saying that Dr. XXXXXXX wanted me to do a stool test. Here is what I wrote Dr. Kim:

Dear Doctor XXXXXXX I will come in for a stool test. Based on my own research most stool tests are only 15-20% accurate; and the more expensive tests are only 50% accurate, meaning 50% of the time parasites go undetected. I paid a lab $600 earlier this year for a comprehensive stool test and their full report is attached. Two different forms of parasites were present. In late Nov I did a 7-day parasite cleanse and cleaned out several long worms; see photos attached. I lived in Uruguay, S/America for 5 years (through end 2015) and would like to be tested for mold, as mold is present in over 80% of Uruguayan homes. My last C-reactive protein test was EXTREMELY high at 3.63 and I believe this to be an indication of inflammation, possibly parasites or mold. I will take the stool test, but as I expect the results to be negative, I would like to see you or an Internal Medicine Specialist to prescribe the necessary drugs to eradicate parasites and to get tested for mold illness. XXXX

As a result of me sending this message to Dr. XXXXXXX his nurse scheduled me seeing Doctor XXXXXXX 2 days from now, on Monday. Usually, appointments are only possible to get weeks in advance / yet this appointment was set on Friday for Monday; so it seems my above message to Dr. XXXXXXX got someone’s attention!

3. Are there any tests for mold? or for mold sickness or for some form of mold inflection/inflammation? And if there are tests for mold, what are these tests called? It would be helpful to have this information so that on Monday I can discuss these tests with Dr. XXXXXXX in addition to asking him to prescribe me the 2 doses of 400 mg albendazole to eradicate parasites.

My best regards,

XXXX

It seems there is no option for me to attach any additional documents, so I will attempt to put Dr. Hyman's remarks below:

This Simple Blood Test Could Save Your Life – Mark Hyman
http://drhyman.com/blog/2014/10/03/simple-blood-test-save-life/

The next time you visit your doctor for blood work, make sure that along with your lipid profile you request a C-reactive protein (CRP) test. CRP measures the degree of hidden inflammation in your body.

Mounting evidence underscores the critical role that inflammation plays in the development and continuation of diabetes. One study in JAMA: The Journal of the Medical Association found people with a high C-reactive protein blood level have a 1,700 percent increased probability of developing diabetes.

Besides obesity and type 2 diabetes, inflammation contributes to almost every modern disease including heart disease, cancer, and dementia as well as arthritis, autoimmune disease, allergies, and digestive disorders.

Acute Versus Chronic Inflammation

Inflammation comes in two “flavors.”

Acute inflammation is your body’s appropriate response to infection or trauma. You’ve experienced a sore throat, rash, hives, or a sprained ankle.

But inflammation should do its job and then leave. With allergies, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune disease, or asthma, an overactive immune response and chronic inflammation can slowly wreak havoc, eventually leading to illness and rapid aging.

Your CRP levels should be less than one. Anything higher provides a giant warning sign that you have hidden inflammation.

Inflammatory Culprits

Especially with high CRP levels, you want to do everything possible to reduce inflammation. Even if your results come back within normal range, you’ll want to target inflammatory culprits, including:

A high-sugar, processed foods diet, Inflammatory fats (omega 6 fats like processed vegetable oils and trans fats), Lack of exercise, Stress, Food allergies and sensitivities, Hidden or chronic infections with viruses, bacteria, yeasts or parasites, Mold and other environmental allergens, Toxicity from an overload of environmental toxins

8 Strategies to Reduce Chronic Inflammation

Couple the Standard XXXXXXX Diet – with its abundance of vegetable oils, trans fats, and sugar – with high stress levels and crappy sleep, and you’ve got a surefire recipe for chronic inflammation.

Reversing inflammation can reduce your risk for disease, help you lose weight, and leave you feeling and looking better no matter what your age. When my patients have high CRP levels or otherwise experience chronic inflammation, I employ these eight strategies to normalize inflammatory levels:

1. Eat real food. Too many sugary foods, including wheat flour, raise insulin, eventually paving the path for insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. A vicious cycle results as insulin resistance creates even more chronic inflammation. Eat an anti-inflammatory high fiber, plant-based, whole foods diet.

2. Make an oil change. Besides sugar, omega-6 rich soybean, corn, and other vegetable oils stoke your inflammatory fire. Eat healthy fats from olive oil, nuts, avocados and omega 3 fats from small fish like sardines, herring, sable, and wild salmon. If you don’t eat wild-caught fish at least three or four times each week, consider a high-quality fish oil supplement.

3. Exercise regularly. One study in the Journal of Applied Physiology 2found exercise protected against chronic diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. If you’re just starting out, incorporate aerobic exercise 30 minutes, five times a week. If you want to step things up a few notches, try interval training and weight resistance.

4. Actively relax. Learn to actively relax to engage your vagus nerve, the powerful nerve that relaxes your whole body and lowers inflammation, by doing meditation, deep breathing, or even taking a hot bath. One study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine3 found yoga could reduce inflammation and stress, and “regular practice could have substantial health benefits.”

5. Address food allergies and sensitivities. One study in the journal Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology & Diabetes4 compared obese kids to normal-weight kids and found obese children had a threefold higher level of CRP and 2.5 higher level of IgG antibodies for the 277 foods tested. Food sensitivities, weight gain, and insulin resistance are intricately connected. Eliminating common highly reactive foods, including soy, gluten, and dairy can dramatically reduce inflammation.

6. Take probiotics. Studies show5 among their benefits, a probiotic supplement can help reduce intestinal inflammation. These healthy gut flora also improve digestion, further reducing inflammation. Look for a high-quality probiotic supplement that contains 10 billion CFU of Bifidobacteria species and Lactobacillus species.

7. Address nutrient deficiencies. Look at a high-quality multivitamin/ multi-mineral as your best insurance policy that covers any gaps you might not get in a whole foods diet. One study in The XXXXXXX Journal of Medicine 6 found a multivitamin could lower C-reactive protein levels.

8. Spice it up. Turmeric is one of my favorite spices to help reduce inflammation. Others include ginger, XXXXXXX and garlic.


doctor
Answered by Dr. Ivo Ditah (20 hours later)
Brief Answer:
See below!

Detailed Answer:
Hi and thanks for reconnecting with me.

1. Your CRP is no major concern at this time. Remember a genuine doctor does not treat laboratory numbers but a client and this is guided to a greater extent by how you feel. Am a doctor who listens m,ore to my patients as opposed to according superior importance to laboratory findings that are not corroborated by clinical findings.

2. Testing for molds at this time would be premature and I do not have enough reasons to suggest that. Mold cause infections of the lungs and breathing airways. If you had such symptoms, stool analysis and cultures would be considered. Remember, mold, a fungus, is present everywhere and we breath that in and out daily. Unless we develop symptoms, we really need no testing. From our exchanges, am more for the fact that you do not need this at this time than otherwise.

I concur with not doing any further stool test and getting the cheap and safe albendazole tablets for treatment.

On another note, do not be hard on yourself. Always looking and think you are sick would eventually get you sick. I will like you to be more positive and optimistic about your health than you actually are at this time. I am very serious about this.

There is so much junk online and not personalized to the individual audience. if we were to listen and act accordingly, we would be unable to live. I deny the above many points as there is no substantial evidence to lend credence to them While research is good, making hasty conclusions and recommendations from limited and incontrovertible findings is mind boggling.

I hope this guides and helps. Keep me updated about your visit of tomorrow. I wish you well and await your updates.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
doctor
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Follow up: Dr. Ivo Ditah (3 days later)
Dear Doctor,

I appreciate your thoughtful remarks and suggestions.

I'll keep you posted as things develop with my Primary Care Physician at Kaiser Permanente.

Best wishes for Happy Holidays!

XXXX
doctor
Answered by Dr. Ivo Ditah (3 days later)
Brief Answer:
Still waiting!

Detailed Answer:
Hi,

Just to let you know am still waiting.

Thanks
Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
doctor
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Follow up: Dr. Ivo Ditah (3 hours later)
Dear Dr. Ditah,

Here is an update.

I saw my primary care physician at Kaiser Permanente and - using the photos I had taken of parasites evacuated out of my system on my last cleanse - I convinced him to give me a prescription for Albendazole (400 mg) as discussed and I've taken the first dose of that (Day One). On 21 December I'll take the 2nd and final dose of that. My primary care doctor had wanted me to take stool test BEFORE prescribing me the Albendazole but I said I'd prefer to do it the other way around - take the drugs first and then AFTERWARDS take the stool test to ensure all parasites are out of my system. So that's what we'll do.

On the head pressures I was referred by my primary care physician first to an optometrist, to ensure it wasn't something related to my eyes/vision/etc. and that lead to my seeing an ophthalmologist who found nothing out of the ordinary, but the ophthalmologist wanted to rule some things out so I'm scheduled for a Visual Field Test and OCT test later this month. And to rule out nerve damage and such related to the head pressures the ophthalmologist referred me to a Neurologist who has set me up with an MRI with contrast for later this month. (As a reminder, I had two CT scans earlier this year - a CT scan without contrast and a CT scan with contrast and neither of these showed anything troubling, although the CT scan with contrast showed a sinus infection and I was prescribed antibiotics for that and that took care of the problem.)

That's the update. If you have questions or suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

Regards,

XXXX
doctor
Answered by Dr. Ivo Ditah (23 hours later)
Brief Answer:
Am good with these!

Detailed Answer:
Hi,

Am good with these updates. There is nothing specific out of the outlined plan and intended investigations that I would want to add or subtract at this time.

Let's see how you respond to treatment.

I wish you well.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
doctor
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Follow up: Dr. Ivo Ditah (8 hours later)
18 December 2017 - Monday

Dr. Ditah,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I'm glad to be on a path you seem to approve of.

I take my last Albendazole 400 mg on 21 December and, from past discussion with you, I believe you felt any residual effects from the drug will take another week or so before being out of my system. BTW, on taking the Albenza (trade name for Albendazole) so far I have experienced few side effects (no nausea, no vomiting) but I was a little "blue" and "down" for the first couple of days, after taking the first dose, but considered this a "normal reaction" to the meds and realizing that brightened my spirits. By about 28 - 30 December the Albenza
will be out of my system and I'll then do the stool test to see if there are any remaining parasites in my system.

I am seeing my primary care physician on Friday 29 December, and after that, the same day, will be having the MRI with contrast.

I haven't mentioned my high PSA reading of earlier this year, as I didn't/don't think it relates to either the parasites or the head pressures, but the reading was high enough earlier this year that my primary care physician sent me to their Urologist and he tested me TWICE, once in March 2017 and again 30 days later in April 2017. Here are my past PSA readings, going all the way back to my first PSA test in 2009.

January 2009 - 1.48 ng/mL
January 2011 - 1.92 ng.mL
December 2013 - 2.7 ng/mL
>>>>>>>> there appears to be a missing test result here, in early 2017, a high reading, that prompted my primary care physician to send me to the Urologist. I will query my Kaiser Urologist to locate this test result, which Kaiser doesn't show in their online test results available to me as the patient. <<<<<<<<<<<
March 2017 - 6.1 ng/mL
April 2017 - 6.2 ng/mL PSA FREE - 1.11 PSA % FREE - 18

In discussions with the Urologist in April/May 2017 he discussed the option of having a prostate biopsy to determine if there was any cancer present, as my mother had breast cancer, but no cancers on my father's side, but I differed doing anything about it on the advise of my chiropractor who was DEAD-SET against me doing the prostate biopsy surgery. The Urologist and I decided to take a wait-and-see approach to the high PSA readings, and test me again in 6 months. I recently nudged my Urologist to re-test me, he set it up, I took the test (which I guess is a simple blood draw) and the Urologist and I are scheduled for a phone consultation on 2 January, at which time he will give me the new PSA test results, which don't get posted to my online test results until FIRST they are discussed with me.

So, appointments are:
29 December - visit with primary care physician to update him on tests and investigative work done so far re the head pressures, then the same day I do the
MRI with contrast.
2 January 2018 - phone consultation with Urologist to get/discuss PSA test results.
5 January - Visual Field Test and OCT, as ordered by my Ophthalmologist.
11 January - phone consultation with the Neurologist to review my MRI with contrast test results.

That's the F U L L update.

If you have any additional thoughts, suggestions, questions, points of view to share, etc. please share them with me. From my end, I don't think I will have anything further to report until at least 29 December, after I see my primary care physician and undergo the MRI with contrast.

Best wishes for Happy Holidays,

XXXX
doctor
Answered by Dr. Ivo Ditah (2 days later)
Brief Answer:
Great!

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXX,

Am glad with these updates and schedule. I am happy with the plan. I will weigh in once i hear from you on the current PSA value. This needs to be reviewed closely.
Between, not all cancer of the prostate require surgery or treatment. The approach and ultimate solution is tricky and needs patience.

Happy Holidays XXXX. I wish you the very best as we roll into the new Year!

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
doctor
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Follow up: Dr. Ivo Ditah (2 days later)
Dear Dr. Ivo,

Thank you for your note.

Did you get the large manila envelop? It was sent to your St XXXXXXX office via Federal Express, for delivery yesterday, Friday.

I'll be in touch again A-F-T-E-R 2 January, as that is when I get the results of my PSA test.

Best wishes for Happy Holidays,

XXXX


doctor
Answered by Dr. Ivo Ditah (16 hours later)
Brief Answer:
Am on vacation at this time!

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXXXXX

I am actually on vacation and as such the parcel hasn't reached me yet. May I ask what the content is?

I await your updates after January 2.

I wish you a Happy Holiday season and a happy and prosperous new year 2018.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
doctor
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Follow up: Dr. Ivo Ditah (2 hours later)
Hi, Dr. Ivo,

I hope you enjoy your vacation time - I'm sure you deserve it.

What's in the parcel? It's a XXXXXXX (which I hope you and your family will enjoy).
Let me know when you receive it.

And, as mentioned before, I'll be back in touch after I receive my PSA test results on 2 January.

Happy Holidays + winning tennis matches and enjoyable soccer matches!

XXXX
doctor
Answered by Dr. Ivo Ditah (18 hours later)
Brief Answer:
You are such a good person!

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXXXXX

You are such a good person. I wish you well and will keep you updated.

Cheers and have a fun filled holiday season.
Note: For further follow up on related General & Family Physician Click here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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Dr. Ivo Ditah

Internal Medicine Specialist

Practicing since :2002

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Suggest Lab Tests To Help Diagnose Mold Sickness

Brief Answer: See below! Detailed Answer: Hi and thanks for reconnecting with me. 1. Your CRP is no major concern at this time. Remember a genuine doctor does not treat laboratory numbers but a client and this is guided to a greater extent by how you feel. Am a doctor who listens m,ore to my patients as opposed to according superior importance to laboratory findings that are not corroborated by clinical findings. 2. Testing for molds at this time would be premature and I do not have enough reasons to suggest that. Mold cause infections of the lungs and breathing airways. If you had such symptoms, stool analysis and cultures would be considered. Remember, mold, a fungus, is present everywhere and we breath that in and out daily. Unless we develop symptoms, we really need no testing. From our exchanges, am more for the fact that you do not need this at this time than otherwise. I concur with not doing any further stool test and getting the cheap and safe albendazole tablets for treatment. On another note, do not be hard on yourself. Always looking and think you are sick would eventually get you sick. I will like you to be more positive and optimistic about your health than you actually are at this time. I am very serious about this. There is so much junk online and not personalized to the individual audience. if we were to listen and act accordingly, we would be unable to live. I deny the above many points as there is no substantial evidence to lend credence to them While research is good, making hasty conclusions and recommendations from limited and incontrovertible findings is mind boggling. I hope this guides and helps. Keep me updated about your visit of tomorrow. I wish you well and await your updates.