Rashes & Mould Related Skin Conditions
Many symptoms and human health effects attributed to inhalation of Mycotoxins have been reported including: mucous membrane irritation, and skin rashes. A rash that most people are familiar with is the common ring worm which is a skin fungal infection.
The medical term for ringworm is tinea. (Tinea is the Latin name for a growing worm.) Doctors add another word to indicate where the fungus is located. Tinea capitis, for instance, refers to scalp ringworm, tinea corporis to fungus of the body, tinea pedis to fungus of the feet, and so on
Although the world is full of yeasts, moulds, and fungi, only a few cause skin problems. These agents are called the dermatophytes, (skin fungi) an infection with these fungi is sometimes known as dermatophytosis.
Inspection study
Various skin rashes have been associated with fungal/bacterial exposures ,just recently our company was involved with a client on the mid north coast who sent us samples for identification, as she was having major skin irritations and she had various medical specialists, she thought the white spots were a bug of some description but they were simply skins cells- she sent tape lifts from her skin and our mycologist identified fungal hyphal growth tips which appeared to possibly be causing a skin problems. She found by washing with anti fungal agents it brought some relief, meanwhile her family were telling her people will think you’ve gone mad, we suggested we should be looking at her unit which maybe the source. Her issue was she was only a pensioner and finances were limited
We headed up to her unit with a thermal camera and within 5 minutes had found the source of the mould, the bathroom shower was leaking badly under the house the mould was confluent (heaps). On the topside of the particle board flooring in two bedrooms, hallway and under the bathroom was totally wet with mould rampant in underlay’s and flooring. Samples identified the same fungal hyphal with growing tips as were seen on her skin irritations. Interesting that the owners had a pest inspection not that long before we attended, which reported there were no white ants and the building was completely dry. The water damage from the shower had been ongoing for years.
Had the pest inspector found the water issue then we may have been able to have had the client take samples from the damaged areas and send them to us- at least it would have saved her the cost of us driving nearly 3 hours up the highway and back to find an extremely blatant problem.
The result she had to move out and find other accommodation with a slow decrease in her rashes.
