Home Testing Guide
version 1.1
Introduction
CIRS can be caused by biotoxins created by various microbes. The three most common culprits potentially living in your home or business are mold, actinomycetes (“actinos”), and endotoxins.
In order to ensure that you are in a clean environment that will allow you to heal, testing is crucial. The following guide will help you properly assess your living and/or working environment.
Initial Testing
We recommend the EnviroBiomics Panel #7, which tests for mold, actinos, and endotoxins.
Order the test here: SM-AEH (Actino, Endotoxin, HERTSMI-2).
Select “Swiffer Kit.”
Do not test right after a deep clean. Wait 2-6 weeks—you need sufficient dust to get a good sampling. See the bottom of EnviroBiomics’ FAQ page for images of what constitutes enough dust.
The test kit will also come with comprehensive instructions on how and where to collect dust to get a good sample, and how to send back your sample.
Remember that this is three separate tests and therefore requires three different samples. Note the specific instructions for taking samples for each type of test.
Once you send in your samples, it should take about 7 days for your results to come back (via email).
Interpreting Your Results
If you have a doctor proficient in CIRS and interpreting EnviroBiomics testing, it’s best to consult with them regarding your results.
If you do not have a doctor who can do this, EnviroBiomics offers a free 5-minute consultation to go over your results. Please note that they are typically booked a few weeks out for these, so you may want to schedule your consult before you get your results back to expedite your progress.
Your test results do come with basic interpretations/scores that provide general idea about whether your results indicate that remediation is needed. These results are also color-coded.
You can also post your results to the CIRSMap Community #testing-diagnosis channel and others there may be able to help you further interpret your results and plan next steps.
Testing After Remediation
After any major cleaning or remediation, it’s ideal to retest to confirm success. The process is the same, but you’ll want to wait until a sufficient amount of “new” dust has settled before taking the new samples. This could take 2-6 weeks after remediation/cleaning.
Tip: Tape black trash bags to the walls, wait 5 weeks and collect dust from those bags. This ensures the test includes new dust only, and no pre-remediation dust that was missed during cleaning.
Additional Testing Options
If you know that you only need to test for mold, you can use the HERTSMI-2 test, which is a simplified version of the ERMI test—testing for just the molds implicated in contributing to CIRS/biotoxin illness. You can order this test here: EnviroBiomics HERTSMI-2.
You also might only need to order the Actinomycetes test or Endotoxins test, for example if you know you’ve remediated mold but still are working on getting actino or endotoxin levels down to a safe level for CIRS. You can order these separate tests here:
EnviroBiomics Endo (Endotoxin LAL)
Next Steps
Once you’ve completed your testing and know the current toxin situation of your home or workplace, you can proceed to the next steps which are remediation and cleaning. View our guides for more help with those steps: