Episode 25: Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome Part 2

Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker returns to discuss the diagnosis and management of a condition he discovered as a physician-researcher, chronic inflammatory inflammatory syndrome (CIRS). CIRS is important because it is a scientifically-validated condition that affects millions of Americans, most often in the form of chronic illness after mold exposure. (One out of every two buildings in the United States is water-damaged.) Genetically vulnerable patients develop a wide range of symptoms including fatigue, depression, muscle soreness and other symptoms and are often misdiagnosed by the medical establishment as having fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome or a psychiatric condition. In our first conversation, Dr. Shoemaker discussed how he came to discover this mysterious illness as a family medicine doctor in Maryland. In this second part, we turn our attention toward all things clinical including the case definition of CIRS, the main symptoms, biomarkers, genetic susceptibility, visual contrast sensitivity testing and the treatment protocol. To learn more, we highly recommend his books Mold Warriors and Surviving Mold and his website survivingmold.com.