EPILEPSY ANON CHECKING IN, MOLD EDITION
Hey anons, just thought I'd keep you posted in the spirit of helping find cures rather than just treatments. Lately I've stumbled across mold as a potential trigger for seizures. Gut bacteria plays a HUGE role in epilepsy and the only known case of "cured" epilepsy is a study where someone with chrons underwent a fecal microbiota transplant and inadvertently cured their epilepsy. That got me to trying probiotics which helped a LOT, and I think in some cases can be curative. This also got me to thinking of other environmental cues.
Apparently people often experience a surge in seizures during the winter months. Personally, I was fine all summer, but once fall came around I started having them all the time, very consistently. right around the time my HVAC started running heat…
My basement has had some mold in the past and for sure has little white patches on the rafters. I've been periodically running a dehumidifier but my washer leaks. I suspect this is a bigger problem than I initially thought. Today I spent a great deal of time spraying vinegar (apparently better than bleach) on the rafters and all over the vents, and installed a filter (rated for mold) on the air intake (didn't have one before). When I came home from errands tonight my house didn't have the normal musty smell it usually has. This is interesting to me. My work likely also has a mold problem but I don't know if I'll be able to do as much about that, so this is my starting point.
I would cite sources but for what it's worth I just wanted to get this info out there as soon as I could. I came across multiple cases where people with epilepsy had pets that also developed epilepsy, and their homes contained mold as well. Apparently mold can cause inflammation in the hippocampus which is of particular interest to me, even if that isn't necessarily where mine start. Honestly, mine feel like they start in the gut, and the best I've felt in the last few weeks was a couple days where I was eating some home made bread (YEAST!). Yeast is a mold. Maybe the good yeast had out competed the bad in my body, so I will be making bread tomorrow and see how that goes.
Anyways, thank you and God Bless you all, I hope this info helps other anons out there who are struggling. Never give up, keep researching, and hopefully we'll get some more health and wellness digs. I will continually come back to post more as I learn more and let anons know what has helped and what hasn't. Keto diet apparently helps a lot too and I've tried it but likely wasn't doing it right, and the seasonal nature of my seizures makes me think it has an environmental component I have yet to perfectly isolate.