Doctors blamed her symptoms on motherhood. She actually had mold illness.

In 2018, pregnant with her third child, Kate Ames was exhausted. Already the mom of a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old, her friends and family told her the fatigue was normal. "You're a mom, of course you're going to feel like crap and be tired all the time."

Ames, who lives in Arizona, remembers thinking, "I didn't know motherhood was going to feel like this."

Depression grew alongside her tiredness, so she went to her OB-GYN. They, too, told her it was normal and suggested therapy.

"I kind of got passed around to different doctors for different reasons," Ames, 35, said. She held a growing suspicion that something was wrong. "Different things would keep popping up."

Years later, when doctors and air quality experts found her symptoms were caused by undiscovered mold in her home, her relief turned to anger. Why hadn't they listened to her in the first place?

Ames is one of thousands of women who have felt ignored by medical professionals. There is a long history of women's pain being dismissed by doctors, incorrectly categorized as period pain or rooted in psychological distress. Some women have died because of these oversights.

The 2024 KFF Women’s Health Survey found 1 in 5 women said a health provider ignored a direct request they made or a question they asked in the past two years, and nearly 1 in 5 women said that a provider didn’t believe they were telling the truth. An additional 13% said their provider suggested they were personally to blame for a health problem they were experiencing.

Women are often victims of medical gaslighting, said Ellen Rudolph, cofounder and CEO at WellTheory, a virtual care platform for women with autoimmune disease. Rudolph got sick in her mid-20s, and said mold was one of the triggers that led to her autoimmune illness. She was referred to a psychiatrist for some of her symptoms, and said the run-around she got from doctors made her question whether the symptoms she was experiencing − fatigue, digestive issues and brain fog, to name a few − were real.

"This is not the fault of doctors. I think the way that our medical system is set up does not set them up for success," Rudolph said, adding that physician shortages have led to too-quick patient visits. "There's not enough time, nor the expertise, to dig into some of these more complex conditions and illnesses."

What is mold illness? And how common is it?

After she had the baby, Ames said her symptoms continued to expand and worsen. She developed skin rashes, digestive issues and pain in her legs and joints. Persistent ear pain made it feel "like someone was going digging around in there with an ice pick" near her eardrum. Eventually an eye infection took her to a doctor who diagnosed her with an autoimmune disease. While the medication for the autoimmune disease helped a little, Ames continued to feel sick.

"It was kind of miserable," she said.

She'd heard about mold poisoning, but didn't consider that could be the cause of her discomfort. In 2024, she jokingly suggested to her doctor that maybe all of her symptoms were due to an unknown mold source in her house. Her doctor didn't laugh. "Well, maybe it is," her doctor said. Her doctor convinced Ames to get tested.

The results showed high levels of mold toxins in her system. Ames had her home tested after that, and those results confirmed the house had mold − with high enough levels in the air alone that experts told the Ames family to leave their home immediately.

Ames was shocked. How could it be mold, when she was the only one in her family who seemingly had symptoms?

It's actually very common for people in the same home to have varying degrees of reactions to mold exposure, said Marjorie Peak, a naturopathic physician. People have different natural detox abilities based on the toxins already in their system and genetic factors, she said. According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, mold reactions depend on the type of mold, amount of mold and the person exposed.

Peak said mold illness, which includes chronic conditions related to the toxins and bacterium found in mold, is more widespread than mold poisoning, where people might experience severe reactions like blindness. She said anyone with chronic symptoms should be tested for mold toxins.

While there is limited data about how common residential mold is, it's estimated that 47% of U.S. homes have mold or dampness, according to the Indoor Air Quality Scientific Findings Resource Bank. Ames encourages other people with unexplained symptoms to get tested and to look around their homes for potential mold sources.

"It shouldn't take you six years to figure out that your house is slowly killing you," she said.

'We deserve better'

Ames said her family left their home right after the tests and lived with extended family for two months while their house was remediated.

The main source of the mold in their home was hidden, below their second bathroom and into their crawlspace. "100% not visible water damage to us," Ames said. It cost just under $13,000 to fix, she said, and their insurance covered some of it. The average cost of mold remediation is about $2,300, according to Angi, a home services marketplace.

Ames said it took about three months of living in a mold-free environment for her symptoms to start to die down. She's no longer in pain, and said her brain fog and rashes are gone. Her ears are still sensitive, but overall she said her lingering symptoms are minor.

Ames said she often thinks about the people in her life who told her she was so tired because of having little kids. It still bothers her, and it makes her upset that other women's symptoms are regularly dismissed and chalked up to the woes of motherhood. "It's not accurate. I think that we deserve better," she said.

"I think if you're healthy, you don't feel like that," Ames said. "You don't feel hopeless."

Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.

Reach Madeline at [email protected] and @maddiemitch_ on X.