Knowledge is Power – Lacey Dunn, MS, RD, LD, CPT

Today’s Talk:

Lacy Dunn, a functional medicine and virtual dietician, lives her life constantly on the move. Between bodybuilding, researching, and writing, she’s successfully built and maintained a brand focused on mental and physical well-being. 

Her high energy and motivation not only helped her with her career but also tipped her off to a potential mold problem. Out of the blue, those energy levels just dropped off.

Lacy’s symptoms started with daily brain fogs, that general feeling of fuzzy, spaced-out brain fatigue. Over the following weeks, it ramped up to muscle pain, congestion, allergies, joint pain, and even hair loss. The digestive issues though were what made Lacy really sit down and take a look at what was going on in her body. With a life on the go, she didn’t realize that her gut problems weren’t just painful, they caused her to lose over 10 pounds and affected her ability to workout. 

A self-proclaimed nerd and experimenter, Lacy decided enough was enough and completed a test on her body and a Mycometrics ERMI mold test on her home. She opted for the vacuum instead of the Swiffer (because of her carpets), collected her sample, and sent it to a lab. The results she got back showed she had mold in her apartment and high levels of it at that. 

“It was very validating to do my test… and that’s how I found my mold.” 

While she couldn’t see the mold, there it was right there in her carpets. 

The apartment complex overtook remediation as soon as she brought it to their attention. When she moved back in after the treatment though, she continued to experience her symptoms. After asking some questions, she realized that the mold treatment company cleaned her apartment and checked the moisture readings but they didn’t check the walls or the floors for more contamination. 

So, she moved out. 

Over the next few months, she focused on healing her body after removing herself from the mold. It took months for her to start getting her body back on track, and she’s still working on it, but overall she’s feeling almost back to her normal self. 

“The mold journey is a hard journey and you don’t get better right away.”

As a functional medicine and dietician, the basis of her work is to look at how the human body works and why it’s reacting the way it does. 

“Once you understand what’s happening, you realize the symptoms aren’t the cause. It’s the body screaming for help.” 

When it came to her mold sensitivities, the reactions caused a total systemic response. The microorganisms didn’t just depress and repress her immune system, they also affected estrogen levels, thyroid levels, and the digestion system. Everything the toxins connected in a domino effect of health issues. Her personal detox protocol showed just how difficult treating mold symptoms in the body can be and how you have to fix each system affected to fully recover.

With her health improving, Lacy set her sights on creating more awareness about mold and how it can affect the body. 

“I have now deemed myself the stork mold sniffer. I get clients pregnant and I find mold.” 

She’s pushing for more information on how air quality affects health and a solid push for home testing, even in new homes. With three separate clients experiencing mold in their brand new homes, she realized the issue goes even deeper than she thought. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT LACEY AT:

https://upliftfitnutrition.com/
https://www.instagram.com/faithandfit/
https://twitter.com/laceyadunn

Give a listen below!