Today’s Mold Talks Heroes guest is Jessica Rauscher, a financial advisor, exposure survivor, and awareness advocate. Jessica shares her unique story of discovering that mold exposure was affecting both her and her husband’s lives and the impact this awareness has had. Unwilling to accept that her husband would be forced to live with and manage Sarcoidosis, she began to investigate what could be the root cause of his condition.
Fast-forward through an intensive research phase, and she finally stumbled upon what she thought could be an underlying cause: mold. After intensive testing, she finally had an answer. Both she and her husband were suffering from mold toxicity.
From there, all the puzzle pieces began clicking together as to why they were experiencing a list of random symptoms that affected their daily lives. Like many individuals, they normalized these reactions, and it wasn’t until the positive test results that they understood that those were their bodies' way of saying something was wrong. Now they’re working towards healing and using their awareness to ensure their indoor environments are safe.
In this episode:
0:30: Jessica details how her journey with mold began. After her husband was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis, she took a deep dive into trying to determine the root cause. "If it wasn’t for his diagnosis, I probably never would have known we had mold toxicity."
1:30: Jessica explains how they determined mold toxicity was the problem and the tests they underwent to find answers. She also hypothesizes where she thinks their exposure occurred throughout their lives. "We still don’t fully know where it came from."
3:45: Jessica describes the steps she and her husband take to assess if there’s a problem where they’re staying while they’re traveling for work. "It is challenging because my husband’s employer pays for us to live, so we don’t have much of a say in where we go."
7:00: Jessica shares what symptoms she and her husband experienced, ranging from chronic fatigue, brain fog, dry mouth, and anemia. Her symptoms have become so debilitating that they've started affecting her job and daily life. "Both of us had completely different symptoms, which I found interesting."
12:30: Jessica describes how she and her husband are dealing with the mold in their bodies and the steps they’re taking to heal. While she started her personalized detox protocol, her husband hasn’t decided to jump into one quite yet. "My husband is more on the western medicine side of things, whereas I’m on the functional medicine side."
18:00: Jessica shares what some of their future plans are now that she knows about mold and the impact it has had and can have on their health. "I know when we start the homebuyer process, our realtor is going to have to have grace with us because I’m going to be testing every home."
22:45: Jessica shares what she would tell her younger, unaware self now that she’s gotten answers to her ongoing health issues and is conscious of the impact mold can have on the body. "A lot of times we fight the symptoms that our bodies show us and try to medicate those symptoms instead of realizing that it’s our bodies sending us clues…"
24:00: Jessica gives one piece of advice for anyone else who may be suffering from mold exposure.
