Expert Recap: Travelling with CIRS

Travelling with CIRS is possible with the strategic preparation. Prioritizing access to outdoor air circulation and safe accommodations are key. Bring a portable air purifier and ensure you have enough binders to get through a flare. Finally, trust your intuition. If somewhere feels unsafe, leave. If you’re starting to feel sick, rest. By being prepared it is possible to stay healthy.

How to Stay Safe on Planes, Hotels & Airbnb

*Note: this blog was written by me, Mark Volmer. All spelling mistakes, misquotes, errors, and omissions are my own doing. It is not AI generated.*

Lena had been looking forward to a yoga retreat for months. Three nights in Costa Rica, reconnecting with friends, practicing yoga every day, and enjoying some much needed sun. She had spent the past 6 months remediating her home just outside of Toronto and she was overjoyed with the significant improvements in her CIRS symptoms.

Things started going sideways almost immediately. As soon as she dropped her bags in her room, she detected a distinct musty smell. There was also a mysterious brown stain coming through the ceiling paint in the yoga studio. But Lena decided she was just being paranoid and she could just push through.

However, halfway through her second night at the hotel, she woke up gasping for air. Her chest felt heavy. Her throat burned like she’d been breathing smoke. These were the same symptoms she dealt with everyday before we started remediating her home. She knew she wasn’t being paranoid, this was definitely CIRS. She cut the trip short and flew home feeling even worse than when she left.

If you have CIRS, this story probably doesn’t surprise you. Maybe you’ve lived a version of it yourself.

Travel is where CIRS patients get blindsided. It would be easy for me to say: never travel. but that’s not overly helpful either. So, today’s blog will instead focus on best practices for travelling with CIRS. This isn’t a guaranteed way to be free from symptoms while you travel. But it will move the probabilities in your favour. And that’s the best we can hope for!

So, with that in mind, let’s get started…

Why Travelling With CIRS is a Challenge

If you have CIRS, your innate immune system is in overdrive. Simultaneously, your mitochondria are in hibernation. This combination means you’re a prime candidate to have a symptom flare should you be exposed to biotoxins. Once we add travel to the mix, you’ve now got the increased odds of stacking multiple exposures together in a very short period of time.

Consider all the indoor air environments you might encounter within the first day of travel:

Departure airport
Connection airport
Arrival airport
Airplanes
Hotel/Air BnB
Subway/train station

Any of the above have the potential for biotoxins. And this is your exposure risk on the first day of travel! Add jet lag, eating off-menu and/or in restaurants, and a stressful day of missed connections… Your HPA axis is now in fight mode. Your mitochondria are on ice. If not done properly, you are are in an uphill battle from the moment you leave home.

With that in mind, let’s figure out how you can better travel with CIRS!

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Before Travelling with CIRS

Start preparing from the moment you decide to travel.

Choosing Your Destination

Start with what kind of trip you want to take. Are you craving a sunny, beach vacation? Look at the climates of your options. Check humidity levels, dew point, and local air quality. Tropical destinations and older coastal cities automatically carry higher risks. This doesn’t mean avoid them, but you will need to prepare accordingly.

For me, I feel much safer travelling to Mexico than I do to Florida. Not because Mexico has lower humidity than Florida; humidity levels in coastal Mexico are not much different than in Florida. But the building methods are completely different.

Most home construction in Mexico is done with with concrete. Most home construction in Florida is done via stick framing and drywall. Wood + drywall is all the “food” mold needs to grow. This makes a stay in Florida riskier than a stay in Mexico.

Are you considering a trip to a cooler climate?

Travel to colder climates means you’re going to be spending more time indoors. If this is the case, you need to look very closely at all of the indoor environments you will be frequenting. Just like tropical climates, check the dew point and humidity levels of your planned destination. A trip to Calgary vs Toronto brings a very different risk profile for those of you with CIRS.

Thinking of taking the kids to Disney?

California has a moderate climate. Thus, Disney Land is primarily an outdoor theme park. Lines, rides and many restaurants are outdoors. However, Florida’s Disney World is mainly located inside because of Florida’s rainy season. This means the hours you will be spending in line to meet Mickey will be inside. I’ll leave it with you to decide which park is more CIRS friendly.

CIRS Safe Travel Accommodations

After you’ve decided where you want to go, you need to find somewhere safe to stay. Whether you are considering a hotel or a rental, you need to see how much fresh air can enter the premises. With CIRS, we’re generally concerned about concentrated indoor microbial contaminants.

The solution to pollution is dilution.

If you can keep all the windows and patio doors open, you will significantly dilute indoor air contaminants. This makes for a much more CIRS-friendly indoor environment.

When you’re selecting accommodations, keep the following in mind:

Newer buildings are generally safer than older buildings.
Upper floors are safer than lower ones (less chance of plumbing leaks migrating up).
The less drywall the better.
The more windows and doors (assuming they can let in fresh air) the better.
Ask hosts directly whether they’ve had water damage and how recently HVAC filters were serviced.

How to pack for CIRS

You don’t need to me tell you what to pack for your vacation. But I will add some specific items for the CIRS crowd. These include:

A portable air purifier. If you are flying, don’t trust it to your checked bag. Make sure it is small enough to carry on with you.
A small hygrometer to check room humidity,
Co2 monitor to check for fresh air (higher co2 levels = stale indoor air)
Binders*

* I always recommend patients increase their binder frequency one to two days before travel.

Choosing and Triaging Your CIRS Safe Accommodation

Not all accommodations are equal. Fancy/luxury does not equate to safe. Here’s what to ask the hotel/host before you make a booking:

Have there been any recent renovations?
- Ask where and why the renovations were done.
Are there hard floors or carpet?
- Hard floors are much more friendly for the CIRS crowd.
Is it possible to book away from the pool?
- You want your room to be away from areas producing large amounts of moisture.
- Think: pools, kitchens, gyms, etc.
Do windows open or are they sealed?
- Remember, the more fresh air flowing into your suite, the better.
How does the bathroom vent?
- Ideally, we want a bathroom exhaust fan.

Once you check in, the first 15 minutes in any room are the most important. Do the following as soon as you arrive in your new space:

Check humidity with your hygrometer (you want <50%).
Check Co2 levels (you want <1000ppm).
Inspect the ceiling corners, bathroom grout, and baseboards for any staining or water marks.
If you’re in a hotel and something doesn’t feel right, ask for a different room. You have that right.

Once the room has checked all the boxes, it’s time to prepare the space. Open every window, turn your purifier’s fan speed to high, and let the space ventilate before you unpack anything. Run your purifier continuously for your entire stay.

During your stay, keep the purifier located near where you sleep. The bedside table is a perfect spot for it. Vent the bathroom aggressively after any shower to prevent steam and humidity buildup. These means running the bathroom exhasut fan for at least 20 minutes after every bath/shower. If the climate permits, keep the windows and doors open at all times.

Handling a CIRS Flare Mid-Trip

If your symptoms start to flare mid-trip, start binders immediately. I’m assuming you’re already taking binders (because you read my earlier tip about starting binders before leaving). Assuming you’re already taking binders, check in with your practitioner about increasing your dose while away.

Next step: get outside. Outdoor air rapidly decreases the concentration of biotoxins. Spend as much time outdoors as you can.

When it comes to rest, honor it. I do not recommend you push through.

The most common mistake I see is ignoring early signals. A mild headache or slight throat tickle is a signal. Respond early and the recovery is usually manageable. But if you ignore the signs and wait until you’re flaring you’re going to be fighting much harder.

Don’t question your initial intuition when you enter a new indoor space!

Alternative CIRS-safe travel

Consider thinking about new ways of travel. Do fewer international trips. Get out into nature. Spend time camping.

For myself and Eve, we spend a great deal of time in nature camping. Not only is nature restorative for our nervous systems, we’re guaranteed to be free from exposure. CIRS hardly enters our minds when we’re camping.

If you’re used to big, Instagram-worthy international trips, this will be an adjustment. And international travel does not have to be completely off the table. But regular camping trips into nature can be far more resorative than crossing multiple time zones.

Ready to start real recovery?
Book a consult with our team today.

CIRS and Travel: The Bigger Picture

Lena eventually traveled again. She did it differently: a brand new Air BnB, windows and doors opened 24/7, a slower pace, and a healthy dose of binders before, during and after her travels.

That’s the goal. Not a perfectly sterile trip. A trip where you’ve stacked the odds in your favour, responded well when things weren’t ideal, and come home without setting your recovery back.

Sometimes, a trip/destination is worth the exposure. When Eve and I travelled to Italy, we knew we weren’t going to have a mold-free trip. We knew there was going to be a setback or two. We knew there were going to be days when symptoms were flaring. And we prepared for that.

There was always 1-2 rest days between destinations. This allowed us a do-nothing day should the previous location been an exposure site. Looking back on the trip, there were certainly challenging days but overall, both of us are grateful for having done the trip. We cherish the memory.

Remember, when travelling, an exposure is temporary. Temporary exposures are annoying, awful, and even sometimes debilitating. But they are temporary. So long as you have a clean home environment, your CIRS recovery will be right back on track after returning home.

Travelling with CIRS is worth figuring out. Your world shouldn’t shrink because of this illness.

Mark Volmer has attained the highest level of Shoemaker Protocol certification, and is one of only two of Canada’s Shoemaker Protocol practitioners. The Shoemaker Protocol is the only scientifically proven method of treating CIRS.