Ticks, Toxins, and the Unholy Alliance: Why Moldies Collect Infections Like Trading Cards

You’d think it was a cosmic prank. First you get poisoned by mold, lose your tolerance to modern life, and suddenly ticks are lining up like it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet. Or maybe you’re diagnosed with Lyme after years of unexplained misery, only to realize you’ve also been marinating in mycotoxins the whole time. Either way, your medical chart starts reading less like a clean diagnosis and more like a Pokémon deck: Borrelia, Babesia, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, Mycoplasma — gotta catch ’em all.

This isn’t just “bad luck.” Mold and mycotoxins are immune wrecking balls. They strip resilience, drain your minerals, blow holes in your mitochondria, and send your nervous system into panic mode. Once the defenses collapse, infections set up camp. Borrelia doesn’t even show up alone; it drags co-infections to the party. Bartonella brings rage and neuropathy. Babesia drags you through malaria cosplay. Mycoplasma steals your oxygen and clarity. It’s a carnival of suffering, and you didn’t buy the ticket — you just happened to live in a water-damaged house.

So why does this community, in particular, seem to be riddled with tick-borne illnesses? Neal Nathan, in Toxic, makes it painfully clear: mold illness and Lyme are not two separate disease categories. They’re overlapping, synergistic disasters. Mycotoxins suppress immunity, making tick-borne infections harder to fight. Tick-borne infections drive inflammation and immune dysregulation, making mold reactivity more severe. Together, they form a feedback loop of misery that doctors often miss because they’re too busy labeling symptoms instead of asking what broke the terrain.

Dietrich Klinghardt has hammered this point for decades: treat infections without clearing mold, and patients stall. Clear mold without addressing Lyme and friends, and patients relapse. He’s also shown that these infections don’t just cause fatigue and pain — they can hijack neurological signaling, amplify neuroinflammation, and worsen toxicant-induced loss of tolerance (TILT). Translation: your immune system is so scrambled that one whiff of cologne can send you into meltdown, while stealth microbes quietly stoke the fire.

And here’s the kicker — ticks themselves are also carrying more than Lyme. Studies show they’re loaded with multiple pathogens at once. That means your unlucky bite often isn’t one infection, it’s three or four in a single drop of tick spit. Pair that with an immune system already shell-shocked by mold toxins, and it’s no wonder so many in this community test positive for half the CDC’s watchlist.

The way forward isn’t simple, but it is doable: environmental avoidance to stop pouring gasoline on the fire, medical treatment for infections (antibiotics, herbals, or both, depending on the clinician), detox and mitochondrial support so your body can keep up, and — most importantly — a practitioner who sees the whole picture. Because if your doctor is only treating “Lyme” or only treating “mold,” they’re missing the unholy alliance that keeps people sick.

If you’re in the unlucky crowd carrying both (or more), you’re not cursed, you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone. You’re just living proof of how modern toxins and stealth infections gang up on human biology. Unholy alliance indeed.

References (with call-outs)

• Nathan N. (2018). Toxic — cornerstone book mapping the overlap of mold illness, Lyme, and co-infections; emphasizes treatment stalls if both aren’t addressed.

  
  

• Klinghardt D. (multiple lectures & papers). Pioneer in linking mold, Lyme, and chronic infections; demonstrated how stealth infections worsen toxicant sensitivity and why both must be treated together.

  
  

• Shoemaker RC, et al. (2005). Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) — shows how water-damaged buildings drive immune dysregulation, priming the body for infections.

  
  

• Horowitz R. (2013). Why Can’t I Get Better? — documents multi-system illness and how co-infections and toxins must be treated together.

  
  

• Breitschwerdt EB. (2017). Bartonella and neurological disease — explains how Bartonella thrives in immune-compromised hosts, worsening neurological outcomes.

  
  

• Morris G, Berk M. (2015). Mitochondrial dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disease — toxins and infections converge on mitochondria, fueling fatigue and brain fog.

  
  

• Sperling J, Lloyd V. (2016). Co-infection prevalence in ticks — shows that ticks transmit multiple pathogens simultaneously, not just Lyme.