After giving birth to her son in 2019, Florida mom Alexis Babcock assumed she faced challenges that many new mothers face.
But as the months turned into years, the symptoms kept getting worse.
Babcock, 36, who has three children with her husband, Paul, 40, said News week that what initially seemed like postpartum exhaustion gradually became a set of more than 20 daily symptoms.
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They included dizziness, tinnitus, migraines, joint pain, extreme fatigue, anxiety and hair loss.
“The turning point was my cognitive decline,” Alexis said. “I had trouble finding words, remembering things and managing ordinary tasks. Having always been organized and able to juggle a busy family life, I felt like I was losing myself.”
At the same time, his son Silas was suffering from a growing list of health problems.
Since birth, he suffered from recurring fevers, headaches, joint pain, gastrointestinal problems and frequent infections.
By her fourth birthday, Alexis said she had logged more than 40 medical visits.
In the six months before the family left their home in Wesley Chapel, Florida, concerns intensified when Silas was hospitalized with parotitis (swelling of the salivary glands above the jaw) and cellulitis (skin infection).
Alexis’ daughter, Reese, began losing her hair and two other members of her family developed serious respiratory illnesses.
“Seeing multiple family members struggling in different ways made me wonder if there was something we were forgetting,” Alexis said.
In 2024, while searching for information online, the mother of three came across content from a certified chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) coach, known as “The Biotoxin Lady,” who shared her own experience of illness related to a water-damaged home.
Proponents of the CIRS diagnosis claim that the immune system response, which involves inflammation of multiple organs, is due to exposure to mold or other toxins in the environment. However, this is not widely considered an established medical diagnosis. That’s not to say that mold – or other types of fungal growth – aren’t responsible for some serious health risks.
“Her symptoms seemed remarkably familiar, and for the first time I began to wonder if our environment might be contributing to our family’s health problems,” Alexis said.
The family began noticing musty odors, water stains near an HVAC closet and peeling wallpaper in one of the children’s bedrooms.
Behind the wallpaper, she and Paul discovered mold near where Silas was sleeping.
They also discovered saturated building materials behind kitchen cabinets, as well as other moisture-related issues involving the roof, stucco and HVAC system.
The family left their home in October 2024.
Subsequent environmental inspections identified water intrusion and damaged building materials.
After years of searching for answers, Alexis and Silas were diagnosed with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) by clinicians using the Shoemaker Framework, a diagnostic approach developed by physician Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker that assesses symptoms, exposure history, and a range of laboratory markers in people suspected of having illness related to water-damaged buildings.
Again, CIRS and the Shoemaker framework remain topics of debate and are not universally accepted within conventional medicine.
In a UCLA Health article, doctors Eve Glazier and Elizabeth Ko said that “(one) concern is that focusing on CIRS may delay other diagnoses.”
Yet they also added: “Many chronic or environmental illnesses due to mold exposure require elimination of the source of exposure. It’s then a matter of managing the symptoms, usually not relying solely on antifungal medications. »
Alexis’ evaluation also included a brain MRI, which she said identified atrophy in three regions of the brain.
“After years of memory difficulties and cognitive symptoms, this discovery was particularly frightening,” she said.
Since moving and starting treatment, Alexis said many of her neurological symptoms have improved.
Silas, now 7, has also shown progress, although both remain on treatment and continue to be monitored by specialists.
But the family’s ordeal had a price.
Alexis estimates they lost more than $100,000 in repair costs, abandoned property and uninsured damages.
The family of five also spent two years staying with relatives before purchasing a new home in October 2026.
Today, Alexis works as a CIRS coach and consultant, helping others answer questions about environmental illnesses.
She is careful not to suggest that mold is the cause of every unexplained symptom.
Instead, she hopes that by sharing her story, people will continue to stand up for themselves while the answers remain elusive.
“I would never have chosen what happened to our family, but I am grateful that something meaningful came from such a difficult chapter,” Alexis said.
Gn Health
