The Meniketti's of Livermore seem like a typical suburban family. Mom and dad and the boys go to their mailbox every day, but they're actually living in a nearby hotel. They say they can't go in their house -- that something inside was nearly killing them.
Donelle Meniketti says, "All of us had been sick, we didn't know exactly what was going on, I didn't have any feeling in these six fingers, I was having a lot of trouble with dizziness."
All four mysteriously fell ill a couple of years ago. Ten year old Kyle was hospitalized for a month.
"He was in two of the top medical teaching hospitals and he had over 40 doctors and nobody could diagnose it," says Donelle.
41-year-old Keith Meniketti says he suffered memory loss and other problems so severe that he lost his job.
I'm still having cognitive problems, I'm still having that fatigue and respiratory breathing problems," he says.
37-year-old Jacy Lockhart of Redwood City says similar symptoms have frightened him in the past two years.
"Pressure in my head, and debilitating fatigue and dizziness, just happened, one day I woke up and bam. I would walk down the sidewalk, and I would have a hard time finding where my feet was hitting the sidewalk," he says.
Lockhart says he also had seizures and saw 10 different doctors, and had six CAT scans.
"That's what was most frightening was all these tests were coming back normal, yet I knew something very wrong was happening with me. It's a nightmare, a nightmare that never goes away, and it's gotta, I hope it goes away sometime."
Redwood City immunologist Vincent Marinkovich says he discovered that Lockhart, and the Meniketti's, suffer the same problem.
"These are very high antibody levels, indicating you've been exposed to very high levels of mold somewhere in your environment," says Marinkovich.
Toxic mold. Like the mold you might find around leaky pipes or bathrooms. Although some doctors and even the Centers for Disease Control say the evidence is uncertain that mold makes people sick. Marinkovich says he's convinced mold toxins have overwhelmed his patients' bodies.
Marinkovich says, "When you're exposed to large amounts continually over a long period of time, eventually your immune system becomes hyper-acute. It begins to over-react to the mold and when that happens, symptoms ensue."
In some cases, as in Lockhart's, mold actually forms colonies in the body. Marinkovich says these CAT scans show Lockhart's sinuses clogged with mold, with fungus.
Rare? Hardly. The Mayo Clinic estimates more than 30 million Americans suffer with some form of mold in their sinuses. But few know the real cause.
"94% of patients with chronic siunusitis have an underlying fungal colonization in the sinuses. We physicians have been treating sinusitis with anti-biotics for years and that usually clears the patient up temporarily," says Marinkovich.
But as Kyle Meniketti and his family now know, antibiotics don't work on fungus. Mold just roars back. Doctors say it can cause a variety of stubborn symptoms ranging from flu-like runny nose, tiredness and migraine headaches, to seizures and brain disorders. To survive, patients have to avoid mold.
Lockhart adds, "There's that fear this is somehow permanent..."
"No, no, you'll recover, your symptoms will go away, but your hypersensitivity will persist for a lot longer than your symptoms will," assures Dr. Manikovich.
Lockhart is a news photographer for KTVU. He's taking anti-fungal drugs and avoiding exposure to mold. As are the Meniketti's, all also are avoiding a surprisingly wide range of foods containing mold products. The Meniketti's say they found the source of their problem -- a toilet overflowed, and resulting mold eventually spread through the house.
Experts say the best advice to protect yourself is to look around your house, find and fix any water leaks, and if you have persistent symptoms, see your physician and discuss possible mold allergies.
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