Jason Earle

Not sure where this is going?

Did you know that mold is the primary cause of nearly all cases of chronic sinusitis, the most prevalent long-term illness in America, affecting over 37 million Americans, according to the Mayo Clinic? If you do the math that means it affects 12% of the population, or one of every eight people you know! I have to admit, I had no idea this was such a massive problem until I began going into homes to help people get control of their indoor environments.

So now we're going up your nose...

What exactly is chronic sinusitis? In the simplest terms, sinusitis is a condition in which the tissue lining the sinus cavities becomes inflamed and swells up. Bacteria and mold spores, amongst other things, can get trapped in the folds of the sinus tissue, causing painful sinus infections and further complications, including further swelling, trapping more bacteria, fungi, etc., compounding the problem. Breathing problems, awful headaches and difficulty sleeping are just a few of the myriad problems that sinusitis sufferers have to deal with, not to mention the treatments; drugs, sinus irrigation and, worst case scenario: surgery. The "chronic" part is how long it lasts. A general rule of thumb is that episodes of chronic sinusitis last a month or more. Much less than that and they are referred to as "acute."

Chronic sinusitis is caused and/or aggravated by a variety of different things including food allergies, environmental irritants such as cigarette smoke, VOCs (airborne chemicals) and airborne allergens such as pollen, mold and the other byproducts of dampness, including the MVOCs (musty smell) molds produce, dust mites, etc. The list is long...
Antibiotics certainly have their place in medicine but are wildly over-prescribed in general, with no exception in the case of sinusitis, even though they have been proven in several studies to be ineffective in many cases. Since antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections and the infections are really caused by the inflammation, the antibiotics are treating a symptom rather than the cause. In fact, antibiotics seem to often complicate things, making some people susceptible to yeast overgrowth and other lovely things which we need not elaborate upon here.

The big question is how to prevent the inflammation in the first place or otherwise get it under control. So that's where this thing is really going, in case you're wondering...

Your nose is actually a filter of sorts, and we are constantly barraged with a plethora of things which have the potential to throw our immune system into a tizzy. The little hairs and mucus and other glorious components of a well-formed sniffer are designed to trap this unwanted junk and make it easy to get rid of it. Just blow your nose.

Part of the problem is that stuff we're allergic to can get trapped in the mucus against this relatively sensitive and reactive tissue, causing or aggravating the problems we've already discussed. Clearly, we all can do a better job of limiting our exposure to things that are bad for us. (Think: second helpings, that last glass of wine, negative people, sword swallowing, etc.) But for those of us who breathe and work and go outside and engage in other such things that are pretty fundamental to normalcy in our world, there's really no way to completely eliminate exposure to these nasal irritants, unless you're inclined to don a low-profile respirator whence strolling about, or a fashionable mask like the lady on the scooter below.

[PHOTO CAPTION: I took this picture two years ago while in Taiwan getting a component made for our GOT MOLD? Test Kit. Everyone wears these masks because the pollution is so bad. What's also amazing is the inconceivable number of scooters on the roads in Taipei, like swarms of bees. Look closely at the picture above and notice the precious cargo that was watching me while I took the photo from a cab. Incredible!]

So it's with the knowledge we really can't avoid exposure to allergens and irritants using practical measures, tens of millions of people relinquish control to their allergy medications.

What a slippery slope it is when we treat symptoms rather than the root cause. This is where I get a little uppity, so please forgive me.

Too often we have had to relearn things in our culture that as a species we have already known for thousands of years. It's totally ridiculous, in my not-so-humble opinion. Look at what we're now discovering about the body and nutrition even though the Chinese knew of it thousands of years ago, or how commonly wives' tales carry genuine wisdom. And the power is usually in the simplicity.

So here's the setup for the wind-down:

If something irritated your skin, the first thing you would do is wash it, right? You wouldn't take a pill, would you? That would be silly. And we think nothing of showering once or more a day. To do anything to the contrary would drastically impact most of our social lives, and most of us need all the friends we can get.

In Indian medicine, known as Ayurveda, they practice a method of nasal irrigation, rinsing out the nose and sinuses, with a device called a neti pot. Yogis have done it for hundreds of years claiming numerous physical, spiritual and emotional benefits (they are connected, aren't they?). After all, the words spirit, inspiration and respiration are similar for good reason. The Latin root is spirò and it means breath/life energy. To breathe well is the first step in living well.

The wisdom of Q-Tip commercials in the eighties informed us that you should never put anything in your ear smaller than your elbow. Apparently your nose runs under a different set of rules. Hopefully after you put this into practice, your nose won't run at all.

The act of rinsing out the allergens and other junk stuck in your mucus isn't exactly dinner conversation, but it simply makes scents (ok, it makes sense...forgive me, again). You will notice that you will smell better (Well, not you exactly. Your nose will smell more efficiently. You will still smell exactly the same.) and food will taste better after you do this too.

Lots of people who don't suffer from sinus problems, and who aren't yogis or even aspiring to become one, do this and love it, but anyone predisposed to this kind of ailment might want to consider this as a normal part of their daily hygiene. I'm not sure what this means, but Oprah's a fan of the neti pot! Like most preventive measures originating out of Eastern wisdom, this method is dismissed by many physicians. Others are simply unaware of it, believe it or not. A few that I know are strong advocates, such as Wellington Tichenor, M.D in New York City, who also happens to be a rarity in other ways too. His patients never stop raving about him. I know because we've helped a good number of them.

There are many kinds of neti pots available. It's recommended that you use ones that are made of ceramic like the one above. Plastic ones can leach chemicals that you don't need swirling around inside your sinus cavities, even for a few minutes. I won't bore you with how to do it and all that jazz; there are countless videos on the web that do a great job in that regard. I think the one below is the most practical even though it's about as exciting as watching paint dry.

One the other side of the spectrum is this one, where the guy starts off with water and then proceeds to try coffee and Scotch. Do not try this at home, unless you just can't help yourself. In this case, your problems likely extend well beyond sinusitis.

Anyway, that's a long-winded piece on a very simple concept, but it's one that I think holds a lot of value for those not yet initiated to the neti pot and its manifold benefits.

As a mold inspection company that specializes in sniffing out hidden mold problems in homes, people hire us all the time to check their houses for mold because of mysterious chronic illnesses like indoor allergies, chronic sinus problems, asthma that seems to get worse indoors along with many other potentially mold-related issues. As much as mold is our business, I hate to see the suffering that comes along with it. I think it was the Buddha that was quoted as saying, "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." While that quote runs much deeper than the context of this rather lengthy post, with the right tools and awareness, pain can propel us to find lasting solutions to our pain, helping to prevent the unnecessary suffering that so many people endure every day when their home isn't as healthy as it should be.

It's our mission to help in whatever way we can. So if someone you care about suffers from this all-too-common ailment, you might want to forward this to them. They might thank you.

So will we.

Labels: allergic rhinitis, allergies, asthma, chronic sinusitis, got mold, mold, mold dog, mold inspection, mold test kit, mold testing, neti, neti pot