Recognizing Symptoms of Black Mold
Recognizing Symptoms of Black Mold
Black mold is related to the same family of molds that cause the toxic varieties and therefore can cause quite a negative impact on your health. Recognizing symptoms of black mold can be a bit tricky as they often present themselves in a variety of ways that can be construed as other illnesses.
Each person in a household has different sensitivities so their response is liable to be different from one another. You can expect that older adults and young babies are going to be the most susceptible and will likely exhibit symptoms of black mold first. Just remember that these symptoms may appear to be signs of another illness. It could take repeated doctor visits due to illness before a cause is pinpointed.
The Common Cold or Something Else?
Symptoms of black mold can appear to be related to the common cold, although with a cold, it usually resolves itself within a week or so. If you experience a runny nose, coughing, sneezing, itchy throat that lingers on past the duration of a cold, you might want to consider mold as the cause.
Of course, the cold symptoms listed above could morph into asthma, sinusitis and even allergies in a regular situation. However, with antibiotics sinus problems usually clear up and other medications alleviate allergies. If you are still experiencing these problems after treatment or even developing chronic sinus problems, you should start suspecting that they are symptoms of black mold.
Headaches, dizziness, short attention span and constantly irritated mucosal linings in the nose and upper respiratory system are all symptoms of black mold. It is interesting to note that with symptoms of black mold, they usually occur in at least pairs, so if your eyes itch you could also get a headache or scratchy throat too.
Resolving Symptoms of Black Mold
Because mold is in the fungi family, any illnesses caused by it are typically treated in a different manner than bacterial infections. Therefore, it is very important that symptoms of black mold are actually attributed to mold and not something else. This means that the mold should be found and identified as the culprit for your symptoms.
You and your doctor may have to play medical detective before your symptoms of black mold are properly identified. However, when they are, the first course of action should be to have a professional mold inspector come to your home and find the problem so that it can be corrected. Without eradicating your mold population, any treatment taken for your symptoms of black mold will be ineffective.