Local player had spores in his body that came from his instrument!

[Michael]

Hey Johnny,

On my wife’s facebook page the local music shop put a post to all wind instrument players to make sure to get their instruments serviced regularly as failure to do so can result in mold getting inside of the horn from our saliva (and the bacteria that comes along with it). They shared an experience of one player who hadn’t got his instrument serviced and developed a bad cough. When he went to the doctor they found that spores, that come from mold, had entered into his body. The question was where he contacted mold at. He took his instrument–the shop didn’t say what he played–to get serviced and found mold inside of the horn! He hadn’t gotten it serviced when it needed it.
Do you think sometime this year it would be possible if the guys at Massullo would be willing to do an overview on Sax Maintenance for you to put on the blog here? I never would have even imagined that mold could enter a Saxophone like this, but makes a lot of sense.

[john]

imagine going to a gig and blowing all the spores out into the audience!! Thanks for the tip off, in future i won’t be standing directly in front of any horns.

[john]

Nothing like that’s ever happened to me in over 30 years of playing!…I never take flue shots either.
Regarding the repair service, yes, I’ve thought about doing a session or 2 with them but just haven’t asked them yet. This will be a good video project that can be on the site at some point as I think it’s a great idea.

[Michael]

I thought it was crazy when I heard it, I e-mailed 2 of my Pathology Instructors about it today–they know I’m learning the Sax–and they said that while something like this is extremely rare, it is probably more so that this man ALREADY had spores in his respiratory system and Arkansas being a Green, humid climate that it is, the pathogens (disease causing bacteria) from the saliva in his body transferred into the horn-music shop didn’t say what instrument he was playing–and under the right conditions, depending on how he stored it, his instrument exposed to humidity, etc., they grew and multiplied. Something like this is very, very rare…but yes IT IS possible. Like Ms Neumann (one of the Instructors) reminded me, where does Mononucleosis come from, what’s called the kissing disease? It’s in the saliva and under the right conditions it was just like growing a culture (a medium that is used in labs to grow bacteria for diagnostic purposes). Mono(for short) is just one example. So……The music shop, not knowing any better, probably thought that the mold was already in his instrument and he got it from there. But in reality, he probably got it from somewhere else and transferred it to the horn. I would love to contact this guy-if the shop will cooperate–sample this mold and do a culture on it back in the lab at class to see EXACTLY what it is and that would tell me where it came from. I’m really curious about this.

[john]

Ya, and it’s understandable why the shop jumped on it and said you need more regular service? They don’t clean your horn on the inside, they are just trying for more business with that remark. You only need service from a pro when you feel something is definately wrong because it’s giving you a hard time playing a certain not. from a leak or bad rod etc.

[john]

hey baboon did you ask the guys at the repair shop when they service saxaphones do they wear a mask?

[john]

I highly doubt it, and so if they really thought the spores came from the sax why wouldn’t they?!

[Michael]

That’s funny, wearing a mask when they service an instrument LOL 🙂
Actually, I contacted the music shop shortly afterward to find out exactly what this was all about and they’re still holding onto their story they posted on my wife’s facebook page. They sent my contact info to the guy who had this problem and he called me tonight, pretty cool! HINT: He told me he has worked for ServiceMaster for 20 years in mold remediation and has recently been getting sick, that right there tells me so much. However, he agreed to volunteer and let me do a microorganism culture on it in our labs on campus on Monday to see EXACTLY what it is, how bad is it affecting him, etc..–it works out well because he is volunteering to do this, lots of students have friends/families volunteer and we get to log in in our log as a “check off” so this helps me out–and at the same time he’ll get a DEFINITIVE answer, and that helps him out without having to go to a clinical laboratory to pay to have it done; we just legally can’t give him any kind of recommended treatment. He has to see a licensed specialist for that. I’ll do 3 different cultures, one from as deep into the horn as I can get with a swab (similar to when you get a strept throat test) and 2 directly from him (throat and blood).
What my Instructors suspect is rare, but YES it can happen. Go online to youtube and check out the Episodes of the series called “The Monsters Inside of Me.” The entire series is about people getting infected/transmitting insane parasites from/to the most unlikely places; there’s some pretty wild stuff in it.

[Gareth Edwards]

It’s a lesson to us all to practice safe sax.

[Author]

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