Michael Roesslein:

Because then they’re also more sensitive to these unseen things. It’s not one or the other, like if you’ve got food sensitivities and you know you’re really sensitive to perfumes or colognes or scents or smells or loud noises or certain energy around certain people, all of these things, that sensitivity level of your body is pretty universal. So, these are your red flag.

Like, “Hey, let’s look at your environment.” Because I may be able to go in their environment and be okay but they living in that environment they’re just as sensitive to those things. Which I think some of this is tricky because when you’re talking about indoor air quality or mold or EMFs, you don’t smell any of those things usually, if not-

Cathy Cooke:

Some would.

Michael Roesslein:

Sometimes, but like-

Cathy Cooke:

Sometimes not always.

Michael Roesslein:

I’ve run into situations where people had no idea and then they tear down a wall in the bathroom and there’s a wall of black mold. So it’s not like you walk in a house and it’s like, “This house for sure has this.” And then a lot of the offgassing and environmental toxins things, either it doesn’t smell or you get so accustomed to the smell, like new furniture smell, new car smell, new tile smell new this smell, new that smell plus we think those are good. They make air fresheners that are new car smell.

Cathy Cooke:

Isn’t that crazy.

Michael Roesslein:

Made of one poison to smell like another one. Probably, it’s probably it’s a fake poison that smells like the first poison [crosstalk 00:07:00]. So, I guess what I’m saying is these things fly under the radar. Because it’s not like you walk in a house and the wall’s blink red. Or you can see something or something like that. But it’s these people that are hypersensitive that are going to be more sensitive to these things.

So I guess the first one I want to jump into which I think is, I don’t know if that was your first passion in this area was the EMFs. There’s a lot out there now around electromagnetic fields and EMF and EMF sensitivity. How legit is this, and what’s the science say. I guess, we’ll first define what we’re talking about and then how do these frequencies or fields impact physiology?

Cathy Cooke:

Okay, good question. I’m glad you-

Michael Roesslein:

It’s for real legit. I’m going to hold you to the fire.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. And I’m glad you did, because this is really important to understand because when we do our little Google search, we get page after page, after page saying that all of this stuff is completely safe. So let’s break it down. So the EMFs, which stands for electromagnetic fields, we are talking about really four different fields. There are some peripheral fields here like, blue lights and static electricity. But mainly what we’re to talking about is radio frequency which is all of our wireless communication stuff.

So you think radio, radio waves, anything that travels through the air. So these are the big ones like the cell phones, the cell towers, our fitness trackers, our smart everything, TVs, wireless earbuds, all these things. So those are the EMS that most people know about. But we also have the wiring in our walls, which can create electric fields because we’ve got electrons flowing through the wires in our walls.

And those electrons don’t stay on that wire they come out about six to eight feet into the wall. It could also have a magnetic field from wiring errors or appliances motors turning power lines. And then we’ve got what we call dirty electricity, which is an altered sign wave on our regular 60 Hertz. Or if you’re in Europe, 50 Hertz electrical component. So these all have different biological effects and we are all bathing in them all the time.

However, you can initiate really simple steps to dramatically reduce your exposure to all of these. So that’s important because most people say it doesn’t matter they’re everywhere. That’s partially true, but you can minimize your exposure in your home up to 95% easy. So those are the fields that we’re talking about now, how they impact us on a cellular level.

A lot of the research on this specific thing comes from Dr. Martin Paul, who’s a professor emeritus at Washington State University. Plenty of other researchers here, Dr. Magda Havas, Dr. Martin Blank, Dr. Reba Goodman, Joe Moskovitz, a lot of excellent researchers in this field. Now, what Dr. Martin Paul has really been the pioneer in is looking at the intracellular calcium and the voltage gated calcium channels.

So what he has found is that all EMFs, no matter which field we’re talking about, they activate the voltage gated calcium channels in the cell membrane and increase intracellular calcium ions. So if we’re thinking about a specific cell in our body, we should have calcium on the outside, but not very much on the inside. And these voltage gates will let in a little bit as needed and let out other stuff. But when we have a high EMF load, these voltage gates open artificially and a flood of calcium ions can come in to the cell.

Now, increased intracellular calcium can stimulate nitric oxide synthesis. And this leads to proxynitrate, which causes free radicals and ultimately oxidative stress. So when you have oxidative stress, what kind of symptoms do you have? You name it.

It could be everybody’s different, but the main symptoms, I will say that I see insomnia, tinnitus, irritability, anxiety, headaches, heart palpitations, muscle weakness. Those are the big ones which could be caused from different things. But that I worked with enough people over the years to know that this is legit, this is real, I’ve experienced it.

A lot of the researchers say that up to 3% of the population is extremely sensitive. What we would call electrically hypersensitive. These are the people that can’t go outside if there’s a cell tower within a mile or two, they can’t be in a room with wifi. They will get intense pain and brain fog and dizziness. And life is very miserable for them. And then they estimate that up to about 30 to 40% of the population experiences more mild symptoms.

And a lot of them don’t know that their anxiety is caused by their cell phone or their tinnitus or their insomnia or whatever. And then maybe half the population is still being affected, but they don’t have symptoms. And some people are so resilient that they can just overcome it. And other people over the long term can develop more serious issues like cancers, lymphomas, even Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s these kinds of more serious issues.

Michael Roesslein:

And most people don’t know that there’s warnings on cell phones to not hold them by your head.

Cathy Cooke:

Right. Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

And that’s why the companies, they wouldn’t put that on there unless that was really drastic.

Cathy Cooke:

Exactly. And well, part of the reason why they do that is because they’re protect their-

Michael Roesslein:

Can sue them.

Cathy Cooke:

They’re proactively protecting themselves against being sued. So they say, “Well, did you put your phone to your head?” Yes. Well’s size in your manual don’t do that.

Michael Roesslein:

Not our problem. Yeah. Thanks guys. Anyways, so the mechanism by which this calcium ion gate channel gets open, do they think it’s because the frequency and the electromagnetic frequency mimics the body’s own way of opening it? You know anything about that? I just got curious when I heard that, why does it respond to this? And to me, it would be like, “It probably thinks it’s supposed to open because it’s receiving a signal.” I don’t know.

Cathy Cooke:

That’s a good question. I haven’t dug too deep into that. And I think I always assumed it was losing its ability to stay closed, the foreign, or the human made electromagnetic field. Because our body communicates via EMF. So this human made foreign field is disrupting its normal ability to function. Is what I [crosstalk 00:14:20].

Michael Roesslein:

Like adding static into a communication makes like-

Exactly, interfering. Yeah.

Cathy Cooke:

It’s something that doesn’t belong there. Interference. Yeah. People don’t realize this, our body communicates on quantum levels and things happen it in the body faster than biochemically, they can. It is not like this sends a biochemical to this place that causes this thing. Everyone knows there are reactions in your body that happen much faster than that. Like if you touch something that’s super hot.

There’s things that happen really quickly that aren’t like, “Oh my hand is really hot, let me… Yeah.” So it’s screwing with our natural ability… Our body’s communication channels that I think we don’t even really fully yet understand both the communication channels themselves and what’s happening we are all just in this really cool experiment together.

So you mentioned some people have strong symptoms and those people, a lot of them even the people with the strong reaction and symptoms, a lot of them probably don’t even put two and two together yet because this isn’t something that gets brought to their attention or that they have as a realm…

In their world, this is not a thing that they know about. So they don’t think, this could be connected to this plus now it’s, if you live in a city, it’s pretty hard to tell. There’s rarely a time when you wouldn’t be exposed to pretty high levels of it, unless you’re proactively-

Unless you are… Yes-

Michael Roesslein:

Doing something.

Cathy Cooke:

Unless you are proactively measuring and mitigating you’re right. If you’re the standard person who uses wifi and a cell phone you’re exposed.

Michael Roesslein:

And lives in a condo building with 120 other people who all have wifi and all have the things, you’re just in it.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. But I don’t want people to get overwhelmed by that. Because if you do have a meter and you can measure, there are simple things you can do.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And we measured it at my house with you with the meter and you mentioned the walls and the wiring. And one of the strongest places in my room or my house was one of the walls of my bed room. And I was like, “There’s not even a plug on this wall.” And it was, it was coming from the electrical wiring. But I also learned from you that there’s different types here. Because my fridge was kicking out one kind, because it was from the fifties and it was this-

Cathy Cooke:

Giving magnetic fields.

Michael Roesslein:

Giving out magnetic field but then the phone has a different frequency.

Cathy Cooke:

Yep. It’s the radio frequency.

Michael Roesslein:

And then I think the third one was it the garage? I had a smart garage door panel maybe.

Cathy Cooke:

So, radio frequency and some of them will have all of it. Like your computer, if it’s on wifi, will have a magnetic field. It will have dirty electricity when it’s plugged in because you’re-

Michael Roesslein:

What is dirty electricity?

Cathy Cooke:

The dirty electricity is an altered sign wave. So if you think about just 60 Hertz, which goes up and down 60 cycles a second, it’s nice and smooth. But when we go and plug and into the wall into the hot wire in this case, our computer, which works on direct current. But our wires, our electricity in our home works on alternating current. So there has to be actually a conversion from the alternating current. And that goes to the brick.

So, your laptop for example, has a cord that’s got a big brick on it that brick converts the alternating current to direct current and then your computer gets plugged in. So, that conversion will alter the sign wave. It’s not nice and smooth anymore it’s real jaggy. And it comes out. It doesn’t stay in the little brick. It doesn’t stay on the wire. It comes into our living space.

Michael Roesslein:

So keep the brick as far away from you as possible.

Cathy Cooke:

Yes.

Michael Roesslein:

I learned about that in that brick because I had to buy a new plug for everything, moving to Europe with the two weird little prongs. And I was concerned because I got a new laptop to serve as my computer there. And I was like, “Well, how am I going to…”

And so you can take the plug exchange the plug, but it goes into the same brick. And the guy at the store was like, “This brick can handle that plug or this plug because the electricity’s different.” And he goes, “And then it turns it into whatever your computer needs.” And I was like, “That’s enough depth for me.” Weird two prong plug it is give me one of those.

Cathy Cooke:

Well, one cool trick can do to test that is get a tiny little AM radio, little handheld AM radio, turn it on to the lowest channel which is usually like 520 AM, and see if you’ll get static and then put it towards something and you’ll hear the static go berserk. And then you know that’s a point of a high dirty electricity.

Michael Roesslein:

Interesting. Okay. So, many different angles we could go flying off. And so we’ve now scared everybody and make them think they’re bathing in this suite that’s killing them, which we are. And you also pointed out twice and stopped me when I was going into the doom that it is possible to measure this, mitigate this, reduce effects. Even in like say you don’t live in a cabin a hundred miles from everyone out in nature off grid, which maybe somebody listening does. But most people probably don’t-

Cathy Cooke:

Maybe, not always better.

Michael Roesslein:

If you’re living in the city or in the suburban area or places where there’s 5G towers going up or there’s cell towers all over or you live in 99% of America, you are exposed to all this. And I guess I don’t even know where to start. So, we can’t escape them, but how much of it can actually be mitigated or reduced, what kind of impact can be had?

Cathy Cooke:

Okay. So I’m glad you asked this too, because if anybody listening is serious about this, which I hope people are because trust me, some of your health problems are influenced by this. The number one thing I want everybody to do and I say this every single time I’m interviewing or teaching a class or whatever, just hardwire your internet. That’s that right there is going to reduce your exposure by probably 90% just doing that one thing it’s not difficult.

All you got to do is put an ethernet cord and in the back of your router and then put that ethernet cord to your computer. I mean, and there’s a few other steps, you got to turn the wifi off actually on the router and on your computer and you might need an adapter or whatever, but that’s literally all you got to do. And that is every single house I walk into by far, that is the largest exposure, no matter what. So, just do that. People don’t want to do it because they think it’s inconvenient but I mean how-

Michael Roesslein:

I’ve been doing it for years and I survived.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah, we’ve been-

Michael Roesslein:

I turn it back on if people are there that need to use it or whatever it’s there, but I never had it on.

Cathy Cooke:

And how inconvenient, I mean, would you rather live with the wire or hospital bills or tinnitus or insomnia or all the things, anxiety, depression. So, it’s on my list to shoot a video on how to really take people through this step by step. So I could make it easier for people. There’s plenty of articles online. You can find YouTube videos already. Just do that and I promise you your exposure’s dramatically going to be decreased just by doing that.

Michael Roesslein:

Cool. Yeah. And I got that cool cloth from you too, for when we did have to have it on the cloth reduces it. So, there’s a lot of different regarding the wifi. What about some others stuff like, newer appliances or older appliances which one? I guess the older appliances spit out more of one type of-

Cathy Cooke:

Well, depends. They all [crosstalk 00:22:39].

Michael Roesslein:

The smart things are radio like-

Cathy Cooke:

Radio frequency. Exactly. So there’s a no hard-and-fast rule on an older appliance versus a newer appliance because you’re correct. They each have their own specific issues. I will definitely say don’t get smart appliances. And a lot of things like washers and dryers, TVs, it’s more difficult these days to get dumb down versions. But what you do is you go to wherever your store Best Buy or whatever, when you’re looking and you ask for the most tricked out versions.

And they’re going to show you all the ones that have all these fancy features and then you say, “Okay, I don’t want that one.” So you know which one’s not to get. And then eventually they’ll come to one where well, it’s cheaper and they’ll say, “But you can’t control it with your phone or…” That’s the one you know that you want. And when it comes to these other fields, if it has a magnetic field or an electric field, distance is key here.

So don’t hang out on your washing machine when clothes are drying, don’t sit there and have a conversation right in front of your refrigerator for an hour, most of these fields drop off within a couple feet. Not always, but generally speaking and you don’t sleep with the refrigerator on the other side of your wall. So you’re just conscious about that. And that happens. I see that a lot.

Just the other day, I measured a little girl’s bedroom, really high magnetic field right at her pillow, because the other side of her wall was the kitchen. And that was the refrigerator. Okay. Well, what do we do? Well, we move the bed to the other side of the wall. Okay. So not that big of a deal. So it’s just these little things that we just have to be aware of and make better choices.

Michael Roesslein:

So when you’re doing that work, when you’re in somebody’s house, it’s just like an audit.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

Measuring to get the feel of where things are coming from. Probably a pretty uniform checklist to some degree within houses like this and then making customized, really simple. I mean, this is combating high tech with low tech type of solutions. It’s not rocket science.

It’s remove your exposure, remove the amount of things that don’t have… Because it’s been so long for me that I’ve known a lot of this and I don’t do certain things like sleep with this under my pillow or in my bed around the nightstand. And I know that most people still do and it gives me anxiety to think about it and-

Cathy Cooke:

Me too.

Michael Roesslein:

Really simple little solutions. So I would recommend doing a consult with Cathy or someone that does this kind of work, because they think of and find things that you wouldn’t. And the solutions are usually pretty simple. Like it’s not-

Cathy Cooke:

Usually there are circumstances where you’ve got a big wiring error for example, and we’re going to have to call in an electrician and it may take a day or two to figure that out and fix it. I don’t see a lot of that here in Boise. My colleagues in other states see it more for various reasons, but it can get really technical in certain circumstances.

But again, if you do some of these easier things first, like you said, don’t sleep with your cell phone under your pillow. Don’t even sleep with it in your room or at least put it on airplane mode with wifi and Bluetooth turned off. Then you can still use your apps and your alarm and all these things.

Michael Roesslein:

How much does the phone spit out in that instance? If it’s on airplane mode, no Bluetooth the communications things are turned off.

Cathy Cooke:

No Bluetooth, no wifi, no airplane mode, no Bluetooth, no wifi. It should be zero.

Michael Roesslein:

Should be zero. You should run a meter next to it. And it shouldn’t even blip.

Cathy Cooke:

Nope. Shouldn’t even blip. Now, I will say that a few of my colleagues have been measuring, is it the iPhone 13? I think, I’ve had a few comments lately where people say, “I think my latest iPhone is still emitting…” We haven’t gotten to the bottom of that yet. I don’t know if it’s really happening because you got to control all these background variables too. But it wouldn’t be surprising to me that if in the future, at some point they remove the ability to disconnect all of those [crosstalk 00:27:04].

Michael Roesslein:

IPhone 13. I’m not an Apple person, but you say iPhone 13, it sounds like something somebody would say in like some sort of dystopian future movie from 10 years ago.

Cathy Cooke:

We are.

Michael Roesslein:

Like, “I have my iPhone 13 when the iPhone was like, iPhone two.” and I feel like Idiocracy Brawndo that’s what plants crave.

Cathy Cooke:

[inaudible 00:27:27].

Michael Roesslein:

So, it’s just sometimes things come out in these conversations where we’re just like, “Oh man, how did we get here?” Because we don’t need 13 iPhones. I’m going to have that be my official stance on that.

Cathy Cooke:

Completely. There should be maybe one, maybe two.

Michael Roesslein:

The first one worked just fine.

Cathy Cooke:

Agreed.

Michael Roesslein:

Worked pretty good. Did a lot of things. Anywho, that’s a whole nother topic of designed obsolescence and things falling apart so that you get to buy new things. And then we fill landfills with those things. So anywho, that’s another podcast look that up. That’s a thing they do that. Apple’s actually really clever and design their phones to have the batteries stop charging after a number of years so that you have to buy a new phone and they programmed it to do that.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. And changing even the charging plugs.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. To buy a new thing because the thing doesn’t fit in anymore or the getting rid of the audio Jack so that you have to buy their… Yeah. Any who, before we go a huge rant for Apple or all of those, I mean we vilify apple, but all of them were doing it and that it’s a spy machine and that any who, all right, let’s stop. Let’s just stop EMFs. Okay. So, that’s the EMF. Before on the spy machine, this is an interesting tidbit.

I just learned this week that I think everybody would be interested in. So in the United States we have this which is Android. And then we have Apple, which we’ve been lovingly talking about or the iOS, the… I forget what it’s, whatever. It is Apple and Android, not iPhones in Europe and Italy and in the rest of the whole world there’s Huawei-

Cathy Cooke:

Huawei, [crosstalk 00:29:04].

Michael Roesslein:

However you say it, I don’t know how to pronounce it’s there’s a third one. That’s Chinese that we’re not allowed to have in this country, it’s a phone and it’s an operating system. So it’s not just another brand of phone it’s a third major operating system. So you can get a thing like an app. You could get the Android one, you can get the Apple one or you can get that one. We don’t even have that.

So when I was getting the SIM card for you going over there, they asked which of the three and I’m like, “Three.” And then I looked it up a little bit and the reason we can’t have it, and this is legit. And they say this with a straight face is because the Chinese government puts spy software in it. There are, if you Google right now, Google like Apple spy, CIA NSA, Edward Snowden, any of these type of things.

It is well documented, proven and not denied that there’s backdoor software installed on Samsung phones on apple phones on anything that’s used in this country, Android, Apple, any of it that directly like microphones can turn on and off cameras can turn on and off.

Everything is reported and listened to nobody denies this. This is not a conspiracy thing. This is well documented fact definite happening for sure. No question yet we can’t have that one because the Chinese do it. The Chinese are going to get you if you get that phone. So anywho, I digress again.

Cathy Cooke:

It’s fascinating.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. It’s such nonsense. So there’s the EMF world in a nutshell that we’re doing injustice by only having this conversation about it. But there’s another topic I wanted to get to before we were done is mold. And mold has gone from, if you’d have said mold to me 10 years ago, I would’ve thought of cheese and of things that have gone bad.

Cathy Cooke:

Moldy food. Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

Moldy food. Now, I immediately think of chronic disease. And I don’t know if mold has just like… If fungus has accomplished some sort of world domination over the last five years that it didn’t previously have and the mold has gotten more angry and aggressive and more proliferated a lot more. Or are we getting sick more from mold?

Like, we’re more susceptible to it or is there some other… Like what the hell’s going on and why does everybody have mold toxicity? And let’s start there. Is it a diagnosis thing? Like people are saying like, “One in eight kids were always autistic. We just didn’t test them all.” Is it everybody was mold sick and we didn’t test them or what’s going on?

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. Well, there’s a little bit of truth to all of the things that you just said. And it’s a combination of all of these things.

Michael Roesslein:

Mold is more angry.

Cathy Cooke:

Well, there is some research that shows that EMF exposure will aggravate mold symptoms. So it’s basically the mycotoxins. The mold releases mycotoxins and if you’ve got a sensitivity or you’ve got mold, you’re going to feel worse [crosstalk 00:32:19].

Michael Roesslein:

More mycotoxin more sick.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. You got more mycotoxin so there’s that and what have we had more EMF exposure over the last 10 years? Quintillion times more. Yes. So, that’s one thing. Another thing is I think, I mean, how else has our life changed in the last 10 years? Our food supply, GMOs, stress-

Michael Roesslein:

Consistently worse, stress consistently more.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. I mean.

Michael Roesslein:

Circadian consistently more disruptive.

Cathy Cooke:

Right. Circadian rhythm, huge. I saw an ad for an on item. I think it was just yesterday. And actually, I thought it was really cool. It was a soy, it was a suvie system. You buy this little box that you put on your counter and you put your food in and it keeps it refrigerated all day until you’re on your way home from work at five o’clock, you hit a button and then it cooks it and then you come home and your food is cooked. And I was like, “Wow, that’s really cool.” Obviously, I wouldn’t use it because it’s full of EMFs and Bluetooth and whatever. But my thought-

Michael Roesslein:

It’s a refrigerator box?

Cathy Cooke:

It refrigerates and cooks.

Michael Roesslein:

Okay.

Cathy Cooke:

It does everything.

Michael Roesslein:

So you leave in the morning, you put the thing in there, it keeps it cold and then it cooks it when you tell it to cook it and get home and there’s your dinner.

Cathy Cooke:

Yep. Pretty cool. Right?

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. It’s pretty impressive.

Cathy Cooke:

I know I don’t want one.

Well, I don’t want one either, but my thought was, what kind of world are we living in that we don’t even have time to come home and cook our dinner or that there’s not someone at home that can cook for us? What kind of world do we live in that we have to have this kind of thing? So we are so overworked. We have way too many responsibilities. We’re in traffic all day. I’m preaching to the choir here, but we don’t de-stress we never-

Michael Roesslein:

We all adjusted to a indefinite ongoing, nonstop global pandemic situation, which regardless of how anybody listening feels about that, it’s a thing. And it’s a thing that’s stressful for different people for different reasons. But it’s like two, three Xed our stress level for two years now to the point where we laugh about it, but it’s like… Yeah.

Cathy Cooke:

So it’s a huge, our lifestyle is contributing-

Michael Roesslein:

Toxicity.

Cathy Cooke:

To toxicity. And then also I do agree that there’s a lot more awareness, significantly more awareness about mold. We have better testing abilities, both in the home and in the body. So more people are getting diagnosed that otherwise would not have. There’s also an important point here in that our houses are aging and the more our houses are aging, the more they’re failing and the more homes that will have mold and the more buildings have mold. So it’s this, it’s not even a trifecta. What would you call that? A quadfecta or whatever.

Michael Roesslein:

It’s a lot fecta. That’s making a lot of people are very sick.

Cathy Cooke:

It’s the perfect storm of all of these things coming together. And it’s estimated that up to 60% of buildings, at least in the US have mold because we have-

Michael Roesslein:

Six, zero, 60?

Cathy Cooke:

Six, zero.

Michael Roesslein:

Good.

Cathy Cooke:

I mean, your percentage on that will vary where you-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. By region like Seattle, I’m looking at you.

Cathy Cooke:

Yes and no. I mean, people tell me that all the time, they’re like, well, I moved to Arizona or Idaho or whatever, because I have mold sickness and it’s a dry climate. I test homes every single week for mold in Idaho. And we’re in the desert. It’s not about the climate. It is about the climate. But more often it’s about building failure, shitty building… Pardon of my French.

Michael Roesslein:

That’s fine.

Cathy Cooke:

Shitty building practices. And not effectively managing moisture and the slope-

Michael Roesslein:

Which can be created by temperature changes. Not only like you don’t need a pipe to burst. You don’t need leaking roofs. Now, those things are not going to go well for you. If you do have those things, those need to be addressed. But like I’ve learned by living in the desert actually, the desert has extreme temperature variance. So, it’ll go from 30 degrees in the morning to 80 degrees in the afternoon and then cool again at night. And in the morning there will be wet on things outside and-

Cathy Cooke:

Condensation.

Michael Roesslein:

There’s wet on things outside. There’s wet on things all over. And so I was curious, I was expecting a curve ball here. Like I told you before we went on air I’m moving to Italy in a couple weeks and we’re going to be living in a building that’s several hundred years old and made of brick and stone. Construction now, modern construction in this country, I guess that wildly different qualities of construction going on right now.

Cathy Cooke:

Wildly different.

Michael Roesslein:

But just because something is a new construction doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re in some safe zone with-

Cathy Cooke:

Nope.

Michael Roesslein:

Mold prevalence in the house because-

Cathy Cooke:

Correct. Maybe a brand new building.

Michael Roesslein:

I’ve seen this subdivisions like let’s go build 200 houses right there and then sell them all immediately at low prices with low cost, but high profit margins and whatever on crappy building materials. That’s a thing, I think.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. A 100%.

Michael Roesslein:

Those are probably pretty bad.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. Well they get thrown up really quickly and the builder could care less if the wood is wet when they wrap it in a plastic sheet of Tyvec, right? And you trap moisture. They don’t care. That’s not their concern. Time is money and they need the building to go up and they need it to be finished today.

So, all of our buildings now are wrapped in plastic for energy efficiency and moisture gets trapped. And just like you’re saying where hot air meets cool air, no matter which direction, summer or winter, whatever. Then we get condensation. We get mold in the wall cavities in the cross space, in the windows, whatever. And yes, a new home does not mean it’s mold free.

Michael Roesslein:

And an old construction doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a trap either. Right?

Cathy Cooke:

That’s right. So I will say that our older buildings typically were built better. Generally speaking, not always because we really had pride in craftsmanship and building materials, which we do not now.

Michael Roesslein:

In anything.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah, right? But having said that a lot of older buildings do have problems, so there’s so many variables.

Michael Roesslein:

Okay. So it’s not new building good, old building bad?

Cathy Cooke:

Exactly.

Michael Roesslein:

Okay. And then I guess a couple… Just quick with mold, you gave us a few simple starter things that people can do with EMF mitigation. If somebody suspects that their home has mold or that they have mold toxicity, it’s unique. Usually, I’m talking to someone who can answer one of those questions, but not the other one. Where does somebody start? What’s the first step, getting out of the mold?

Cathy Cooke:

Mold is a big serious thing.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. We’ve dealt with it. All of my wife’s autoimmune flares have had mold tied into them that we found after the fact. So this is legit autoimmune people, random flares. I would look in at mold.

Cathy Cooke:

Totally agree. So the first thing I would say is, and this may not apply to everyone, but think about a time that you left your house for a certain amount of time. Did you go camping for a week? Did you have a vacation for a couple weeks? Think about those times and think about if you felt any different. And often, very often people say, “Yeah, last summer I went camping so, and so I didn’t have any symptoms and I didn’t even think about it. And then when I came home, all my symptoms blurred up again.” So, that’s a big sign. It’s a big sign right there. If you go-

Michael Roesslein:

And there’s people who usually crack jokes too. Like, “I must be allergic to my job or my life or my partner or whatever.” And I think a lot of people might have bells go off when you just explain that story, because that’s a really common thing. I’d say a third of the clients I ever worked with would tell me when I go somewhere else I feel awesome and when I’m at home, I feel terrible. And I’m like, “I think let’s look in your house.” And they’re like, “Really?” It’s like, “Yes.”

Cathy Cooke:

You don’t even think about it. Well, the other thing people tell me, well, no, it’s… They’ll push back. They’ll say no it’s because I didn’t have any stress. I was on vacation. And I’m like, “Okay, well we got to dig a little bit deeper here.” And nine times out of 10, we can usually find some issues not to mention when you leave your house and you’re camping or whatever. You’re not always in an EMF environment either.

So, that goes together. So, if you haven’t had that experience and you’re chronically sick and you don’t know why, see if you can leave your house for a couple weeks. See if you can rent a, I mean, sometimes that works out sometimes it doesn’t. Renting a cabin somewhere because you could have mold, but if you can go and sleep in a tent for a week in a beautiful spot, do that and see how you feel and see if you feel any different.

If you can’t do that, there’s blood tests and urine tests you can take to see if you’re dealing with mold in your own body. Which I highly recommend and or you can test your home or your work environment. Oftentimes it’s a work environment. And that gets a little trickier because sometimes your employer may be open to you testing sometimes they’re not. There’s different ways to get around that. But having a qualified professional help you to test your home is what I would recommend.

All indoor air quality professionals are not the same. All testing is not the same air sampling is different from dust sampling. That’s just different from tape lifts or swabs. So there’s good tests and tests that may not tell you a lot. Ultimately, getting a qualified professional in your area that you really trust and has really good reviews and customer service is what you need to pinpoint it in your home.

Or I can’t tell you how many times people call me and they’re like, “We need your help. You need to come check out my house. This happened, this happened, this happened. We had a water leak. I can see mold in this place. We had a flood in the crawl space.” And I immediately say, “You don’t need me. You’ve got mold. You need a call a remediator.”

End of story. I’m just going to come over and tell you, I can see the mold too. We got to get rid of it. So if you’ve had water vents, you see mold, you got to call a mediator and have them come and physically remove that building material and get it out of your house and then clean your house from top to bottom and get your ducts cleaned and maybe remove your carpet and clean all your stuff. And it’s-

Michael Roesslein:

I think that some of the denial could be related to the massive undertaking that it can be to remediate your home too.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. I was just going to say the word [crosstalk 00:44:10].

Michael Roesslein:

And the shit you have to go through. Depending on who you listen to like, you need to burn everything you’ve ever owned or more porous things like cloth and fabrics and things like that. But I know that the two times that we discovered mold where we were and there was mid flare too, really sick and lots of pain, we’re in a panic, whatever. It’s like, “What do you mean I have to move or do this, or get rid of all these things or whatever.”

And I don’t want it to be that let’s just make it not be that. And there’s a comfort there in making it not be that I think. Because we stayed with her folks and then she got sick right away. And we found in the wall of the shower, inside the wall, there was black mold and we left, but they ended up remediating their bathroom and it was expensive.

It was really expensive, really time consuming. They have a gorgeous shower and bathroom now. So the indirect benefit, but not everybody even has a means to be able to do that. That’s to a luxury, to be able to be like, “Cool, let’s drop thousands of dollars to remediate this bathroom.”

And it was a one and a half bath home and this was their one. And so you can imagine how that went with a remediation and a construction. So, this is not a small undertaking. It can be big but for some people would you say it’s impossible for some people to get well if they’re in a moldy environment?

Cathy Cooke:

A 100%. I’m glad you brought that up because it is very overwhelming. And I have talked to many people that say, “I can’t, I have nowhere to go. I can’t do it. I have nowhere to go.” And my heart really goes out to them. I truly believe there is always a way we just got to get a little bit more creative and some sometimes it takes working with somebody to help you figure out the ways that you can get out of that space. And there are usually always ways you can do it.

It might be little bit uncomfortable and inconvenient, but it’s worth it to get your health back, because otherwise you’re going to stay in this cycle, this ongoing cycle. I don’t see people generally get well, if mold is the thing they don’t really get well until they are removed from the environment or they’ve mitigated the environment.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. I wish the answer to that was different.

Cathy Cooke:

So do I. Yeah. I mean, it’s really unfortunate and it is so overwhelming and it’s a huge undertaking, but I will say that the quality of life that people have after they go through it almost always is enhanced from the quality of life they had before.

Michael Roesslein:

For sure.

Cathy Cooke:

It’s learning, it’s grieving, it’s emotional processing. It’s living, you grow in so many ways going through difficult situations like this.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, we definitely did. And we definitely wouldn’t have liked hearing that from someone while we were doing it.

Cathy Cooke:

Of course. Totally.

Michael Roesslein:

If now me could talk to then me, then me would have a problem with now me saying, “Well, you’re going to get through this and this is going to lead to this and this.” I’d be like, “I just want it to stop.” So, I hear you if you’re in it. So, we talked about EMF, we talked about what it is and where might be some hidden aspects of it and some beginner things.

We talked about mold. I’m not going to get into physiology of mold toxicity. That could be like six other podcasts. It’s pretty complex what happens with mold in the body, but some things to look for where it might be like new construction, old construction factors that are making it worse.

And then the remediation situation and all of that. I think we covered a lot of bases here and there’s so many people trying to do this on their own and figure all this stuff out on their own that you end up spending more time and energy and effort and money and time feeling sick and being confused over time when you’re navigating it alone then when you can work with somebody who’s really well versed in these things.

And so I’m always recommending to people to work with somebody who can help you in whatever area we’re talking about, because it might be an upfront cost. And it shortens that curve of time and money and energy and effort. There’s so many things that I failed at like 12 times that if I would’ve just bit the bullet been like, “Okay, I need help.” So I guess if somebody’s interested in learning more, you do coaching, you also travel and do home inspections, both EMF, mold, all of that.

And you have a side job that’s pretty cool. That brings you around to different places and randomly puts you in different locations that you’re available to do this kind of work. So, we’ll have links below to website and anything that you gave us will be below in the show notes, but right now if they want to learn more or go explore, where are they going to go and what are they going to find there?

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah, sure. So a couple different places you can start at my website, which is wholehomeandbodyhealth.com. And I’ve got tons of information on there about everything that we just talked about and more, I do have a YouTube channel, which is very amateurish. But it’s all about just putting the content out there. Just the information of a lot of it’s me testing specific things to give people an idea of this may-

Michael Roesslein:

Cool. This should be a show you should talk to Netflix.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah, that would be awesome. And then I would also say that you could go to the Building Biology Institute website as well and find loads of information there. And there’s even a find an expert page on there. If you need to find someone local to you, you can also reach out to me and I can help you find someone local to you or let you know when I might be coming to your area. Because we are a tight-knit community of building biologists and I know most people and where they are in the world, so I can always help people find an expert and a qualified expert. So that’s yeah, that’s where to start.

Michael Roesslein:

Cool. And a lot of the EMF stuff can… I mean, you walked me through using a trifield meter at my house and we figured out a whole bunch of stuff. So it’s definitely possible to do that too, to get a meter and get a walkthrough and distance coaching and stuff like that. So, I just got to say it’s fun to watch because we’ve known each other a while now.

And I remember when you were, I think before you were really professional training in any of this stuff, and then you found your key or one of them was the EMF stuff. And just to watch every time I see something pop up from you, you’re into something else. And combining the EMF with the mold, with the health coaching, with everything it’s, I don’t know how many years that’s been like five, six, seven years?

Cathy Cooke:

It’s when you guys kicked off your summit, your Rebel Health Tribe summit, that’s ’15.

Michael Roesslein:

That would have been 2015. Yeah, I think so. And it’s just fun to watch and you’ve gotten so into different areas that become an expert over time. It’s time put in and it’s learning. It’s not like I’m going to be an expert in this tomorrow.

And so it’s been it’s diving into these things full head on, this is a surface level discussion. There’s a lot in these areas. And I just want to acknowledge that and that I think that people working around EMF and mold and toxicity and that’s really a thing that’s missed a ton in functional medicine and integrative health.

So if you’re one of those people that’s done the 16 protocols and worked with all the practitioners and tried the supplements and the diet. I think these places are where to look. And so I’m glad there are people that are bridging it all into one place that makes it easier. Because you could hire four different people to do what Cathy does.

Cathy Cooke:

I often say I have four different jobs, four completely different careers.

Michael Roesslein:

Yes. That are mildly linked. So, they overlap. Some of them overlap more than the others, but I want to give credit to that and say it’s been fun to watch and I always enjoy connecting. So head below, click the links, go there, get your download. If you’re interested in coaching, reach out.

If you’re interested in a building inspection, reach out, it’s definitely worth it. It can be the game changer for chronic disease and conditions and get you your life back. So thank you Cathy, for the conversation. Thanks for all you’re doing. I appreciate the reschedule, we had to move this one a couple times because my life is chaos. So, I always appreciate it and we’ll connect soon.

Cathy Cooke:

Yeah. Well thank you Michael, as always a pleasure and I always enjoy talking to you.

Michael Roesslein:

All right. Thanks.