Breaking the mold.

Mold.  No, seriously, the fungi kind of mold.  We lived and breathed it for months that we knew of, and for possibly a year. It can cause Meniere's like symptoms.

Could that be the trigger or cause of my horrible spins? 

Back in 2005, when I had the first vertigo attack of my life, I was working dispatch at the airport for the police and fire departments.  I was waiting patiently for an opening in the fire station, and worked as a dispatcher and security specialist.  Sometime in 2006, (its all kinda foggy to me) I awoke one morning with a horrific vertigo attack complete with ear discomfort and vomiting.  Then the family doc thought it might be Meniere's, but I spiked a fever some weeks into the dizzies and after a round of antibiotics I was "cured".  He wasn't totally convinced, but thought had it been Meniere's my dizzies would have remained. 

At about the same time as the dizzies, we had a leak in the wall of the dispatch center and it made the sheet rock soft.  I managed to put my butt through the wall (my butt-hole as it was affectionately called) and it was weeks before it was fixed.  In the meantime a dreadful moldy smell lingered and I got sick.  About the time I spiked the fever and was "cured", the wall was repaired.  No mold, no dizzies?  Maybe.

Time passed, I got a job as a firefighter and moved downstairs.  I'd eventually get married and move into my husband's grandfathers old house.  We found mold almost right away.  It was a small amount, so we fixed it, as we were told to do by the guys at Home Depot, and all was well. 

We found mold, heaps of mold in the fire station a few months later.  Then a few weeks after that, I got sick with a horrific case of vertigo. 

I lost my job and was at home for several months recovering from the initial vertigo attack that June.  As the months past, we pulled the moldy carpet out of the house and made some small repairs. Then there was a small water leak in the bathroom and it made the wall soft.  I, you guessed it, put my feet through the wall.

Then all hell, or mold as it were, broke loose.  We started finding mold EVERYWHERE.  My hearing started to go, I developed all kinds of weird symptoms and my other ear became affected.

When we found mold in the hall closet (not near the bathroom or adjoining walls) I got worried.  We had to toss a lot of really nice clothes, and try to clean others.  Then we found mold in my closet.  I rarely used it because it contained all those skinny clothes. (Ladies you know what I'm talking about here).  Once we opened that door, we all started to get sick. Both cats made vet trips.  (Orion had been sick off and on since we adopted him)  The hubby got sick, and stayed sick.  I started having migraines again, and felt horrible.

So we moved.

The cats and the hubby are better.  I'm still a work in progress, but I feel better.  Well except the dizzies.

Stress can trigger Meniere's.  So can mold. 

Mold can kill you.

I hope we got out in time.