Histamine -- Likely Cause of Current Flare

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 5:40 pm

I spent some time today researching histamine after that was suggested (thanks Tex and Gloria) as the cause of my current flare. I had looked at them before, but this time I paid attention. I think the possibility that it is the cause of my current flare has real merit. Up until the last few days when I cut back to the chicken soup (which still had some banana in it) I ate these foods that are high in histamine: bacon, pepperoni, fish, dried bananas, dates, raisins, mustard, cashews, eggs, and hot dogs. This was after I cut out dairy. Of course, I made sure what I ate didn't have gluten or soy (or casein).

I understand that it is virtually impossible to avoid histamine, but one can cut down on one's exposure to it, so that's what I will be doing. I am also starting to take Zyrtec daily today. I have already noticed that the itching is virtually gone. Histame is out of stock at the moment, but I may look into taking that at some point, too.

I have high hopes that the mystery is solved. I broke down and had some mustard with some turkey yesterday and for lunch today, and the gut symptoms are worse just in the last few hours so to me, that's evidence that I may finally be on the right track.

sarkin · Post by **sarkin** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:28 pm

Marliss,

Our beloved iHerb has a new package format for Histame. Also, I have had varying luck with Claritin and Zyrtec - go figure. I have Benadryl in my purse in case of weird symptoms. It makes me even stupider than gluten, but it sure does smack the histamine back in line...

Lastly, I am doing pretty well with quercetin. I hesitate to recommend this, because it's so hard to draw a 'scientific' conclusion from my n=1 experiment. But my overall level of irritation seems to be lower. I think you shouldn't add that right at this moment, but now that you're suspecting histamine, hold that thought - and we will talk again, once you're past the current flare.

Hope that's soonsoonsoon.

Love,
Sara

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:11 pm

Dear Sara,

I just looked on the website and didn't even think of looking at iHerb.

No doubt Histame is less expensive there. Thanks for reminding me to look there!

I am with you on the Benadryl--if I take one, I am stupid for at least a day. My husband and others I know take them as sleeping aids. Go figure.

Claritin only worked for me with seasonal allergies the first year I took it. After that, I edged up through Zyrtec and Allegra. I still ramp up to Allegra at some point during the season, as does my 16yo. We will see how Zyrtec does with food-related histamine issues.

I was amazed at how the itching went away almost immediately yesterday, and I had no problem with itching keeping me awake last night. In fact (although nausea kept me awake for half an hour or so) I slept about 10 hours! That's something I rarely do. And of course, with the CPAP, my sleep was deep and refreshing. I feel like a new woman.

The bonus was that I did not have D in the night, nor have I had to visit the bathroom for D (so far--it's still early here) yet today. I am very encouraged that histamine may be the culprit of this flare. And I hope this is the last darn thing I have to deal with, lol.

I have looked into quercetin. I thought this website http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/quercetin-000322.htm was the most helpful. I am all for treating with natural, rather than chemical substances. Thanks for the suggestion--down the road, if I am on the right track, that looks very promising!!

sarkin · Post by **sarkin** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 5:21 pm

Marliss,

That's great news! I was taking 1/2 a Claritin for a while, and recently thought of re-adding it (I have an occasional weird itchy eyebrow thing - believe me, if that's the worst health issue I have to address, I'd call myself wildly fortunate!). I have a topical Benadryl gel I'll try first - I think it comes and goes along with other symptoms, but haven't given it sufficient thought.

My ill-researched theory is that some of us have serious mast-cell issues that are 'permanent' - but many of us have temporary and/or occasional mast cell activation while we are healing, but which may settle down when the overall outrage of the body's internal systems also settles down. (See how scientific I can be?) MRT will give me a better picture in this area. I am just grateful for general OK-ness, on a day-to-day basis.

A few months back, I seemed to be heading in the direction of having many such concerns, but it has tapered down considerably. I don't follow a strict low-histamine diet, but I also eat *no* processed foods other than potato chips. I do try to be mindful of histamines. I do avoid having bananas two days in a row, for example, and I avoided eating eggplant (a novel food) on a day after I had eaten tomatoes (successfully). On our beach vacation, I upped my Histame because I knew there would be tempting fish options. I believe that the primary weapon in my current arsenal is diet, but suspect at least something in my supplements arsenal is helping.

It's such a complex picture, and I've complicated it by adding herbs and vitamins, as well as by diet tweaks. So I don't know whether quercetin is the magic bullet - especially since I'm taking a fraction of the dosage on the bottle. I do know that my husband and I were both feeling sniffly yesterday, and today I am A-OK, and he has a cold. So I feel as though I am less of a "tippy little boat" nowadays - less easily thrown off course, and easier to get back to something like stability. (It's pretty early in the cold/flu season to make a bold statement like that - I may have occasion to eat those words.)

Thanks for the quercetin link - I'm going to reread it, and ponder.

So pleased to hear you're heading in such a positive direction!

Love,
Sara

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 8:15 pm

Marliss wrote:I was amazed at how the itching went away almost immediately yesterday, and I had no problem with itching keeping me awake last night.

Wow, that's a pretty quick result! It certainly does sound like you could have a histamine problem. I was like you regarding the mast cell issue initially. It was interesting, but I was certain I didn't have it. It wasn't until Mary Beth suggested I could have the problem that I seriously looked at the list of high-histamine foods. I was surprised to realize that I reacted to almost all of them.

I hope you've finally found your "magic bullet."

Gloria

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 6:52 pm

Well, as Gloria calls it, I think I found my "magic bullet." After starting on Zyrtec Saturday afternoon, on Sunday and today the D has been regular D (I know, I know, but bear with me) instead of the waterfall type. So I have been reading on the forum about mast cells. I have a few questions:

1 -- How come Zyrtec works if it is an H1 antihistamine but mast cell issues need H2?
2 -- Do mast cell issues/histamine reactions cause damage like gluten does?
3 -- I have been under significant stress. I read that stress can trigger mast cells. How do you alleviate the impact of stress on your mast cells?
4 -- My food allergies come and go, and I read that mast cell reactions can come and go. About how long do you wait before testing a food that has caused a mast cell reaction in the past?

Thanks, y'all...

Post by **tex** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 8:15 pm

Marliss wrote:How come Zyrtec works if it is an H1 antihistamine but mast cell issues need H2?

I don't understand why mast cells need a type 2 antihistamine. I though either type 1 or 2 would work.

Marliss wrote:Do mast cell issues/histamine reactions cause damage like gluten does?

Good question. I'm just taking a wild guess here, but I believe that they almost surely do - they certainly cause inflammation. The inflammation would probably involve cytokines, though, rather than T-cells.

Marliss wrote:I have been under significant stress. I read that stress can trigger mast cells. How do you alleviate the impact of stress on your mast cells?

By taking an antihistamine, or by finding a way to reduce the stress.

Marliss wrote:My food allergies come and go, and I read that mast cell reactions can come and go. About how long do you wait before testing a food that has caused a mast cell reaction in the past?

Maybe Mary Beth can answer that one.

Tex

sarkin · Post by **sarkin** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 9:27 pm

Marliss,

Sounds like you're heading in a good direction - though a direction that still demands a lot of question-asking! I thought the difference between H1 and H2 antihistamines was something like - the H1s target itching, sneezing, etc. type reactions; the H2 variants are more specific to the sort of mast-cell activity in the gut.

My half-baked theory based on my shaky info is - reducing the overall histamine load in the body, as H1s do, helps you to clear the histamines in the gut, because the body's endogenous histamine-management system is less stressed... speaking of stress.

Sending you stress-relieving thoughts. Taking a few minutes (or a single minute) just to breathe and smile for no reason - that's my stress attempt. (I find that active and specific stress-relieving measures sometimes stress me out, when I'm already very stressed out.) Sometimes I just take an extra few moments with whatever cat is driving me crazy... and breathe a few extra times and smile. It isn't perfect, but it's easier than becoming a Tibetan monk...

Love,
Sara

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 2:02 pm

Marliss wrote:
I have been under significant stress. I read that stress can trigger mast cells. How do you alleviate the impact of stress on your mast cells?

Tex wrote back:
By...finding a way to reduce the stress.

Some of your tongue-in-cheek comments are pretty funny, Tex!

Sara, I like your theory. So far, the Zyrtec is working well. Now that I've said good-bye to an extremely stressful job and handed off another extremely-stressful situation to my husband, I am going to be working on a paleo/lower-histamine rotation diet for myself, and see how that works for me.

I am going to re-read The Relaxation Revolution, which Polly recommended sometime ago and which I have read about 1-1/2 times. There is so much benefit to conscious relaxation. I just felt like I couldn't devote the necessary time to it, but it seems that now I really, really need to. It's kind of like the old thing about not taking time to exercise means you have to take even more time to be sick.

And even though I have to re-format my laptop today because some nasty something-or-other that wasn't caught by the anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-trojan programs on it disabled all the administrator accounts (I've been putting off this extreme measure for some time anyway), I will try to spend some time outside in the sunny, 72-degree weather we are having today in our neck of the woods!

sarkin · Post by **sarkin** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 4:00 pm

Marliss,

At one point I used the 'mindfulness meditation' CDs (John Kabat-Zinn). I didn't love his voice, and I found myself dozing before the CD had finished, I think because I tried them in far too comfortable a position. And despite my terrible attitude, they helped me! He's associated with medically based meditation programs, and perhaps you could find his CD at your library for a test drive.

Also, I don't know whether you saw my recent post about 'relaxation breathing for people who hate relaxation breathing' (like me!). Basically, you take a few moments, and just attempt to breathe out for a little longer than you breathed in. You don't have to count, you don't have to do it a certain number of times. Just - exhale a beat longer than you might have, if you hadn't thought about it. Repeat, till you don't feel like it any more. Also great if you're having trouble falling asleep.

I'm a huge fan of the Resperate device, which encourages the gradual slowing of breathing, and has a fantastic record of lowering blood pressure. We had one that a neighbor bought but didn't use. I've since lent it to another neighbor, and he's doing so well with it, I hate to ask for it back. He's also eating hard-core, low-carb Paleo, and exercising, and he has dropped pounds - and perhaps years - and feeling great.

I'm glad the Zyrtec is helping. Maybe your laptop would benefit from a dose or two? Actually, I also need to spend some serious laptop cleanup time (your analogy about exercise is perfect for this, too). And it was beautiful here today as well... love this time of year!

Love,
Sara

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:18 pm

Hi Marliss,

Like Sara, I have also read that the H1 blockers are for skin rashes, itching, etc., and H2 blockers are for the gut. I'm not at home, so I can't look up my reference. I've tried both Zyrtec and Claritin and haven't seen any change in my MC. My mouth sores come and go, so I'm not sure if they helped them or not, though an H1 blocker should. I need to try an H2 blocker to see if it will improve my gut symptoms, but I'm not sure if I can get them OTC.

Marliss wrote:Do mast cell issues/histamine reactions cause damage like gluten does?

Mary Beth and others probably could answer this better than I can, but I did read somewhere that mast cell issues can cause the junctions to open up and cause Leaky Gut Syndrome, causing the immune system to combat the foreign proteins. I suspect that's part of the reason I have so many intolerances. Hopefully, the damage to the gut is temporary, but the immune system battle probably rages on for a much longer time. That's how I see it, anyway (to quote Tex

)

The best medication seems to be Gastrocom, but it is expensive w/o insurance, similar to Entocort, and it needs to be taken four times a day, 30 minutes before each meal and at bedtime.

Gloria

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 12:20 pm

Aren't H2 blockers also PPIs? Never mind, I will look this up myself, at some point...

I forgot to add this to my post. The International Chronic Urticaria Society (ICUS) has a recipe on their site for cromolyn cream. Obviously, it's for hives, but I wonder how it would work for gastro issues? And how would you know how much you were getting? This not something I am desperate enough to try, but seeing as how menopausal issues can be helped with progesterone cream, I would think that it could work. Anyway, here is the link:

http://www.chronichives.com/pages/cromolyncream.htm

sarkin · Post by **sarkin** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:54 pm

Interesting, Marliss - I hadn't thought of using topical cromolyn for gut issues.

As you may remember, Arlene was using Nasalcrom in a way her unhelpful doc disapproved (letting it drip down the back of her throat), and I believe she found some benefit. Not sure whether she's continuing down that path. It's worth a site-search, though, while you're playing mad scientist (my favorite game!!).

Love,
Sara