Can Household Mold Lead to Tinnitus and Hearing Loss?

[Daniel Lion]

I've been living with mould for over five years and in that time had some episodes of tinnitus. Recently, I blocked up the wall vents in my house which seemed to cure the mould problem (house smells fresh now). However, my tinnitus has come back, worse than ever, and it has persisted for weeks. I don't bother going to the doctor because last time she told me mould can't make anyone sick. Any ideas or suggestions?

Hi Alita, I am an ex house builder. Do you own your house? If you do, I'd sell it. If you rent, I'd rent a new flat. Mould is very dangerous... it's that simple.
P.S. your doctor is full of shit.

 

[tiniturtle]

Well, Here's my story and yes it sounds bizarre to me as well.

I bought an old house in 2005 and started renovation , I had stayed there for about two weeks ,removing bag after bag of old *black* sawdust in the walls (used for insulation in the 1920's) when I woke up in the middle of the night , started walking to the bathroom and just fell down, passed out.

Woke up to the sounds of my wife calling an ambulance. I was taken to the hospital where they found nothing wrong with me. It was concluded by a nurse after a quick examination that I might in fact have had a panic attack , although I recall no panic. I remember asking the doctor if this could in any way be related to the fact that I was ripping apart an old house with lots of water damage. I knew nothing of mold at the time, just the only factor I could imagine.

In the coming weeks I would come to agree with their diagnosis and felt that indeed I was having anxiety and panic attacks so I started doing relaxations and meditation . This helped me a lot for some time.

Fast forward a few years and I am still working on this house,(It was three floors and a mess) building a music studio on the top floor, sanding and restoring the old floorboards ,replacing the roof.. etc .

All this time I never really feel "right"?
Keep in mind that at this time I am very successful in music, touring and having the time of my life.
I have a beatiful house downtown, perfect spot , my music studio up and running on the top floor, and I am super happy.
I do not feel depressed or anxious at all, I feel I need to say that as I had to hear that implied from doctors all the time.

2008 and I feel I have problems with sleeping , concentration and cognative issues and start seeing doctors, no diagnosis.
2009 and I am now feeling dizzy and lightheaded all the time and I practically have stopped eating, no diagnosis.
2010 and I remember getting this little twitch in my index finger when going to sleep, this started to go to my whole left hand , then the whole arm and finally it started causing convulsions and heavy twitching in my stomach muscles.
Finally I could hardly lay down as when I started to relax my body it started convulsing so much that I was losing breath.

Went to loads of doctors and was finally diagnosed with Essential Myoclonus or (We dont know what the f**k is wrong with you!) and given anti convulsion medicine or Rivotril. Better known as Benzo's.

At this point I was exhausted and would have taken anything to make it stop, despite being heavily against prescription drugs I gave in , also feeling pressured to do my best to resolve this.

At first it was godsend, I have possibly never been happier and more productive in my life.
The convulsions had reduced although they were far from gone, but I felt so happy to get an explanation for all this.

Then...the side effects , memory loss, my biggest problem. Literally going to the store , buy a bag of crap. Go home, put away the bag and a couple of hours later going to the store buying the same stuff. Everyday felt like I had been drunk when I went to sleep, could vaguely remember going to sleep.

Finally , I learned about mold from an friend that had a friend that has similar issues.

I turned my house upside down looking for mold indicators, not finding anything I called in a professional.
After he examined my house he told me that in the bathroom behind the shower I probably had mold.
Tearing away that wall one afternoon and yes indeed I had mold and LOTS of it.
The wall was literally completely black with mold from floor to ceiling, not spots, completely covered in black crap!

I moved out that same day.

A couple of weeks or maybe a month or so and my convulsion were completely gone and I felt that my cognative skills were improving, no more dizziness , weirdness, feelings of floating around , anxiety etc. etc....
Few months in and I had completely recovered from the convulsing.

Aftermath. I decided to stop this damned medication that I felt I had never really needed and I quit cold turkey.
Should not have done that as a couple of weeks later I could literally hear my hearing dropping down.
A few days later T begins.

Conclusion. I am afraid that mold can indeed cause a lot of nerve, brain related issues although I can never be sure.
Did the medication or mold give me T ? I guess I can never really be sure of that either.
In any event , I will take very good care of not exposing myself to mold again and I would advise everytone to be super vigilant about mold issues.

Sorry for the life story , have nothing better to do

I had this happen to me as well from mold exposure. After I moved out, I recovered in about a few weeks to a month.

 

[linearb]

Hi Alita, I am an ex house builder. Do you own your house? If you do, I'd sell it. If you rent, I'd rent a new flat. Mould is very dangerous... it's that simple.
P.S. your doctor is full of shit.

Curious to get your input as a builder; I think we need to quantify the kinds of mold which are problematic from the kinds which are not. I guarantee you that 100% of houses, globally, have tons of mold spores in them, since mold is endemic in every environment on the world.

There are common place allergic and hayfever problems this can cause. Severe infestations can cause severe problems, and then of course, among the "black molds" there are some which are demonstrably neurotoxic or mutagenic or otherwise Very Scary. I think there's a big difference between "I pulled back the wall to wall carpeting, and there is a 2mm thick layer of black slime covering the entire subfloor", and "I get some mold spots in the bathroom, especially if I'm not careful about humidity".

If you provide a 60-80 degree environment with ample moisture, mold will grow, in basically all cases.

I lived in a rental that had mold issues which we'd partially remediated when my tinnitus got bad, but I'm pretty sure the worsening was caused by the combination of ~115+ db in a concrete pillbox of a venue, combined with drugs I was on at the time. I'd been living with the mold for years, and had largely fixed it; the tinnitus increase was basically instantanious following the concert.

These days, I only worry about mold as it relates to cannabis, but we heat our house with wood which makes it challenging for anything moisture dependent to take hold.

 

[Daniel Lion]

Curious to get your input as a builder; I think we need to quantify the kinds of mold which are problematic from the kinds which are not. I guarantee you that 100% of houses, globally, have tons of mold spores in them, since mold is endemic in every environment on the world.

There are common place allergic and hayfever problems this can cause. Severe infestations can cause severe problems, and then of course, among the "black molds" there are some which are demonstrably neurotoxic or mutagenic or otherwise Very Scary. I think there's a big difference between "I pulled back the wall to wall carpeting, and there is a 2mm thick layer of black slime covering the entire subfloor", and "I get some mold spots in the bathroom, especially if I'm not careful about humidity".

If you provide a 60-80 degree environment with ample moisture, mold will grow, in basically all cases.

I lived in a rental that had mold issues which we'd partially remediated when my tinnitus got bad, but I'm pretty sure the worsening was caused by the combination of ~115+ db in a concrete pillbox of a venue, combined with drugs I was on at the time. I'd been living with the mold for years, and had largely fixed it; the tinnitus increase was basically instantanious following the concert.

These days, I only worry about mold as it relates to cannabis, but we heat our house with wood which makes it challenging for anything moisture dependent to take hold.

Here we go again... Part of living in Laos, telecommunications and the internet suck here.
House mold is a killer, and millions of people suffer from it unknowingly.

I don't understand closed systems, I do, but it drives me crazy when they build new structures where you can't open a window. Your house sounds fine. Big buildings with central ventilation systems are a problem. So are small dwellings.

My mom, who works at Boston University, building got sick. "building sickness".
They moved everybody out, gutted the place and found some toxic mold leaching into the ventilation system.

When I lived in the UK, I dis quite a few jobs removing mold with a power hammer or cold chisel, and then rendering it new with all this anti fungus and mold stuff they sell over there.
At one point I was living in a squat, post breakup with my long term girlfriend, and the place was so damp and cold I actually had a dream that mushrooms were growing inside of me.
So yah, mold is a huge issue, and will continue to be in the industrialized world, where people live in huge buildings with little air flow and closed systems. Or live in small flats unknowing to the toxins in their environment.
I don't think mold would contribute much to tinnitus, but it's possible that with a weakened immune system the ears would be more susceptible to damage.

When we holiday here, which is not often, I usually look for new structures and always insist on seeing the room first. Many of the rooms in the guest houses are moldy and you can smell it right away.
I have been exposed to so many chemicals , silicates, metals, from being a bronze worker, steel fabricater, and house builder, I am pretty lucky to be alive considering I smoked cigarettes and had access to really good hash and weed as well.

So as the world melts, people are worried about pandemics, the next Third World War, and we have mold to throw into the mix.
Keep your weed dry, you shouldn't have to many issues with mold unless the buds are being watered... you are a green thumb, so you know that.

Give your house an inspection... you should be fine...

 

[linearb]

Keep your weed dry, you shouldn't have to many issues with mold unless the buds are being watered... you are a green thumb, so you know that.

The weed is the canary in the coal mine for mold -- when the dried, indoor weed starts to mold.... run, run, RUN!

When we were shopping for houses I basically ignored anything if there was a whiff of mold scent; don't even need tests. One big selling point on this place, the basement is walk-in on one side, and even though we have hydrostatic pressure forcing water in on 3 sides, because there's an oil burner and a wood furnace down there the air stays at like 35 RO and nothing grows. That said, there's a lot of other reasons you don't want water coming in (cracked block, etc) so we're about to have the entire house dug up to the foundation on all 4 sides, re-waterproofed and new drainage put in. We also talked to someone who installs sump pumps, but the system they described to solve our issue from the inside was nearly as expensive as the excavation, and just keeping water from coming in the walls in the first place seems like a better plan than removing it once it's here. This house did fine for ~20 years on the original waterproofing and drainage; if we get another 20 out of it, well, I'll be pushing sixty by that point if any of us are still alive.

So as the world melts, people are worried about pandemics, the next Third World War, and we have mold to throw into the mix.

NIH is projecting 200K additional deaths a year to climate-vector diseases by 2030, including an additional 50,000 children a year dying of diarrhea. Lovely! Note that this was specifically looking at climate-vector diseases, and not any of the other things that are coming.

 

[Daniel Lion]

The weed is the canary in the coal mine for mold -- when the dried, indoor weed starts to mold.... run, run, RUN!

When we were shopping for houses I basically ignored anything if there was a whiff of mold scent; don't even need tests. One big selling point on this place, the basement is walk-in on one side, and even though we have hydrostatic pressure forcing water in on 3 sides, because there's an oil burner and a wood furnace down there the air stays at like 35 RO and nothing grows. That said, there's a lot of other reasons you don't want water coming in (cracked block, etc) so we're about to have the entire house dug up to the foundation on all 4 sides, re-waterproofed and new drainage put in. We also talked to someone who installs sump pumps, but the system they described to solve our issue from the inside was nearly as expensive as the excavation, and just keeping water from coming in the walls in the first place seems like a better plan than removing it once it's here. This house did fine for ~20 years on the original waterproofing and drainage; if we get another 20 out of it, well, I'll be pushing sixty by that point if any of us are still alive.


NIH is projecting 200K additional deaths a year to climate-vector diseases by 2030, including an additional 50,000 children a year dying of diarrhea. Lovely! Note that this was specifically looking at climate-vector diseases, and not any of the other things that are coming.

World is fucked... I don't mention that to my kids. Enjoy the day... that's for sure.
I think your modifications will be more than sufficient and will possibly outlast you my friend. Be careful of contractors, just be cautious. The pumps are overkill, your plan is ace.

Yah, weed is really fickle.... I have a friend from Santa Cruz who's got nightmare stories of the most beautiful buds gone to mold. I am gearing up for next year and am gonna try my luck outdoors. I am excited. It's been so long... so we will see.
Take care friend.

 

[linearb]

Yah, weed is really fickle.... I have a friend from Santa Cruz who's got nightmare stories of the most beautiful buds gone to mold.

Worst nightmare I've heard is cousins who grow legally in Mendicino county who lost $100-200K in product to forest fires last year -- which they barely escaped from with their lives, they said as they were driving down the highway, places that the guardrail posts were wood, the posts were exploding in flame as they drove past.

Next 20-30-40 years are gonna be interesting, anyway.

 

[Daniel Lion]

Worst nightmare I've heard is cousins who grow legally in Mendicino county who lost $100-200K in product to forest fires last year -- which they barely escaped from with their lives, they said as they were driving down the highway, places that the guardrail posts were wood, the posts were exploding in flame as they drove past.

Next 20-30-40 years are gonna be interesting, anyway.

Hey at least our world leaders and industrialists are taking global warming seriously... not.

 

[tpj]

What about the chemicals used to remove mould? Can they make tinnitus worse? A friend's place was treated on a Wednesday and I spent Saturday night there thinking it was enough time to air out but I could still smell that bloody chemical. I don't know what product was used but on Tuesday, I had a spike.

Coincidence or could this have been the cause?