My name is Dr. Susan Cucchiara, Licensed Naturopathic Doctor (ND) in both California and Connecticut and the owner of Naturally Sue Wellness. I have been a practicing naturopathic doctor just shy of a decade and my true passion is leading patients to optimal health. My practice is mostly virtual, but I also see patients in person a few times a year in NYC.
One of my favorite ways of teaching others about health is to use case studies of my patients to show how to dig into the root cause of symptoms and to correct whatever is fundamentally imbalanced and derailing their health. What follows is one of those case studies.
A 32-year-old female patient presented to my practice with the following symptoms:
This patient is a huge proponent of natural health and was implementing dietary and lifestyle modifications to help herself heal. She was a fan of “biohacking”, which is where you are making choices around your diet and lifestyle to help improve your health and longevity–in other words, you are doing all you can to “hack” your biology and genetics to enhance physical and mental performance.
The Downside to Biohacking
Many patients I see are eager to heal. They educate themselves on various aspects of health through listening to podcasts, watching social media experts, and then purchasing lots of products that they feel can help them. They “DIY” their health hoping that something will be the silver bullet that works to bring healing. I think it’s truly amazing to have the drive and dedication to care for yourself and implement changes to your lifestyle, but often times I see the lack of direction and overabundance of information, sometimes conflicting, causing more imbalance. Trying and doing everything in an attempt to improve their health also becomes very expensive, especially when I hear new patients share that they are taking 10 and even 20 supplements daily that they learned about online in the attempt to feel better.
Again, while I truly applaud their dedication to get better, and focus on their health, they are often missing the mark with what is actually needed. They hear a symptom they may have that a health influencer mentioned on social media and immediately think that the product an influencer is touting will help them. The issue is, you can end up with a long list of supplements that are only treating symptoms and not the overall imbalance or root cause.
When I begin working with a patient, I usually take inventory of everything the patient is currently doing and using and then have them cut back to only use the most foundational products that will support the organ systems on a fundamental level. I then ask them to leave everything else off until I see their labs. When I say foundational, I am referring to magnesium, probiotics, vitamin D, omega’s, multi vitamin/minerals, etc. I also may have the patient start a few items in addition to their foundations to facilitate the process until I see their lab work.
Specifically, I had this patient add from my dispensary a complete mineral complex (minerals are cofactors to so many biochemical processes in the body and are considered foundational), liver drainage, and adrenal support. She was taking lots of anti-microbials and binders, but not many basic nutrients her body needs to function at a foundational level. From my analysis of her case, symptoms, and clinical history, her body needed support to open detox pathways and basic mineral and adrenal support to improve energy, immune function, and to balance stress levels. I also ordered thorough blood work on this patient, including vitamins, minerals, heavy metals, viral reactivations, Lyme markers, mold markers, inflammation markers and more.
After she got her blood work results, and we met for a lab review appointment, the patient reported having 75% improvement in her headaches, 100% improvement in her nerve pain, 40-50% improvement in energy levels, and 30% improvement in body pain. These were amazing changes in less than 2 months! This is the power of giving the body what it needs to function optimally and not immediately going for “the kill” as she was doing. Terrain is everything; if the body is foundationally balanced with the nutrients and minerals it needs to function optimally, then all of the microbes and environmental insults will be dealt with by the body without causing sickness.
Lab Results
The patient’s labs results showed:
IgM band 23 – an indicator of Lyme disease
Elevated C4a – indicates inflammation due to mitochondrial or cell dysfunction
Reactivated Epstein Barr Virus
High prolactin – a indicator of an endocrine disorder or damage to the pituitary gland
High levels of aluminum
Low immunoglobulin A – indicates stress on the kidneys and/or a compromised immune system
Low end of range progesterone – affects fertility, mood, sleep, weight, blood sugar
High TSH – indicator that your thyroid is not producing enough hormones or hypothyroidism
This patient did suspect that she had Lyme disease, and since I do see many patients with Lyme, without the positive CDC criteria, I make the clinical diagnosis based on their symptoms and also what bands come up. Band 23 happens to be very specific for Borrelia, a spirochete that causes Lyme disease.
With her extensive list of symptoms, it did not surprise me that she would have Lyme. Mold was also on my radar, and I wanted her to do more testing. It is very common for mold to go hand-in-hand with Lyme disease. As a matter of fact, mold can reactivate a dormant Lyme infection and patients with Lyme often also have high mycotoxins since their detox pathways are impaired, and they have trouble eliminating mold toxins.
Testing for Mold
I guided her to purchase the Micro Balance EC3 Mold Screening Test Kits and gave her a specified protocol for her unique symptoms and labs. I gave her support for her thyroid, hormones, immune system (Lyme and viral reactivations), and mold detox supplements.
At her next follow up about 5 weeks later, she reported that she did purchase the testing kits and sure enough, she did have elevated levels of mold inside her home–especially in her bedroom!
Here are pictures of her test plate results:
Living room: 8 colonies
Master bedroom: 9+ colonies
Master bathroom: 10+ colonies
Carpet: 20+ colonies or Too Numerous to Count
Continued Follow-up
When we confirmed her high indoor mold load, the patient knew she was unable to move immediately, so committed to doing as much as possible to manage and mitigate the exposure with some products and tools that I know work well and trust. As part of this endeavor, she did purchase the Ec3 Laundry Additive, EC3 Air Purification Candles, and was doing her best to ventilate as much as possible. Additionally, she did a deep cleaning of her entire home and cleaned the ducts.
I checked in on how she was feeling with the newest remedies, including the added mold-targeted products for her body that I gave her post her blood work results. The patient reported that her sleep had improved 60-70%, energy 80%, body pain 50-50%, white spots on nails 80-85%, anxiety 90%, floaters 40%, shooting electric shocks 100%, acid reflux 100%. This was so incredible to see! Her overall improvement in just a few months was 60%. The most important thing to see was that, even though she found that she had mold in her home, her health was still improving just from these targeted interventions!
Through the next few months, because she was unable to move at the moment, we continued to give her body the nutrients it needed and continued working on mold detox, Lyme disease and overall immune function. Although she may have had some days or weeks where she did not feel well and had flares of her symptoms, she seemed to bounce back the next appointment and continued getting well.
Where is She in Her Healing Now?
During our most recent appointment we talked about a few remaining symptoms she wants to work on, but we reflected on how many she used to have when we first started. I wanted her to know how incredible she is for all of the steps she made to get well, and how beautiful it is to see the body heal, even when there are still factors that cannot be perfect.
She was most concerned because she does in fact have an HLA-DR gene mutation (this gene is “fundamental in enabling the adaptive immune system to mount an efficient and appropriate response to counteract infection and malignancy while maintaining self-tolerance and preventing autoimmune disease,” (1) which makes those with the mutation more susceptible to biotoxin illness and chronic inflammatory response syndrome or CIRS) but even with that genetic marker, this patient was able to see drastic improvements in her health living in a moldy environment. This may not be the case for all patients to have this high level of improvement, but it was for her, and we are both thrilled.
References:
(1) Dendrou, C., Petersen, J., Rossjohn, J. et al. HLA variation and disease. Nat Rev Immunol18, 325–339 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri.2017.143
Comments? Questions? Feel free to write to us below. We try to provide helpful feedback and answers whenever possible but cannot offer personalized medical advice.
Dr. Susan Cucchiara is a Naturopathic Doctor who graduated from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe, Arizona. She is trained as a primary care physician and is an expert in natural and holistic health. Dr. Cucchiara owns Naturally Sue Wellness (https://naturallysue.com/), a virtual Naturopathic practice and helps thousands of patients, along with her colleague.
Dr. Cucchiara sees a wide variety of patients, but her specialty is helping millennials recover from burnout. Her colleague Dr. Sparks, ND, has specialties in Chinese medicine and mold illness.
Dr. Cucchiara’s practice offers one-on-one appointments to help patients who are seeking help with their chronic disease, such as autoimmunity, Lyme disease, mold illness, as well as women’s and men’s health, thyroid and gut conditions, and more. Dr. Cucchiara relocated in January 2020 from NYC to West LA and offers home/virtual appointments in California, as well as in-person visits in NYC. You can follow her on YouTube at www.youtube.com/@susancucchiara5232 and Instagram at Dr. Susan Cucchiara, ND (@dr.susanc).
You make a good point, but on the other hand it is extremely difficult to find doctors who know how to deal with these kinds of illnesses and many people can’t afford it. Even seeking out the “best” doctors to work with, and despite all the signs pointing to it (several hundred infections,
a dozen sinus surgeries, chronic fatigue syndrome from mold, more recently cancer), it took 60 years for me to be diagnosed with a primary immune deficiency (CVID). And that was because I asked for the test. Now I have an immunologist who can’t believe I haven’t been hospitalized with a life threatening infection, and I’m sure the reason is because I’ve been researching, getting tests, and “bio-hacking” for decades.
Was this Post Meaningful? Please Share!
You make a good point, but on the other hand it is extremely difficult to find doctors who know how to deal with these kinds of illnesses and many people can’t afford it. Even seeking out the “best” doctors to work with, and despite all the signs pointing to it (several hundred infections,
a dozen sinus surgeries, chronic fatigue syndrome from mold, more recently cancer), it took 60 years for me to be diagnosed with a primary immune deficiency (CVID). And that was because I asked for the test. Now I have an immunologist who can’t believe I haven’t been hospitalized with a life threatening infection, and I’m sure the reason is because I’ve been researching, getting tests, and “bio-hacking” for decades.