Homebiotic

[CarrieS]

Has anyone tried this product for mold in their house?

https://www.homebiotic.com

I've just been diagnosed with mild mold allergies so am wondering if this is a real thing to look in to.

[Magda]

Has anyone tried this product for mold in their house?

https://www.homebiotic.com

I've just been diagnosed with mild mold allergies so am wondering if this is a real thing to look in to.

Hi Carrie,
I am sorry you have been dealing with mold allergies! Unfortunately, I cannot say anything about homebiotc, I saw a few commercials mostly online but I have not used it. It does look interesting!

Have you checked out Dr Jill Carnahan site? she is a wealth of information on mold!
https://www.jillcarnahan.com/

Magda

[slacker]

Almost sounds too good to be true (full disclosure; I am a cynic). It contains "healthy soil bacteria" but I couldn't find a list of actual ingredients. Most probiotic supplements tell you what bacteria are (allegedly) in the product. I couldn't make sense of the data chart presented - no explanation of measurements or ratios. No link to published study or paper.

With that being said, if allergies are the problem, it might be reasonable to try it and see if symptoms get better. I also like Magna's suggestion to dig through Dr Jill's website. She is generous with sharing information.

[mike]

On the subject of molds, my wife is very allergic as well. Our crawl space under the house stays somewhat damp. We ended up taking out the fiberglass insulation that prior owners had put in and replaced with sprayed-in closed-cell foam. The insulation is good, but it also creates an air/moisture barrier. My wife has been much better since.

[slacker]

One of our crawl spaces has been a major source of mold. It is now well covered. The Dr Richie Shoemaker approach to mold (CIRS) focuses on mold fragments as well as the actual mold and spores. "Killing" the mold releases these fragments and biotoxins per his experience.

Carrie, while reading this morning about the Homebiotic product on the website you listed, it sounded like it helped keep mold down, but didn't get rid of mold already there. Correct me if I've misread something. It makes a big difference!

[CarrieS]

Thank you for all of the replies. My house tested clean for mold. I'm kind of a cynic too so had to smile when I replaced my furnace filters (that are supposed to catch mold spores) and wondered if the probiotic spray would get caught in the filter too. I've got to wonder if the microbes in the ferments that I make are the same as the Homebiotic product too since sauerkrauts use soil based bacteria.

I had a huge immune response (after hiking) to something last year that presented with an itchy head and a very itchy full body rash. The only thing that helped was an anti parasitic medication for a skin mite but that was short lived and eventually stopped working. Yes, I've had an itchy head and an itchy body rash for over a year now. I went to an Environmental doctor last week, gave him my 1/2" thick stack of test results and told him my story. Apparently, mold sensitivities present as an itchy head. Hmmmmm. Maybe my mast cells have never settled down. We did skin tests for molds, mites, etc to which I had a mild response so was given an antigen drops mix of what I was tested with to help desensitize me and also given histamine drops to calm down my mast cells. A stool test a year ago showed that I tested mildly positive for the parasite Blastocystis hominis so we're treating that. After a week, things seem to be settling down so maybe we are on to something. Oh please, oh please.

[circular]

I had a huge immune response (after hiking) to something last year that presented with an itchy head and a very itchy full body rash. The only thing that helped was an anti parasitic medication for a skin mite but that was short lived and eventually stopped working. Yes, I've had an itchy head and an itchy body rash for over a year now...

Hopefully this will go on its way soon, that's a long time for a rash! You're probably on the right track, but just in case it should become helpful ... I wonder if you ate anything unusual on that hiking trip or had introduced a new food around that time. Years ago, long before chia seeds were in nearly everything, I read about their wonder properties and ate some. I broke out into hives that lasted 15 months. I haven't touched one since.

[CarrieS]

Hopefully this will go on its way soon, that's a long time for a rash! You're probably on the right track, but just in case it should become helpful ... I wonder if you ate anything unusual on that hiking trip or had introduced a new food around that time. Years ago, long before chia seeds were in nearly everything, I read about their wonder properties and ate some. I broke out into hives that lasted 15 months. I haven't touched one since.

Yikes - 15 months of hives. Thank you for letting me know that there is an end at some point to this! I'm running in to more and more people who are allergic to chia seeds. I've found that I have intolerances to a number of the "super foods" so have learned to be careful and monitor my body's response to them. Salmon, oatmeal and avocados elicit inflammation to the point where I can't move my neck if I eat them more than once or twice a month (and I've had to work up to that).

This rash seemed to ramp up again starting in August / September and correlates to when it started last year so something seasonal could be in play here. I hike almost every weekend so get a lot of exposure to seasonal blooms. I'd been to Dominican Republic in Feb 2017 so I may have started a cascade then that took months to present. The doctor agreed to "think out of the box" to try to solve this so I'm hopeful.

[circular]

I caught this Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross on NPR about microbes in the home. Very interesting! For ex: the molds that develop on drywall and wood are actually present in the products when installed, waiting to be activated.

This expert supports the notion of a home biotic while saying ‘we’re not there yet’. I don’t know if he’s unaware these products exist or just doesn’t think they can be supported from a professional standpoint.

If you’re not familiar with this series, despite the name and episode, it’s not always about fresh air.

I recall a long time ago Dave Asprey of Bulletproof fame was selling a home use probiotic. Not sure if he still is.