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The CIRS Group

@thecirsgroup

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#CIRS is Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, or #mold/toxin illness.
Join us at TheCIRSGroup.com!

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

I’m literally ✨just a girl✨

Also, I have healed from a lot of this… FYI

The point is: you don’t get to see everything that someone is carrying, so don’t judge a book by its cover.   …this cover takes a lot of effort lol

For resources and support - check out thecirsgroup.com!

Also- the very awesome 1 month 3 doses a day organizer: https://amzn.to/47y2Og5

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Exposure to toxic mold and mycotoxins can directly trigger both visual distortions and severe emotional regulation problems by crossing the blood-brain barrier and causing widespread neuroinflammation and central nervous system disruption. When these toxins enter the body, they activate the innate immune system, causing the brain’s immune cells (microglia) to become trapped in a hyper-inflammatory state. This biological stress directly compromises the neural pathways responsible for processing sensory data and stabilizing mood. Mycotoxins are inherently neurotoxic and alter the delicate pathways of the central nervous system, leading to several common visual issues:
• Sensory Overload & Light Sensitivity: Neuroinflammation degrades the brain’s ability to filter out everyday sensory information, causing extreme light sensitivity (photophobia) and a heightened startle response.
• Blurred or Double Vision: The inflammation can impact the cranial nerves controlling eye movement, tracking, and optical processing, resulting in frequent blurring, double vision, or depth-perception issues.
• Derealization & Perceptual Shifts: In severe cases of toxicity, individuals describe spatial distortions or a feeling of “derealization”—where their surroundings feel dreamlike, foggy, or fundamentally altered.
How Mold Disrupts Emotional Regulation

Mold-induced neurological damage changes brain chemistry, mimicking or exacerbating severe psychiatric disorders:
• Amygdala & Hippocampal Inflammation: Studies show that mold spores target the hippocampus and the amygdala—the foundational brain structures responsible for learning, memory, and processing fear and emotion.
• Extreme Mood Lability: Because the brain is physically inflamed, the body stays in a perpetual “fight-or-flight” state. This manifests as sudden, inexplicable panic attacks, severe anxiety, rage, intrusive thoughts, or profound depression.
• Autonomic Dysfunction: The nervous system loses its baseline flexibility. This means ordinary emotional stressors that you could normally shrug off instead trigger an immediate, overwhelming physical and emotional crash.

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Mold trauma is real. There is so much info out there about the medical and building aspects of mold. Nothing about the trauma or mental health impacts. I’m here to change that.

I’m a PhD psychologist with 20 years of therapy experience who has lived mold trauma, survived it and made it to the other side. Let me show you how.

#mold #moldillness #moldtrauma #moldremediation #cirs

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Most people hear “water-damaged building” and immediately think mold. But in clinical practice, it’s often more complicated than that.

💧 Water damage can create an environment where multiple inflammatory triggers exist—not just mold.

🦠 Actinomycetes are gram-positive bacteria that thrive in damp environments and may persist even after visible mold has been remediated.

☣️ Endotoxins are inflammatory components from gram-negative bacteria that can accumulate in areas with stagnant water, sewage contamination, damp HVAC systems, sump pumps, or foul-smelling drains.

For people with conditions like CIRS, asthma, MCAS, or other inflammatory illnesses, looking beyond mold may help explain why symptoms continue despite remediation.

🏡 If you’re evaluating a water-damaged home, consider a comprehensive assessment that includes:
✔️ Mold
✔️ Actinomycetes
✔️ Endotoxins
✔️ Moisture intrusion and water damage

The goal isn’t to blame every symptom on your environment. It’s to investigate thoroughly, ask better questions, and identify the true source of ongoing inflammation.

Have you ever had your home tested beyond mold? I’d love to hear your experience.

This post is for education only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition.

@doc_amen @amen_clinics @cirsxofficial @thebiotoxinlady @cirs.jennyjohnson @thecirsgroup @moldfinders @ilads.lyme @medmapsofficial #chronicinflammatoryresponsesyndrome #factsnotfear #histamineintolerant #autismcauses #mastcelldisorder

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This weekend at the annual CIRSx Conference was a beautiful reminder that recovery is never meant to happen in isolation.

I was so happy to get to hug many members of the CIRS Healing Collective in person after spending months or even years connecting online! Seeing your progress, hearing your stories, and celebrating how far you’ve come was something I’ll never forget.

I also had the chance to spend time with several incredible CIRS Coaches who completed my CIRSx Coach & Consultant Course or the Proficiency Partners program, and are now out in the world helping others navigate this complex illness. Incredible to see how many people are out there making lemonade from their lemons, and seeking to change the world together.

Pictured here are just a few of the professionals who have dedicated their careers to advancing CIRS awareness and care, and who I remembered to snap a photo with before we parted ways…Louise Carder of Colab Services in the UK, Michael Schrantz of Environmental Analytics, Dr. Anjali Noble of the Noble Center for Health and Healing, Barbara Williams of The CIRS Group, Dr. Eric Dorninger of Roots & Branches and CIRSx Global, Ariana Thacker of MoldCo, - and SO many others.

I think the most memorable moment of the weekend was joining a room full of people in giving Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker, the father of CIRS, a standing ovation. His work has changed countless lives and laid the foundation for everything this community continues to build today.

My heart is full. Thank you to everyone who made this weekend so special. I’m already looking forward to next year!

Stay tuned because I’ll also be sending out an email soon with my biggest takeaways from the conference, including the ideas, conversations, and emerging themes that stood out to me most.

What an incredible weekend. 💙

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I really appreciate Jacie and Barbara of @thecirsgroup educating through truth, experience and vulnerability. It’s so important to realize that every single mood disorder known to human beings is based in higher levels of inflammation, and our job as a healthcare community is to discover the underlying causes of inflammation that make the brain feel offkilter. #cirs #mold #ocd #depression #anxiety

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CIRS Summit is taking place this weekend and the live stream is FREE!

#cirs #toxicmold #chronicillness

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Get a NeuroQuant anywhere in the world! 🌍

Getting a NeuroQuant just got a lot easier. You no longer have to find a MRI facility that has in house NeuroQuant license. You can now scan your brain 🧠 at your local MRI facility and we will run the NeuroQuant reports for you.

✅ Here’s what you need to do:

1. Have your doctor order a no contrast brain MRI
2. Ask CIRS Lab for NeuroQuant scanner settings
3. Confirm the settings with your local MRI facility
4. After your scan, send the imaging files to CIRS Lab and we will process NeuroQuant reports for you

In addition to populating NeuroQuant reports from scratch, we can do conversions between NeuroQuant software versions so that your reports are meaningful in CIRS context.

📧 Reach out to us at: thecirslab@gmail.com

#neuroquant #brainmri #brainscan #cirs #alzheimers #toxicmold #chronicillness #functionalmedicine

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My message to the forgotten, to the medically complex.

You are not alone. You are worthy of people’s attention. You are worthy of healing.

And to all my fellow practitioners out there in the trenches, holding space for these people ❤️
#cirs #chronicillnesswarrior #chromicillness #sickbuildingsyndrome #guthealth #infection

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I really appreciate the @thecirsgroup ability to communicate with vulnerability, science and knowledge, but Jacie’s story on resolving #ankylosingspondylitis and #ocd through identifying #cirs and addressing with the #shoemakerprotocol (including truly working her heart out to find clean building) is #unreal how many other #chronicdisease labels are truly #biotoxinillness? (Chronic #inflammation secondary to #biotoxins from #mold #lyme tick toxin, #cyanobacteria #sewergas #endotoxin #actinobacteria #recluse #spider) if you have any kind of inflammatory experience and are not getting answers, do a visual contrast, sensitivity, and cluster symptom analysis and screen for #chronicinflammatoryresponsesyndrome #headache #fibromyalgia #chronicillnessawareness #chronicfatiguesyndrome #rash #gut #infertility #brainfog #parkinsons #dementia #osteoarthritis #osteoporosis

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CIRS (chronic inflammatory response syndrome) caused from mold illness wrecked me. My D-dimer was elevated 2 and 3 x the normal range at times. My blood was clotting and causing all sorts of problems. Through diagnosis and treatment I am getting better and recovering. Detox has been paramount to get these toxins out of my body and allow my body to heal. #mold #moldpoisoning #blackmold #aspergillus #CIRS #waterleak #toxins #mycotoxins #mthfr #survivingmold #tingling #bloodclot #d-dimer #sick #health #wellness #recovery #sauna #sweat #detox #aspirin #nattokinase

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Two years ago, I had the privilege of attending my first ever CIRSx conference, thanks to the efforts from @drericdorninger who went out of his way to get me there. Back then, I was an incredibly sick and vulnerable patient. I was on my way to exit my academic career.

The following year, I was blessed with the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Peg DiTulio on a research project and present the data at the conference. Because I was still too sick, the reason I managed to give that presentation was because I was reading notes from my laptop.

This year, I had the honor of giving my own presentation on the challenges we face with testing for chronic tick-borne infections in CIRS patients (plus a second talk in collaboration with the CIRS Research Foundation).

To my surprise, this time I didn’t need any notes; I was just having fun, not thinking about my cognitive symptoms or what people were seeing from the outside. I was just living in the moment.

A lot of that success is due to the people referred to in this post.

@ladycarnivory and @actlikebarbara, two very special friends who have been with me through my ups and downs with treatment and who rightfully so won one of the Shoey awards this year!

Dr. Peg DiTulio and Glenn DiTulio, who have been incredible mentors and have pushed me to maximize my potential in the CIRS community (and they were given a Shoey award this year too!).

Dr. Lauren Sparks, who literally saved my life at a very difficult time in my recovery when I had nowhere else to go (it’s thanks to her I now live in a cleaner space and in the beautiful city of Santa Fe).

Dr. Lacey Venanzi who is amongst a new wave of younger practitioners who are approaching CIRS with an incredible level of nuance and innovative thinking.

And lastly, Dr. Shoemaker, who gave me the opportunity to reinvent my life in the best possible way out of my own suffering.

#cirs #biotoxinillness #toxicmold

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