In honor of Oral Health Month and March Madness, CAFF will be releasing one new episode a day until the end of the month. Welcome to episode 59 of the Airway First podcast! You can catch this and all other episodes on Apple, SoundCloud, Podbean, RSS, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And don't forget to check us out on YouTube!
My guest today is Dr. Pejman Katiraei. Dr. Pejman Katiraei is a board-certified pediatrician who is also boarded and fellowship trained in integrative medicine. He completed his undergraduate at UCLA and obtained his osteopathic medical degree at Western University of Health Sciences. He completed a pediatric residency at Loma Linda University, where he stayed on as a teaching faculty member for over four years.
Dr. Katiraei has also completed two fellowships in integrative medicine, one with the University of Arizona and another under Dr. Kamyar Hedayat in a French model of integrative medicine called endobiogeny. Dr. Katiraei is now in private practice in Santa Monica, CA, where he focuses on helping children with severe behavioral challenges. He is also working with an amazing team to build Wholistic Minds, an online portal that helps parents understand the root cause of their children’s behavioral issues and what steps they can take to help resolve them.
You can find out more about Dr. Katiraei at wholistickids.com.
"In my 14 years of experience as an integrative pediatrician, nothing has caused a greater concern for children as mold." ~ Dr. Pejman Katiraei
Show Notes:
Dr. Katiraei's website: wholistickids.com
International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness (ISEAI): Link to website
Dr. Neil Nathan: Link to website
Study on Adenoid Hypertrophy: Link to Study on NIH
Dr. K's Adrenal Handout: Link to handout
HOW DOES MOLD IMPACT MY CHILD'S HEALTH?
Mold can be secretly impacting your child's health and airway and it may be surprising how often your child comes into contact with it. It can be in your front-loading washer, in your walls or just about anywhere else. Molds are very common in buildings and homes and can cause everything from severe allergies, chronic poor immunity, to strange behavioral issues and even seizure-like episodes.
When molds are present in large numbers, they may cause allergic symptoms similar to those caused by plant pollen. Exposure to a large number of mold spores may cause allergic symptoms such as watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, itching, coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing, headache, and fatigue.
In 2004 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found there was sufficient evidence to link indoor exposure to mold with upper respiratory tract symptoms, cough, and wheeze in otherwise healthy people; with asthma symptoms in people with asthma; and with hypersensitivity pneumonitis in individuals susceptible to that immune-mediated condition.
In 2009, the World Health Organization issued additional guidance, the WHO Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality: Dampness and Mould [PDF – 2.65 MB] {Summary} [PDF – 167 KB]. Other recent studies have suggested a potential link of early mold exposure to development of asthma in some children, particularly among children who may be genetically susceptible to asthma development, and that selected interventions that improve housing conditions can reduce morbidity from asthma and respiratory allergies. (CDC.gov)
HOW CAN MOLD CAUSE ADHD-LIKE SYMPTOMS IN CHILDREN?
At least 30% of children who are diagnosed with ADHD or ADD actually have another condition that looks and acts just like ADHD, but is not ADHD. These children are being medicated because parents and doctors feel that there is no other option. Only recently, have we learned that these individuals have a condition called sensory processing disorders (SPD); a condition that affects around 10% of the entire population. Individuals who have SPD have brains which literally cannot effectively process or handle the sensations of life. These children easily become overwhelmed by sounds, touch and even movement. The experience of life is too taxing for these children, and they are constantly in a state of overwhelm. Their struggle is then labeled as “ADHD” or even anxiety.
Fortunately, the right type of sensory integration occupational therapy can make a world of difference for these children. For many of these children, underneath the SPD is an energy production error, often times at a genetic level. These children have what is formally called a mitochondriopathy. The energy production units (mitochondria) simply do not work well, so they have far less energy than others. Physicians and geneticists are trained to look for catastrophic versions of these conditions (which lead to seizures and even death), but they unfortunately miss the more subtle cases that are not life-threatening but still quite debilitating.
These children generally lack stamina and endurance. They tire easily at every level because they lack the energy to have the vitality we take for granted as “normal.” Not only do the muscles of these children fatigue but so do their minds, since the brain is one of the most energy hungry and dependent organs in the body. When supplementation such as CoQ10, carnitine, D-Ribose, B-vitamins and magnesium are given to these children along with the right therapy, within months these children magically transform. Not only does their “ADHD” disappear but their academic and physical capacity reaches a level that was seemingly impossible before. (https://wholistickids.com/adhd-not-adhd/)
"What if childhood behaviors are like a warning light coming on?" ~ Dr. Pejman Katiraei
