How Does Mold Actually Affect Your Health?
When mold is discovered in your home or some other building, the responsible thing to do is to start a comprehensive, systematic program to eliminate the infestation. Then, it’s time to take preventive measures to ensure the mold doesn’t grow again. The reason this is done is for the health of the people in the buildings. But what happens when mold infests a building? How does it actually make you feel sick?
An Allergy That Won’t Go Away
At best, a mold infestation in your home will cause mild allergic reactions that simply will not stop. The less severe reactions are what you’d expect; stuffy nose, watering eyes, coughing, sneezing, and many other cold or flu like symptoms.
Unfortunately, that’s at best. Mold related illness can get far worse, to sinus headaches, itchy skin and, for some people hair loss eventually leading to baldness. However, it can still get worse from there. There are some forms of mold that actually create mycotoxins, substances that do more than just irritate your body, and actively attack your system.
Black mold, for example, is one of 16 species of mold that can actively impair human biology beyond just allergy-like symptoms. These symptoms can be very difficult to diagnose if a medical expert hasn’t put mold on the list of possible causes since the symptoms cover a broad range of illnesses. Anxiety, depression, and hallucinations can all be misinterpreted as psychological conditions rather than attributed to mold. Memory loss, confusion, and impaired thinking might be attributed to aging or dementia conditions rather than mold.
Worse of all however, are the respiratory conditions. Black mold can, unlike other forms of mold, settle in the lungs and actively attack the body there. They can lodge in the lungs, throat and even mucus membranes, making breathing extremely painful, possibly leading to the swelling or even bleeding of lungs.
This is why if you have mold in your home, you should take it very seriously. Depending on what kind of mold it is, the health of every resident is now under threat.