Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of The
Welcome Back to Airway First, the podcast from the Children's Airway First Foundation.
I'm your host, Rebecca St. James. My guest today is Dr. Pajman Kaderahi, a board-certified
pediatrician who was also boarded and fellowship trained in integrative medicine. Dr. K completed
his undergraduate at UCLA and obtained his osteopathic medical degree at Western University of Health
Sciences. He completed a pediatric residency at Loma Linda University, where he stayed on as a
teaching faculty member for over four years. He also completed two fellowships in integrative
medicine. Dr. Kaderahi is now in private practice in Santa Monica, California, where he focuses on
helping children with severe behavioral challenges. He is also working with an amazing team to build
holistic minds, an online portal that helps parents understand the root cause of their children's
behavioral issues and what steps they can take to help resolve them. You can find out more about
Dr. K at HolisticKids.com and HolisticMinds.com. And now, let's jump into my interview with today's
guest, Dr. Pajman Kaderahi. Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us today, Dr. K. I really, really
appreciate you being here. Happy to be here. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just let parents know, you know,
hang in there. You may not see the connection immediately, but as we were talking beforehand,
I started listening to some other hearing you speak on other podcasts and other presentations.
And so many questions came to mind, you know, both for myself and as a parent. So,
lots to cover today. So, before we really dig into the meat of this, I heard you say something once
that it was your own health journey that turned out to be your greatest teacher.
And to me, that was just, that was huge. So, if you wouldn't mind just sharing a little bit about
your journey and what got you into practicing integrative medicine? Absolutely. Yeah. So,
you know, as a child adolescent in, I mean, even into my early 30s, I had, you know, bouts of
pretty severe anxiety, inattention, just bouts of depression that would just kind of wash over me.
And there was always a part of me that was like, why is this happening? Why is this happening?
And, you know, other than, oh, you've got, you know, fill in the blank problem, here's a pill,
you know, there was always this thing of, well, why is my experience of the world so much different
than, you know, most other people? And when I was in my residency, what compounded this
this questioning was, for whatever weird reason, my brain just has this audibility to kind of
see things differently. And, you know, I remember vividly, we would have these kids come in and
there's this, I've shared this story before with others, but this poor guy, this 14, 15-year-old
Hispanic young boy was playing soccer, fell, got a little cut on his knee, six hours later,
his knee swelled up, and then 24 hours later, he was dead. You know, and everyone else is like,
oh, that was just, you know, septic, you know, disseminated sepsis and we didn't give antibiotics
early enough. And, you know, I thought to myself, like, well, gosh, there are a lot of people that
cut their knees and they don't die 24 hours later from that. Like, what was it about him that caused
him to pass? There were other kids where, you know, their gastrointestinal tracts were falling apart
and, you know, the team had done the medications and the medications failed and they were like, oh,
well, next course of action is just to cut out his intestines because, you know, the colectomy
is the next best option. And, you know, for me, it was like, wait, that's so weird. First of all,
you can't even explain why his colon is so inflamed. He had inflammatory bowel disease. And,
like, if you can't explain why his colon is so inflamed and you're throwing these medications
at him and they're not working, why are you just jumping to cut out his colon? Like, what about
all this other stuff? Like, what about his diet? Oh, no, the diet doesn't work. Oh, supplements and
probiotics don't work. You know, and it was just this automatic knee jerk. Like, none of that stuff
works. So let's just cut out his colon because that's the obvious and best choice. And that was,
there was a lot of these moments in with my own kind of background, like, why do I feel this way?
And why do all of these kids have these odd things? It just brought me to a place where I
started really questioning, like, okay, there has to be something more than the picture that I'm seeing.
And lucky enough for me, my advisor in residency was this brilliant doc who happened to be,
you know, at least semi curious in holistic medicine. And she's like, well, why don't you go
check out, you know, holistic medicine? Maybe it's an option for you. And I did instantly fell in
love. And that was like 2006. And here I am a few years later. And for me, that the most beautiful
part of this journey is the realization that there is no one singular answer. There's no one thing
that explains everything for everyone. And part of my journey in understanding why I feel the way
I do and why the kids that I serve, you know, experience what they do, whether airway problems or
other things is really constantly training in different mindsets and different modalities.
And it's like the guy that keeps going and collecting tools, you know, it's like, oh,
I found the hammer. Oh, I found the drill, you know, and like each medical system for me is a tool.
It's a way of looking at problems. And I've just learned that the more ways I can perceive a given
problem, usually the better I am at solving it. And by no means have I figured everything out.
I'm still learning in each day. It's like, wait a second, what if, you know, and then I go down
another rabbit hole, and that opens up a new way of understanding. But for me, that that's, you
know, what's so wonderful about this work, which is there are endless possibilities in understanding
why kids experience what they do and why I experience what I do. And ultimately through this,
hopefully I can be better at helping these children heal and regain their health.
Yeah. And there are two things that that before we get too far that you said that
really struck me one is that the children you serve, I just I love that way of looking at it.
I mean, it's such a it sounds so simple, but it's such a very different dynamic,
just a different way of looking at it. So thank you for that. And, you know, this holistic approach
goes back to something that we've been saying for years now on this podcast.
It is about looking at the entire child. Let's find the root. Let's stop just throwing pills at them
and pushing them along. Because we're ending up with adults with problems we could have fixed
decades before. So I love that approach. So okay, now we're going to jump into the meat of what we're
going to talk about today, but let's level set things for parents. We're going to be talking
about molds and what makes them toxic. So let's just start with exactly what are molds
and how are some of them toxic to us? Yeah. So molds are everywhere, right? And without them,
actually, life would cease to exist because they are the composters, right? They recycle materials,
right? If a tree falls, it's the molds that decompose it. When we pass away,
molds decompose us, right? They break down all biological matter into the most basic building
blocks for it to be recycled. So they play a very valuable role in our ecosystem. And molds,
it's true, molds are everywhere, as people say. It turns out that there are certain molds,
like aspergillus, certain types of aspergillus, like stachybotress, which is the one that people
associate with the classic black mold. Ketomium is another one where these molds happen to produce
certain toxins, certain compounds. And you can look at these compounds as almost they're like a gas.
They behave like a gas, even though technically it's not a gas. So they release this gas-like thing
into our environment. And it turns out that this gas-like thing, these mycotoxins,
moltoxins, happen to be very toxic to us human beings. And the analogy or thing that I tell
to parents is, it's fantastic what molds are out there recycling things. It's just really bad when
molds happen to be attempting to recycle you, right? The living human being, right? If it's
your kid, it's even worse, right? So when their effort and toxicity and what they do is now being
directed at a living human being, who is especially in the early part of life, that's not a fantastic
thing. And this is one of the big misconceptions. Everyone's like, well, every house has mold.
It's true, but homes should not have certain types of toxic molds that only grow in indoor
environments, usually when there's water penetration, because certain molds like the Stachybotrys,
they're very, very finicky. They only like certain climates. They only like, you know, it's like
the family or person that only likes the 70 degree, you know, warm temperature that's super
comfortable, right? They can't stand too much heat. They can't stand too much cold. These molds are
very much like that. So at home that has some kind of water contamination or water penetration,
turns out to be the perfect environment for them. And that's when they start growing and then start
secreting these toxins and other compounds that then start causing a problem. Now, what I want to add
is we're learning that it's not just a handful of molds. It's like when you have a leak or some
kind of other humidity problem, moisture problem, it's like they're throwing a block party and they're
sending out invitations to all of their cousins. So now you get bacteria that don't belong there.
And it turns out these bacteria, these grand positive bacteria can start secreting their own
toxins, which happened to be harmful to us. So you get this big party of microbes, molds and
bacteria and all kinds of other things that are now together creating this toxicity and that collective
toxicity is where the problems come from. And, you know, it's so funny. I mean, I guess a lot of people
you think, OK, inner city housing, OK, I can see where it's going to be there. But it's in suburban
housing and hearing you talk, the thing that surprised me, it's not just in our houses. There's
other places that we're being exposed to this every day. Yeah. So absolutely. It could be in
office buildings. I've seen it in classrooms where there was a few times where I mistakenly thought
it was the family's home. And it turns out that it was the child's classroom in the old, old church
that happened to be very musty. I've had families where, you know, they thought I was absolutely
off my rocker because they had moved into a two year old custom construction, super fancy house
that was, you know, more expensive than I can begin to understand. And it turns out that one of,
I'll give you one specific example, one of the eight air conditioning units. Imagine a house
big enough to have air conditioning units. One of the eight air conditioning units in this super,
super fancy house happened to be the air conditioning unit that was contaminated and
ultimately causing the toxicity. Because when air conditioning units aren't don't like their drain
pan isn't set up and moisture just keeps trapping, you can imagine all of that mold that can grow
in the pan underneath the air conditioner or on the coils. And that becomes a thing. I've had scenarios
where again, really fancy nice house, the one window that was right by the kid's bed happened to
have been flashed improperly. And every time it was raining, water was just going straight into the
wall right around the kid's bed causing an issue. And, you know, people think like you need to have
your ceiling collapse for you to have a mold problem, you know, where it's like, Oh my God,
like, yeah, the water is about to cause that ceiling to fall apart. Rarely is it that obvious.
Most of the time people have no idea that they have mold. And it's certainly not something
that's on their radar, which is why I'm so happy to be here to share this. Because through the
awareness and understanding is how we ultimately can piece things together.
Right. Right. And get ahold of it. And but it's not just the part that blew me away that I heard you
talk about was it was in other things. I think the one that really shook me was medication.
But, you know, these are these are in foods and medications. And I mean, we're being exposed to
them in so many ways. How is this possible? You know, what? I mean, I know how it's possible.
But if something's toxic, why is it being put in a medication and why wouldn't that be something
we're warned about? I think there's so much we don't understand. Right. So for instance, with
foods, you know, when you look at certain grains and how they're stored, right, most grains are
stored in big silos. And now, especially with climate change, you know, pretty much every part
of the country has massive down spores and flooding and so forth. And these grains that sit in this
high humidity for prolonged periods of time get moldy. Now, even if we're not the ones eating
the moldy grains, which sometimes we are, usually those grains, if they're not fed to us, are fed
to the animals, right, then consume these mycotoxins. And then those mycotoxins are passed to us,
you know, through the animal products we eat. So it could be in food, it could be in milk,
because milk is obviously from cows who are then fed these grains.
And so, you know, in the food, you know, in the food, you know, you can have a lot of
toxins, medications, supplements actually can have the mycotoxins. And what really seems to happen
is you kind of have this starting point of toxicity, right, where between the foods we're
eating and whatever else, everyone has a certain level of toxic load, we call it. Now, for most
people, they can handle a certain amount of toxic load and their bodies are, you know, their
body is dried and everything is fine. What seems to happen is once you add the environmental load
on top of it, and you've got the glyphosates and plastics, and you know, these mycotoxins in our
food and etc, etc, etc, they're right here. And then the environmental load now suddenly pushes
it to up here, and you hit this breaking point where the system can no longer handle that toxic
load. And now the gut starts falling apart, and the microbiome starts changing, and the immune
starts changing. And then there's this just cascade of events that take place, which then
result in a host of different diseases. Wow. And this can happen. We're not just talking about
adults. We're talking it. I mean, how early are we talking in the womb or, you know, and how does it
present when it starts impacting the kids? So we do know that mycotoxins are passed through the placenta.
We do know that mycotoxins are concentrated and pass through breast milk. So it's entirely
reasonable to say that we think that, you know, infants could be born with multoxicity.
Early on, and I'm still not sure if this is actually the case, but what I have suspected and
started observing in a handful of babies now that I've been smart enough to identify this, is
it seems that early on, little babies who just have this off the charts colic, and essentially
from the get go, they just are wired. It's like having the three-week hold that has taken multiple
shots of espresso, and they don't fall asleep easily. They cannot calm their nervous systems.
They nap for half an hour, and they're wide awake. And it's literally like having too much
coffee for those who are sensitive, and you just literally can't calm your system down.
So early on, it seems to show up possibly in this colic, and then from there, it can go on
to show up as eczema. You know, I'm not talking a tiny patch of eczema, one part of the child's body.
I'm talking, you know, the eczema that keeps growing, and it keeps writing, and next thing,
you know, it's on multiple areas, and it's angry, and it's red, and it's itchy.
That kind of eczema, it starts showing up as more and more severe gastrointestinal issues. So the kids
that, you know, it's not just mom has to get rid of a little bit of dairy if they're nursing, it's
mom has to get rid of gluten, dairy, and eggs, and this and that, because the kid's gut is so
insanely reactive early on, or those poor babies that have to go on the hypoallergenic or elemental
formulas because they do not tolerate any kind of other formula. When you start putting the pieces
together, you start realizing that this could be one of the significant contributing factors to
that early, early presentation of these things. Wow. And that statement in my back of my mind,
I'm going through my children now, I'm going, yes, I had one of those. And now this is one of those,
I have to say it every podcast because it happens to me. You don't know what you don't know,
Park the Mom guilt. It's okay, we're learning. So let's just move forward for me here. So
how does this present as we go through older children, you know, impacting their immune system
and their nervous system, what might that look like? Before I answer that, if I can just touch
on what you said right before that, I certainly hope that everyone who's listening, I mean,
it's natural to feel guilty if all of a sudden you're like, oh my god, what if this was my kid?
And that's just being a good parent. The most important part of this conversation
is how much you can do to reverse and treat this. So if your child has had all kinds of
different issues, nervous system issues, and we'll touch on this, immune problems,
gastrointestinal issues, airway issues, obviously, these are all things that you can treat,
and probably get your kid in the healthiest place that they've been in years by understanding this.
So what I would love to do is kind of reframe this picture from doom and gloom and oh my god,
you know, what if I've let my kid suffer like this too? Wow, I have something that I can do to
really help my kid, my family, myself become so much healthier. And for some of those families that
are listening in maybe early on in the process, how much you can do to prevent the progression of
problems by actually addressing this. And part of why I feel so passionately about speaking about
this is from a treatment and prevention standpoint, the outcomes that are possible are staggering.
And the way children and families can heal from all of this is amazing. So I really hope that
this information empowers you to really feel good about helping your family be healthier rather than
sitting in a place of guilt and shame. Oh my god, doom. Yes, well said. And yes, thank you.
Seriously, every podcast, we hit that point and you can just because I know I feel it.
And so collectively, you know, parents listening just have that.
So we always have to say just park that guilt. Put it aside and let's move forward. Absolutely.
So let's go back and talk a little bit about ways that it presents and the way it can impact
their immune system or their nervous system. Yeah. So the first thing is let's look at the immune
system and you can just kind of look at it from a logical standpoint. If you have a competent immune
system that protects the body, would that allow the mold and maltoxins to ultimately do their thing?
Which is no. So what's really clever about the mold and maltoxins is they actually start causing
a weird disruption in the immune system. Where on one hand, they essentially can't say they disabled
the immune system because they don't, but they suppressed immune system. And what you find in
some children about 10 to 20 percent of the time is this weirdly low white blood cell count. So for
families whose kids have had their blood taken, you'll see like normal white blood cell counts
is typically about 4500. And these kids are hovering around 4200, 4100, 3800. So they're not like
heavens forbid, like cancer immune distorted, but their immune systems are just not functioning well.
And how this shows up on the outside is the kid who just gets one infection after another,
after another. And it's not they get a cold and they fight it off in two days. It's they get a cold
and they're congested and inflamed for three or four weeks, and then they go on to develop an ear
infection. And now they have a pneumonia. And it's just this never ending cycle of illness after
illness, after a complication from that illness. And then as soon as you've treated one illness,
another one shows up. So that's one of the first things that we see. The second thing that we see
is the immune reaction against these molds. So we have these cells are called mass cells. And
they're kind of like the immune scouts of the body. Their job is to kind of survey, you know,
the terrain of the body and say, Okay, is everything cool? Or no, is there a threat? And then they
basically sound the alarm for all the other cells to come and fight whatever thing threat that's there.
It turns out that mold toxins and molds themselves happen to be particularly good about just
really irritating these sentinels, these mass cells. And when these mass cells get really
activated, they start dumping out tons of histamine. So they start creating a lot of congestion.
They cause a lot of inflammation. And the first thing that that shows up as is just this constant
faucet of mucus that just never ends. And it's just those kids that are congested all the time.
And then because they're congested all the time, you know, mouth breathing, right, which then goes
on to create a whole host of other issues. But those kids that are congested all the time,
they get ear infections because they're congested. So there is station tube doesn't drain. So back
to back ear infections, usually they ended up getting ear tubes because they've had 15 ear
infections in, you know, not too long a period of time. So it's that chronic chronic inflammation
and congestion. And that same mass cell activity, that same histamine also can show up through the
skin, which is where the eczema and all of these weird skin rashes. So sometimes the kids don't
have eczema, but they get these hives that just come and go for no reason. And they're taking a
shower and suddenly they get, you know, hives that pop up and then go away. So those are some of the
first fundamental things that parents will see. And sometimes, you know, one child is presenting
with something different, and then you've got the parent who's always congested and so forth.
Okay. Okay. But it can also be, I don't want to say this incorrectly, tied to or connected with
things like ADHD and depression. Yeah. So what we don't oftentimes talk about is the role of
histamine in the nervous system. And to give, you know, our audience context of that, think of a time
where you or your kid or someone has taken Benadryl. And, you know, what that Benadryl does,
right, you just knock out Benadryl is an anti histamine. It's a very non selective
anti histamine, but it's an anti histamine. And what it does is basically, if histamine is the air
in the balloon that puffs up the balloon, aka our sympathetic nervous system, Benadryl takes that air
out of the balloon and causes the balloon to collapse, which is why we pass out.
So
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As a reminder, this podcast and the opinions expressed here are not a medical diagnosis.
If you suspect your child might have an airway issue, contact your pediatric airway dentist
or pediatrician. And now let's jump back into today's podcast.
Just the right amount of histamine is what we want, where it's not in excess, it's not too low,
because if it was too low, we'd be on the floor sleeping all the time. And what molds do to
mass cells is by releasing all of this histamine, we're not just causing allergy issues. In some
children, depending on their genetics and how they're wired, what can happen is these children
suddenly have these nervous systems that just cannot settle down. So it goes back to what we
were talking about in the little babies. And it's literally like the child has had 15 cups of coffee
every day. But it's not just their nervous systems can settle down. It turns out that beyond that
just constant inability to settle down to shut down, histamine also modulates our sensory pathways.
So how we perceive sound, how we perceive touch, our sense of balance, all of these different
senses are actually in some way, shape or form, modulated or affected by histamine. So the vestibular
system, which is our inner ear, which controls balance, actually can be very much disrupted
by history. And how that shows up is this kid that just cannot settle their body for the life of them.
And these poor kids get in trouble. Johnny, sit down, Susie, why are you constantly moving?
The parents are getting mad at them, teachers are getting mad at them, ultimately, we put them on a
stimulant because that's one way to keep them still. But that constant movement is actually
oftentimes a histamine imbalance. It also shows up as those poor kids that just get overwhelmed
in loud and crowded environments. And there's a lot of adults actually, that as I talk to them,
the parents like, yeah, that's that's actually me. It's not my kid, but it's me. So when there's that
sensory overwhelm in an environment, a lot of times that sensory overwhelm is rooted in histamine
and balances. And it's almost like someone takes the dial of your sensory balance and normal
sensory experience should be here. And you turn it up to here. And all of a sudden, the intensity
of the sensory world is dialed up so much that after being in an environment for a half an hour,
people want to leave. People get anxious. Sometimes what we see in the children that we label as
autistic. And these are kids that make perfect eye contact, they're talking to you. But they
just can't socialize, they can't be in social environments. Why? Because they're constantly
overwhelmed by their sensory experience of the world. And what's really amazing in these cases
is you bring down the histamine levels, you calm down the inflammation, and suddenly these kids
that are autistic are now, you know, they're a little quirky, maybe, but they're able to socialize
and they're able to be in the world and they're able to enjoy the world, which is the coolest part
of this. Yeah, it would be. And it even goes as far as I heard you share a story about one patient.
I believe it was her clothing. Just that that just seems,
that just blew me away that it can really impact a child that much, that they can have a reaction
to the way their own clothes feel. Yeah. Yeah. Taktile sensitivity. Thank you for touching on
that is another reflection of the same thing. So our experience of touch, so how clothing feels on
our body, a lot of times is also influenced by that. And a lot of these kids who have, and you
can see there's usually a constellation, these kids, you know, they can't tolerate tight bands.
In the case of this one poor little girl, she couldn't even tolerate clothing.
And again, as you dial down the histamine and rebalance it, all of a sudden, these kids,
you know, tactile sensitivities go away. And that could even, you know, transfer over into
what they eat as well. Is that a sensitivity? You know, we think they're picky eaters, but
they're just having some kind of sensory reaction. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's twofold for those kids.
So one, some kids just say that food tastes really gross in their mouth. So the older kids have
actually articulated that. And when you look at what some kids who are extremely picky eaters eat,
it's chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, you know, pizza, a handful of, you know, easy to eat foods
that are kind of neutral in taste and texture wise, there's very little involved and they can just
bite and swallow it. And when it comes to really dense textures, aka steak, for instance, or mixed
textures, that sensory experience is so overwhelming to these kids on the inside of their mouth that
it becomes almost offensive. And we just think, you know, eating is pleasurable, right? Right.
Enjoying certain things is so pleasurable, except for these kids, the act of eating is certainly
not pleasurable. They eat for the sake of, you know, sustaining themselves, but rarely is it an
enjoyable experience because of that sensory overwhelm. Sometimes what also happens is the
sense of smell, the olfactory senses change. And there are some kids who just literally cannot
handle the smell of certain foods. And there are some families where literally a kid will just leave
when the family is eating because of the smell. And that also then affects what they can eat
and how much they can eat. And, you know, as an extension of this, think of when you've had too
much coffee, your appetite goes away, right? Your appetite gets suppressed. And for some of these
kids, compounding all of these other issues related to smell and texture in the mouth,
their appetite is suppressed. So they kind of nibble a little bit all day, but they never get
that hungry because their nervous systems again are just stuck at like 100 miles an hour all the time.
Wow. Okay. So if as a parent, you're you're starting to put the pieces together and you're
seeing some of these signs and symptoms that could possibly, I mean, obviously we don't know,
but possibly be related to these moles and these toxins. What, where do we start?
All right. And you just go to your pediatrician and say, could we check this or where do we go?
The best starting point is to first kind of zoom out. Okay. Because usually it's not one child.
Usually there's someone else in the home that's having an issue. And that to me is the biggest
red flag. And for adults, sometimes they can show up as congestion. Sometimes they can show up,
you know, as anxiety or these sensory things that we talked about or whatever else. But the other
thing that that mycotoxins do is they disrupt the mitochondria. So they disrupt energy production.
And when they do that, one of the things that really comes to light is just this lackluster
energy state. And the kids, those are the kids that, you know, run for 30 seconds and want to sit
or they just don't run at all. They just kind of sit and play quietly. Those kids that they're
really not that active. Sometimes as you put the pieces together, you see it all kind of fit into
that very unified picture. There are a lot of adults that, you know, kind of normalize their
fatigue. And, you know, the common thing that parents say to me is like, well, I just thought,
you know, having two, three, four kids was the reason why I'm tired all the time. And I never
thought about it being more than that. Whereas in reality, it's not, I mean, their children are
not helping, but it's their actual physiological state that's causing that. And be a simple thing
that parents can do, and I can't provide medical, you know, advice just on a, you know, podcast
like this, but taking carnitine, just 500 milligrams of carnitine over the counter,
please talk to your doctor before doing anything, but taking carnitine sometimes boosts
energy production. So as a litmus test, sometimes I'm like, take this, see if you feel better.
And that becomes a data point. Brain fog and memory issues are also oftentimes
a sign that there's some kind of mycotoxin or other toxin exposure. So a lot of parents, you know,
what they'll all of a sudden start realizing is like, gosh, yeah, you know, five years ago,
I used to have really good memory, and my memory has just gotten progressively worse.
And again, they chalk it up to, oh, I just thought that was just being a busy parent and having too
much on my plate. So as these pieces come together, a lot of times families will get to a place where
they're like, God, yeah, this, this really fits the bill. And this, this can really be what's
happening. If that's the case, the first thing to do, I would say is to actually find someone
that knows what they're doing. Talking to your pediatrician or regular physician oftentimes
leads to a dead end. There's an organization called ISEAI, International Society for Environmentally
Acquired Illness. And they actually have this incredible database of providers around the
around the country and world, who can help people who have been impacted. One of my dear friends and
mentors, Dr. Neil Nathan, he actually has his own website, and he has trained hundreds of providers
also in the world of mold. And these people are quite competent in helping as well. So by utilizing
these resources, you can find someone who hopefully is, you know, in your neighborhood, or at least
in your state that can help you start unraveling what's going on. Okay. And is this the type of
situation where you hear a lot about it? And I don't want to poo poo everything you see on
social media. So please, audience, don't take it that way. But you see a lot on social media.
Detox is something that people talk about a lot. Is there some validity to it in a situation like
this? I mean, is that or something that makes sense sometimes? Yeah. Yeah. Detox can certainly be a
very valuable part of the healing process. I think when it's done indiscriminately, and you're just
kind of throwing stuff at the wall, hoping something sticks, that's when you're kind of spinning your
wheels, or sometimes people actually get more ill as a result of that. So detoxing and using binders
like activated charcoal or clay or other compounds to start pulling these toxins out and doing other
things to restore the gut could certainly be helpful. It's just, it needs to be done, you know,
with the help of someone that knows what they're doing to guide you through that process.
Right, which makes sense. And you mentioned the gut. Just quick thought on that. Probiotics are
everywhere. And we're hearing it talked about so often. How does that help or does it help at all
with something like this? So probiotics are fantastic. They can certainly help in the restoration
and healing of the gut. When someone is living in a mold contaminated environment and they're hoping
that their probiotics are the magical solution to fix their problems, that's like having your house
burning down because of a main gas line leaking. And you've got your little fire extinguisher
trying to put out that fire and you're wondering why the fire doesn't go out.
And, you know, early, early on, I couldn't understand why some of my patients whose gut problems were
there just were not healing. And finally, I wised end up and realized like, oh my God, it's because
they have all of these, you know, toxins floating through their system and through the exposure.
And oftentimes when you control the exposure, the gut actually starts healing and that's when the
probiotics and other things can help. And it's just kind of a general thought because I know a lot
of our listeners, they have humidifiers in their house, especially if you have a breathing disorder,
you hear a lot of, you want to keep the air moist, you want to keep it where it's more palatable to
your system. How does that work as far as being a dangerous breathing?
Humidifiers could be super, super helpful when they're used with caution. Because if you do take the
humidity level of an environment past a certain point, you have now started creating a breeding
ground for possibly mold, you know, dust mites can start growing. So, like, especially in really
dry environments or climates, you know, what I'll tell the families is at nights when your kid is
sleeping, run the humidifier, get the humidity levels up so they can sleep. And then during the
day, shut that thing off and let it dry. Because a lot of times these humidifiers can get moldy
themselves if we're not careful. So you just need to be aware of what you're doing and how you're
doing it rather than just, you know, indiscriminately running a humidifier 24 seven and taking
humidity levels to 70% all the time. Right. Living in a little greenhouse. Yeah. So at the end of
every episode, I always like to hand it back to our guests because you are the experts. And
it just leaves the last word with you. Anything final thoughts or messages for our audience?
You know, especially when it comes to airway, I think this is an area that as far as moldy
is concerned is something that we have paid way little attention to. I have seen obviously
that there's more reasons than just mold. But I have seen a significant number of kids who have
chronic mouth breathing and we do myofin they're doing myofunctional therapy, except someone has
missed the fact that there's mold exposure. So you're doing the therapy to kind of reorient the
mouth and tongue, you know, mouth closed, except the poor kid can't breathe, right? Because they're
congested all the time. There's one published study that has demonstrated adenoid hypertrophy
from mold exposure from an indoor environment. And, you know, a lot of these kids, they start
off with some mouth breathing because they're congested. And that then starts creating a cascade
of events that starts leading to tonsillar and adenoid hypertrophy. And then a lot of times these
kids end up getting surgery, right? And we're hoping that the surgery fixes things, which a lot of
times it does, it restores the airway. But that congestion is still there. And that congestion
perpetuates everything. And I've had, you know, probably four or five cases where the tonsils
actually grew back out. And the parents are like, what do you mean my kids' tonsils are
back? And what do you mean they're having, you know, obstructive sleep apnea again? We had these
taken out two years ago. So, and the flip side of this is I've had a few cases where with a lot
of hard work on the family's part, you know, we addressed the environmental exposure, took care
of whatever mold was in the home. The family did a lot of work to change the kid's diet. So it was
a low inflammatory diet. We did certain supplements like probiotics and immunoglobulins to calm down
the gut inflammation. And all of a sudden, the kid that had these, you know, big tonsils, obvious
airway obstruction slated to have surgery a month later, like the tonsils are still big, but they
were no longer obstructing the airway. Kid was sleeping soundly with their mouth closed, snoring
was gone. And all of a sudden, it's this kid didn't need surgery. And there are times that I think
surgery is absolutely the best course. And I'm the one pushing the families, you know, those poor
kids that are choking and gagging, and they just can't breathe and they can't oxygenate. Yes.
But there were also a lot of kids to we just charge into surgery as our first course of action.
Without standing back and saying, what is causing this poor kid's system to be so inflamed? What is
causing so much congestion and buildup in this child's body that is then causing these cascade of
events that are leading to surgery? And what if we nip things at that level to then see how everything
else folds out? Because there's a chance that I don't want to peg a percentage on it, but if
fair number of kids that right now, parents are looking at surgery as their only option,
suddenly becomes, oh, this is another option that can help. And sometimes it can help so much to
the point where surgery is no longer even a necessary thing. That would be amazing.
Thank you so much for being on here and sharing everything. And as I alluded to earlier, there
is so much to this and we've really just touched the surface. So I will be putting quite a few links
and YouTube videos in our show notes so that parents can find out more.
It was a delight to be here and to share this information with you and your audience. And thank
you for creating this space and holding this space to just inform the community and help parents
learn more about these very important things.
Thank you.
Thanks again to today's guest, Dr. Pajman Kattarahi for sharing his medical insight.
And for each of you who are listening to today's episode.
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