There is 1 common cause of sleep issues that is often overlooked and completely explains why you’re sleeping restlessly and waking up all night long and also have other symptoms such as frequent urination, muscle and joint pain, sinus congestion, gut issues and more. 


I’m talking about mold toxicity.


In this episode, I talk to Meryl who has had sleep issues for as long as she can remember. She falls asleep at 8 p.m. because she's so exhausted but she wakes up off and on throughout the night and is totally awake by 4am.


She's done multiple functional labs and yet they didn’t uncover what I found in the simple assessment she filled out for the call. She wasn't aware that this one major factor could be causing all of her symptoms!


She already had looked into what was causing her sleep issues but at least one crucial piece of the puzzle has been missing until now!


Mold episode link


00:00 Introduction to Sleep Issues

00:23 Meet Meryl: A Case Study

01:30 Meryl's Sleep Patterns and Challenges

03:30 Exploring Potential Causes

09:44 Mold Toxicity and Its Impact

12:04 Testing and Recommendations

15:19 Meryl's Insights and Discoveries

18:38 Conclusion and Next Steps


Episode Transcript


Martha Lewis:

There is one common cause of sleep issues that is often overlooked and it completely explains why you're sleeping, restlessly, waking up all night long, and also some other symptoms such as frequent urination, muscle and joint pain, sinus congestion, gut issues, and so much more. I'm talking about mold toxicity in this episode. I talked to Meryl who has had sleep issues for as long as she can remember. She falls asleep at 8:00 PM because she's so exhausted, but she wakes up off and on throughout the night and is totally awake by four to 6:00 AM She's even done three of the lab tests that I use in my programs except for the hair tissue mineral analysis, and she wasn't aware that mold toxicity could be causing all of her symptoms. So she is a good example of someone who has already looked into many things that could be causing her sleep issues, but at least one crucial piece of the puzzle has been missing until now. I'm Martha Lewis, AKA, the sleep detective. As a functional health coach for the past five years, I've helped myself and over 200 clients find the root causes of their health issues so they can consistently sleep seven to nine hours without drugs, even if they've already done some functional lab testing and haven't gotten better. This is the Sleep Detective podcast where you will learn why you can't sleep and how to fix it naturally. Hello, today I have Meryl here for a sleep breakthrough session. Thanks so much for being here, Meryl.


Meryl:

Oh, thank


Martha Lewis:

You. You're welcome. All right, so I want to ask you some of what's been going on with your sleep and what you've tried to deal with it and some other things that you wrote in the assessment, and then I will get into what I recommend. So it sounds like you've been having sleep issues for a long time.


Meryl:

Well, I have, and I would be in upward swings, but since this and then downward, but since this fall, it's been more of a challenge than before. I go right to sleep most nights, but I wake up around generally two and get back to sleep for a while. Then I'll get up at four, but I go to bed at eight.


Martha Lewis:

Right.


Meryl:

Yeah, it takes me a long time to get six hours to sleep. That.


Martha Lewis:

Okay. Yeah. So that was actually one of the first things I wanted to ask you. Have you always gone to bed at eight o'clock?


Meryl:

No. No, I haven't, but maybe for the last two, three years.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah, I'm just asking. I'm wondering, even though you're falling asleep quickly, I'm wondering if that could be a little too early for your body and so that's why you aren't able to sleep through the night.


Meryl:

Well, I've tried to push it back, but I tell you, I am just so tired that I can move so I can play with that idea of finding something that I won't fall asleep doing and just to extend it. But usually I really have to wait for the clock to hit eight and then I'll go to bed and stuff.


Martha Lewis:

Gotcha.


Meryl:

Yeah. Yeah, I'm open to it if you can what out?


Martha Lewis:

Yeah, I always say habits aren't everything, right? Most people I know are trying sleep hygiene and things like that. It's not enough if they're imbalances in your body that are affecting your sleep, but I do think in your case that it could possibly help you sleep a little later getting six hours, a six hour stretches,


Meryl:

No, not six hour stretches. I go to sleep for an hour bathroom, then I have hour, then I pretty much wake up at end of every sleep cycle. Okay, gotcha. And that includes naps. I've been meditating twice a day for 50 years, but lately I've been sleep eating. I've been going to sleep in pretty much every meditation and it's very welcome. And then it'll add up to six hours of sleep. My aura ring actually that suggested I should try to push my sleep time there. So maybe with the two of you project I will


Martha Lewis:

Embrace. Right. And you can do it 15 minutes at a time, so it doesn't have to be like you're going from eight to nine. Definitely try 15, 8 15 for a week and then eight 30 for a week and see if that helps. And then are you lying down during meditation? I sit up


Meryl:

And then when I start to nod off, I'll lean back and then when I'm definitely going to sleep paddle, I won't be lying down, but I'll be just supported.


Martha Lewis:

And then what time is that happening?


Meryl:

Oh, this is like 10 in the morning.


Martha Lewis:

Okay.


Meryl:

Three here, four at night. And sometimes I won't know how tired. I won't know that I'm that tired, and even before a minute of thinking my mantra, I'm falling.


Martha Lewis:

And that's because you're sleep deprived. Your body's trying to make up for lack of, but I am wondering if especially the falling asleep later in the day, so close to bedtime is also affecting things.


Meryl:

Well, one of the things is that when I wake up around two or so, I have rested legs syndrome, sometimes stomach gas that comes and goes, and I'll just want to move. My body will say this torment to just stay focused in. We've got to move, let things move around and loosen up a bit.


Martha Lewis:

I had restless legs when I was pregnant, so I know about that. Not fun.


Meryl:

It's not fun,


Martha Lewis:

But I mean that can be from mineral imbalance, can be from lack of dopamine. Actually,


Meryl:

I'm pretty sure I've covered on the mineral imbalance, but never know. I know all


Martha Lewis:

Tests I've had except


Meryl:

Imbalance.


Martha Lewis:

Okay. Yeah. Interesting. That's good to know. Yeah, I mean I think minerals could definitely have something to do with it. They become depleted as we get older and especially we're under stress, which not sleeping is a form of stress


Meryl:

And I am supplementing for that. And my husband is actually a former practitioner, so he monitors that.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah, I like the hair test because that can show imbalances before they ever show up in blood work, for example. So our body's always trying to keep things stable in the blood, so it's going to pull minerals from other parts of the body to keep it at the right levels in the blood. So by the time it's showing up in the blood, it's way out of balance. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.


Meryl:

So he hasn't been a fan of that kind of testing, but obviously you've had good results with it.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah, I find it's one piece of the puzzle and it's really commonly overlooked as well. And then what also shows heavy metals too, which there are other ways to test that as well. And some heavy metals show up better in blood or urine or hair, so they're all different. So it's usually a combination is really necessary if you want to know exactly what heavy metals you might have. So I don't know if you've done anything like that.


Meryl:

No, just done steel class, Dutch test.


Martha Lewis:

Okay.


Meryl:

Yeah, I've done that and that showed nothing


Martha Lewis:

Really. I'm so surprised


Meryl:

Because


Martha Lewis:

That's what I was going to ask you about because of the gut issues that you have.


Meryl:

Yeah, parasites. I could use more of the good bacteria just about a year ago when I did it, and we've been working on that varying my roots and stuff like that.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah. Do you know, I think the Genova usually doesn't test for h pylori. Do you know if your test included that?


Meryl:

I don't know. I'm pretty sure my blood work.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah. Well, usually H pylori isn't by blood work. It's either like a doctor will do a breath test or I use the GI map. That's the gut health test also because it looks at h pylori specifically and it's more sensitive for h pylori than any other gut test. So just with the bloating and gas that you reported, that's common symptoms of HH Pylori. It makes me wonder if that's what's going on.


Meryl:

Yeah. Main thing for the bloating gas is I keep forgetting what I've already learned. I have my fat digestion is a little compromised, so I can take 60 grams of fat in a day, but not 80. Sometimes more fat slips in. And then the same is true about the seed oils I've been, I listened to you over and over and over again just to drill that in. Don't do those. Don't do those. Not even a nibble. And so sometimes I'll look back and say, why is this happening? Maybe I kind of was trying to slide by without realizing it.


Martha Lewis:

That could be yet, but I mean, we should be able to digest an appropriate amount of fat. So yeah, it could be that because there's an issue with your gut, it's also affecting fat digestion as well.


Meryl:

Yeah.


Martha Lewis:

So I do think that's a piece of the puzzle for you. And the last thing I wanted to add is that, so I assess in the assessment for possible mold toxicity, know if you're, remember where you checked off different symptoms for what's called chronic inflammatory response syndrome, which usually is from mold toxicity, and you checked off eight symptoms there. Anything above six is likely that this is an issue. Once we're getting to eight and above, it's highly likely, do you know if you're living in mold or have you ever lived in a place with mold? Because it could be something from the past or it could be current. Again, that's


Meryl:

Something we look for just like we can be a brown house, any evidence of that, and there hasn't been, it can hide.


Martha Lewis:

It can definitely hide. It's not always visible. So you could do, it's called an IRMI ER mi, that's a self test. You can order where you can test the dust in your house, but ideally an inspector would come who's testing the dust, testing the air, looking for water damage, looking in the HVAC system and looking for visible mold, but covering all bases because yeah, sometimes we don't even know it's there.


Meryl:

Well, I live in Colorados. It's not a real moldy place. That doesn't mean it can happen.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah,


Meryl:

Some friends who have dealt with it.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah. I live in Wyoming, which is a similar climate,


Meryl:

And


Martha Lewis:

My husband works in the property management industry, so he's doing home inspections and he's had to deal with a lot of mold. I mean, if there's water damage, it doesn't matter how dry the climate is, there's a leak that isn't addressed right away, and it's easy for mold to grow. So a lot of times we don't know the history of our homes, and so there could be mold somewhere, but I think that could be the missing piece since you've done a lot of the other tests and address those things.


Meryl:

One of the great things about listening to is I went back to my chest and just looked at 'em again, and I was able to understand a little more of what they said. So I appreciate that inspiration.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah, that's great.


Meryl:

Also, no hormones, but my hormones are far.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah. Okay. 25% of the population has a gene that can't detoxify mold properly, and so that mold produces mycotoxins, which are a type of fungus that continue to live in the body and build up and affect the gut. They affect our minerals, they affect our hormone, like they affect, and they especially affect detox or they're affecting every system in the body. So there is a mycotoxin test, it's a urine test that can be ordered to directly test for those. Now it's only looking at nine or so species, but it's looking at the most common ones. And I'll also add that you want to ideally sweat before taking the test, or sometimes people take glutathione before taking the test because it could be hiding in there, and if your body isn't detoxing properly, it's not going to show up in your urine, so it would be a false negative. So I don't, yeah, so just the night before taking the test, I recommend sweating, like going in a sauna or taking a hot bath even is fine, but something to get your body if there are those toxins there to flush 'em out a little bit so that they would show up in the urine. Yeah. Okay.


Meryl:

Yeah. So you mentioned the army, is that one the urine test? The urine test?


Martha Lewis:

No, sorry. So that's for testing your home. Oh, testing home.


Meryl:

Okay. Got


Martha Lewis:

It. Ideally, you test your home and your body, the body's going to confirm if that's what's going on. So sometimes I do that first if people want to do it, knowing that if someone has a lot of symptoms like you do, then if they don't want to spend the money on testing, then we can also just assume that's what's going on. So I recommend ways to deal with that are going to help with overall health anyway, especially detoxification. But usually I'm like, okay, let's first test in the body and then if it's positive in the body, we need to make sure that you aren't living in it, so we need to test your home because it's really hard if your body can't clear it for you to be living in it constantly. So I can also send you another episode I did that talks about mold toxicity more in depth, and I will link to that in the show notes for everyone listening. But yeah, those are the three things I recommend is seeing if a later bedtime helps and not falling asleep during your meditation, especially the one later in the day.


Martha Lewis:

I think that could be disrupting your sleep at night. So I don't know if that means if you're open to that, a shorter meditation or if you start falling asleep, getting up. I mean, I know you're tired and that's your way to get more sleep.


Meryl:

I've tried it before and just this skip thing, just not letting myself sleep at all, and I just almost, again, I guess things have changed


Martha Lewis:

And it's not going to be enough if you have mycotoxins in your body that are causing all these issues. It seems like there's something going on in the gut as well. So yeah, so those are the three things I suggest.


Meryl:

Okay. Can I quickly tell you some of the things you said that were really like, oh yeah. Yes, of course. First of all, when we just started hearing you talk about how you go beyond symptoms and you're going to the PO and just in the way you tie it all together, but also it's like you have some little things for symptom or leak, but you're very clear that is not the answer. You've got bit of the root cause, the sensitivities to the seed oils. That really got me going more, but one of the biggest ones was that I would finish a meal and I would just want to keep eating. I'd want sugar. And when you were talking about the three metabolic types, and if you feel this after eating that means, and you just said just include more carb, a little more carb meal, and I started doing that and it didn't take much. My carbohydrate digestion isn't great either, but it really didn't take much for me to just be done when I'm done or closer. So that was really great too. There's more, but that one was really,


Martha Lewis:

That's amazing. Yeah. So I think you're saying that you're not craving sweets anymore after because, right.


Meryl:

Yeah. I can just say, okay, I'm done and be satisfied, and it's like such a little change.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah. That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that.


Meryl:

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.


Martha Lewis:

Of course. Yeah. Any other questions you have or anything else you want to


Meryl:

No, I just want to take, the green starter is great, and I got a CG mation to monitor continuous blood glucose, wondering if that was the problem, and I was thinking that it might spike at night because my cortisol is high. I discovered after listening to you and going back to my chest, it's high at night.


Martha Lewis:

Okay.


Meryl:

The first night I had it on, it didn't spike, it went down. I got actually into hike over my snic levels.


Martha Lewis:

So that's actually what happens if it's spiking during the day, and then that can make it drop way too low at night. So you saw that on there. Interesting.


Meryl:

I saw that on there. I eating to sustain myself a little bit longer. It only happened a couple more times. Well, only one where it actually went under 70 and went up and got just a few bites to eat. It got stabilized from S spring of broccoli and cauliflower. It didn't take much, so that's been really helpful for me too, just to see.


Martha Lewis:

Okay.


Meryl:

How you don't have to load things on.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah,


Meryl:

It goes a long way. Okay, great. I'm better learn in a while.


Martha Lewis:

Okay. I'm so glad. Thank you for listening to the podcast and thanks for being on today. It was really good to meet you. Yeah, you too. Keep me posted and let me know what you figure out.


Meryl:

I will. It seems like I have a discovery every day.


Martha Lewis:

Yeah, right.


Meryl:

Yeah.


Martha Lewis:

Okay. Awesome. Meryl, enjoy the rest of your day.


Meryl:

Well, I don't know if I can't nap in my medication. Oh no. I have to, but I will definitely take what you say to heart, make it happen. Okay.


Martha Lewis:

Sounds good. You are also welcome to sign up for a free sleep breakthrough session that will be aired on this podcast. You'll fill out an assessment and then we'll meet on Zoom and I'll tell you the three things you can do right now that will have the biggest impact on your health and sleep. You can sign up for this session at the link in the show notes.

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